By: Jenna Curry One evening in 1655, the powerful Barberini family of Rome presented an elaborate theatrical performance for an audience of 3,000. The show concluded with a parade of actors fighting in a mock battle against a fiery dragon. Such ornate productions were not created merely for entertainment purposes; they were also a means to [...]
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Essay: Tales of the City
April 2009By: Lance Esplund Dutch weather, much like that of Seattle, is temperamental: A storm is always coming, going or both. And because Holland’s sky—blue, gray, golden, mauve—is so fluid and sweeping, as well as seemingly pressed down to the ground, its architecture and inhabitants appear smaller and more incidental than they actually are. It is not [...]
Continue reading...Sketches of the Past
April 2009Born in Jamaica in 1794 into a well-to-do Sephardic-Jewish merchant family, Belisario spent part of his life in England and died in London in 1849. His major work is Sketches of Character, In Illustration of the Habits, Occupation and Costume of the Negro Population, in the Island of Jamaica, a series of lithographs of Jamaican slaves dressed up for a popular music-and-dance celebration, which the artist, who was based in Kingston, Jamaica’s capital, issued to subscribers in 1837 and 1838.
Continue reading...Passionate Journey
April 2009Serendipity is the word that comes to mind when I think of my pattern of collecting. I grew up in Indiana, in an environment that wasn’t particularly artistic, and I spent my first decade after college playing the double bass. It wasn’t until I studied arts policy in London in the late 1980s that I became aware of the art-collecting world, and only after working at Bonhams for a few years did I begin to occasionally acquire a painting, sculpture or tribal piece.
Continue reading...In a Nutshell: Worth Their Weight
April 2009It was with good reason that the Portuguese, who in 1471 began trading with the Akan-speaking people of West Africa, gave the name “the Gold Coast” to the region today known as Ghana. Gold was both the spiritual and material foundation of the region, where vast quantities of the precious metals were mined from the rich forest soil between the Volta and Ankobra rivers.
Continue reading...From the Editor: Instant Art
April 2009“Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away,” sang Paul Simon back in 1973. Thirty-six years later, in the midst of a digital revolution, Kodachrome is still with us—barely—but lovers of Polaroid are crooning a similar tune. The iconic instant film went out of production in 2008, and remaining supplies are dwindling fast.
Continue reading...Collecting: Drawn to it
April 2009Hand-drawn pictures and plans of a suburban Prairie Style residence by Frank Lloyd Wright. An extremely rare sketch of signature Louis Sullivan foliage. A portfolio of a turn-of-the-20th-century modern house by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
Continue reading...Books: Dear Diary
April 2009An elaborately staged re-creation of Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, with a little sexual mischief added. A lovely female centaur listening contemplatively as an equally lovely woman (the same woman?) plays the piano. A bare-breasted, though otherwise fully clad woman holding a palette and painting an Old Master-style portrait.
Continue reading...Design: Labor of Love
April 2009Intrigued by the idea of transforming inexpensive materials into original and highly decorative artworks, the Swiss Art Deco artist Jean Dunand mastered the painstakingly meticulous technique of dinanderie. This method of hammering forms out of a sheet of metal such as brass or copper, which was then laid over a shaped mold, became the foundation for Dunand’s early creations.
Continue reading...Market: Fair Minded
April 2009By: Sallie Brady With the cancellations of the 12-year-old International Asian Art Fair, which was once was the centerpiece of New York’s March Asia Week, and the 5-year-old Moscow World Fine Art Fair, which was rescheduled for September from May, collectors are wondering which fair will go next. Factor in the closing of three of [...]
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