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Old Masters
Modigliani Finds a Dealer
By Meryle Secrerst Excerpted from the forthcoming book Modigliani: A Life, by Meryle Secrest, published by Alfred A. Knopf. Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) was a charismatic figure about whom legends began to accumulate long before his death. His creative power, striking good looks and extravagant way of life set him apart even in Paris’ bohemia at…
On The Border
As the contemporary art market becomes ever more diversified, does the distinction between the work of trained artists and that of their self-taught counterparts really matter?
Requiem for Kodachrome
By John Dorfman After 75 years, the pioneering color film is no more. Now perhaps the art world can recognize its unique worth as a medium. I just got my last rolls of Kodachrome back from the lab. They had sat in my desk drawer for a few years, artifacts of a time when I…
Making It New
by Sarah E. Fensom Two of the Met’s period rooms get a contemporary reimagining. Katrin Sigurdardottir, an artist born in Iceland in 1967, stands in one of her two installations in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, aptly titled Boiserie, meaning “decorative paneling.” What seems like a Japanese-style screen stolen from the set of an Alice…
Fowl Most Fair
Bird decoys are America’s only completely original form of folk art, and they are avidly hunted by collectors across the country. By Sarah E. Fensom One night in the 1950s, Adele Earnest, Americana dealer, founding trustee of the American Folk Art Museum and author of the 1965 book The Art of the Decoy: American Bird…
A Passionate Patron
Not too long ago, a slogan for Jamaica’s tourism industry advised, “It’s not just a beach. It’s a country.” Apparently, some visitors needed to be reminded that the sun-drenched island was, in fact, an independent state with a complex society and a vibrant culture. That very goal was given a big boost in 1974 by the opening of the National Gallery of Jamaica, a government-funded repository of the country’s visual-arts patrimony.
Silver, Unstandard
At Christie’s sale of Important Silver on October 19, the top lot was not a table service or a tea set but a pack of cards. The cards are exquisitely fashioned, thin enough to stack and play with, if not exactly to shuffle. Estimated at $150,000–200,000, they shot up to $554,500, selling to an English dealer who was bidding on behalf of a private collector who specializes in Renaissance art.
Talking Pictures: Grace and Beauty
Architectural historian Judith Dupré is the author of Skyscrapers (1996), Bridges (1997) and the New York Times bestseller Churches (2001). Her latest book, Full of Grace: Encountering Mary in Faith, Life & Art (Random House, $40), represents a new departure in her work. Divided into 59 brief chapters, each representing a bead of the traditional Marian rosary, this amply illustrated volume explores the Virgin Mary’s place in the Bible, in history, in theology and in the wider culture. Speaking with Art & Antiques, Dupré discusses her multifaceted approach to this pivotal Christian figure.
Escape to Freedom
When Beatrice Mandelman and her husband, fellow painter Louis Ribak, left New York for New Mexico in 1944, she knew she was leaving behind one of the world’s most dynamic hubs of cultural and intellectual activity—and the possibility of making a lasting mark there. Mandelman could not have predicted that World War II would end the following year, but she certainly knew that New York had become modern art’s axis mundi by the time she decided to move away.
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