Maverick, villain, libertine, genius. Austrian eyewear designer Udo Proksch has been known by many names, but the book excerpted here dives deeply into his archive, puts emphasis on his working methods, fecund productivity, and the undeniable impact he had on design in the twentieth century—and to this day.
Although Rachel Ruysch is not exactly a household name, she is hardly anonymous: while she lived, she was an honored painter in the Old Masters tradition, and she has had her admirers ever since her death in 1750, at the age of eighty-three.
Unable to stop a spear but singularly effective at getting people to stop and stare, metal mesh handbags were all the rage at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Erstwhile colonial seat and mid-century destination for the Hollywood elite, San Juan is a city where rich food, good times, and reminders of the past are always just around the corner—nowhere more so than at the Caribe Hilton.
400 years ago, the world experienced its first major financial crisis — and Dutch “Tulip Mania” was to blame.
It may be worth noting on the fortieth anniversary of one of the treasures of the American antiques business, that the portraits, painted furniture, weathervanes, and quilts they purvey at Olde Hope Antiques are, in an important sense, emblems of the owners’ belief in bedrock values of our democracy.
For decades, Kelly and Randall Schrimsher have acquired the best of the best in early nineteenth-century American furniture. Now, much of their collection has a period-appropriate showcase in Charleston, South Carolina.
A fantasia in ceramic, Leighton House in London testifies to the decorative sense of its namesake builder, artist Frederic Leighton, and the craftsmanship of William De Morgan.
Where does a darling of the art deco movement go to retire? For Tamara de Lempicka, once a painter of the rich and famous, known for her evocative cubist-inspired style, it was Cuernavaca, Mexico — by way of Houston, Texas.
When Vincent van Gogh set out to make the four portraits of the Roulin family that are the centerpiece of the present show at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, he was already an expert landscapist, but was relatively untried in the art of portraiture.