People regularly complain that art criticism displays an off-putting insider-y tone, complete with jargon–but that’s not what I am about to talk about here. I’m going to mention a few display touches and the like that I notice, when they are good, at exhibitions that I review but rarely–for space reasons–have the opportunity to write […]
Glenstone: It’s Wonderful, Marvelous. BUT
October 8, 2018 by
Glenstone, the private museum owned and operated by Mitchell and Emily Wei Rales, opened to the public on Oct. 4–heralded by a beautifully choreographed campaign of press. There were preview articles and reviews, accompanied in all likelihood by more to come in other publications. I was one of the lucky one who visited Glenstone, in […]
This May Be the Best Monument to Caesar Augustus
October 1, 2018 by
Reputedly, the last public words of Caesar Augustus (63 B.C.-A.D. 14) were “Behold, I found Rome of clay, and leave her to you of marble.” Augustus also left us a magnificent, exquisitely carved cameo whose double-narrative all but deifies him. It is the Gemma Augustea in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, which […]
Rembrandt: Master Market Manipulator
September 24, 2018 by
Rembrandt: Painter as Printmaker, which opened Sept. 16 at the Denver Art Museum, showcases the known glories of his work—but with an eye-opening twist. It displays Rembrandt a master market manipulator, as well as a great artist. We know, but rarely acknowledge in exhibitions, that many great artists were good at business too. Certainly, Renoir […]
Surprising (But Short) Chapter of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Life
September 5, 2018 by
Several days ago, I went to the New York Botanical Garden to see its summer exhibition, Georgia O’Keeffe: Visions of Hawai‘i. It included several paintings I knew nothing about. And, as I soon discovered, from talking with friends and posts on Facebook and Instagram, neither did many other art-lovers. This isn’t all that surprising when you […]
Superlative Numbers At the Met. But Crazy Ones Too
August 27, 2018 by
Superlatives are in. Last week, the Metropolitan Museum of Art issued a press release saying it had welcomed its one-millionth visitor to its special Costume Institute exhibition, Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination–proclaiming it, weeks before the show closes, “the Costume Institute’s most attended show ever and The Met’s third overall most attended” exhibit. Really? […]
Giving Hedda Sterne Another Chance
August 21, 2018 by
Hedda Sterne is not a name you hear very often, so I was pleased last spring when I learned that the Amon Carter Museum of American Art was giving her a solo exhibition. It would be a small one, and of lithographs, not paintings, but still I wanted to see it. We’re in a moment […]
Sargent With A Local Twist And Double Narrative
August 13, 2018 by
The Art Institute of Chicago’s major summer exhibition, John Singer Sargent and Chicago’s Gilded Age, is probably a crowd-pleaser–though I haven’t checked the numbers. Sargent is usually a big draw–I remember when, to cite one example, the show of his watercolors at the Brooklyn Museum outdrew a large show of El Anatsui, which was a […]
YBAs of the 19th Century
July 30, 2018 by
You will recall the hubbub created in London (and elsewhere) by the Young British Artists in the late 1980s and ’90s–led by Damien Hirst and including Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas, Gary Hume, Fiona Rae, and Steve Park, among others, they rebelled against the art world’s customs. Their 19th Century counterparts were, of course, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, led […]
How To Be a Great Museum Trustee
July 17, 2018 by
What kind of museum donor hosts a visit in her home with the museum’s director, as she is nearing death, and asks him to read aloud the list of artworks in her final bequest? What kind of donor had let the previous director choose which works the museum would want and then, when it was […]
