Elbert Hubbard: An American Original

Editorial Staff Art

Premiering tonight on PBS (check here for local listings), Elbert Hubbard: An American Original offers a sweeping profile of the arts and crafts visionary and founder of East Aurora, New York’s Roycroft community. Charting the controversial and often contradictory course of Hubbard’s personal and professional lives, this documentary film by Paul Lamont includes wonderful archival footage as well as interviews …

This Week’s Top Lots: November 8 – 13

Editorial Staff Art, Furniture & Decorative Arts

* Skinner Boston/November 8, American Furniture and Decorative Arts The top lot was William Bradford’s Arctic Sunset with the Ice Bound Panther that sold for $259,000 (estimate $80,000-100,000). Other top lots were a pair of gilt and mirrored pier New York tables that sold for $54,510 (estimate $12,00-18,000), and a federal bookcase by Joseph Murphy of South Berwick, Maine that …

James E. Freeman and the painting of sentiment

Editorial Staff Art

November 2009 | Thoughout his half-century-long artistic career in the United States and Italy, James E. Freeman (Fig. 2) specialized in creating paintings of sentiment that sought to cross the boundaries dividing different cultures and social classes by engaging emotions, encouraging empathy, and ultimately prompting benefi­cence.1 Sentimentalism flourished in the antebellum period as a sort of bridge between the overt …

Blockbuster shows in London and Paris

Editorial Staff Exhibitions

Moctezuma The British Museum inaugurates a fall blockbuster season with a sweeping exhibition on the last Aztec ruler. Anticipating the 2010 bicentennial of Mexican independence and the centennial of the Mexican Revolution, the British Museum completes its four-part series on great rulers with the first major show devoted to the Aztec emperor Moc­tezuma II. That the museum has chosen to …

This Week’s Top Lots: October 26 – 30

Editorial Staff Furniture & Decorative Arts

* Christie’s London/October 27, 20th Century Decorative Art & Design The sale total was £778,625. The top lot was a set of six art nouveau chairs by Emile Gallé that sold for £79,250 (estimate £30,000-50,000). Other top lots were a vitrine by Koloman Moser for J & J Kohn that sold for £51,650 (estimate £15,000-20,000), and a prototype Odalisque bench …

Vintage finds for the cocktail hour

Editorial Staff Books

In her manners manual Etiquette (1955), Emily Post suggests throwing a cocktail party in an effort to maximize socialization using minimal space. She advises that serving cocktails at home—unlike throwing a dinner party—frees one up for time better spent mingling with guests. Still today, with space at a premium, this gesture remains a popular  alternative that undoubtedly can be done …

This Week’s Top Lots: October 5 – 9

Editorial Staff Art

* Christie’s London/October 6, Islamic and Indian ArtThe sale total was just over £5 million. The top lot was a circa 1600 Ottoman navigational chart of the Mediterranean coastline that sold for £1.07 million (estimate £300,000-400,000). Other top lots were a Qu’ran dated 1288 AD that sold for £457,250 (estimate £200,000-300,000), and an 18th century painted and carved Damascus room …

Guest Blog: The Curated Object

Editorial Staff Art, Furniture & Decorative Arts

As part of our recurring series of guest bloggers (see our earlier feature with Art Inconnu here) we are pleased to introduce Joanne Molina, editorial director of The Curated Object—a non-profit media project that promotes fine and decorative arts exhibitions worldwide. We asked Molina to share a “curated” list of current and upcoming exhibitions that aren’t to be missed! Exhibition …

In conversation with….Shirley Mueller, Chinese export porcelain collector

Editorial Staff Exhibitions

Shirley M. Mueller is a passionate collector and scholar of Chinese export porcelain who has written numerous articles on the subject (see below). We recently spoke to Mueller, who is as a lender to the current exhibition at the Bard Graduate Center Dutch New York Between East and West: The World of Margrieta van Varick about her collection and what …

Hudson

Editorial Staff Art

The official seal of the city of Hudson, New York, depicts a whale—which strikes the first-time visitor to a town more than one hundred miles from the Atlantic as odd. But then, Hudson has had an odd history. The site—on high land between two deep-water bays—was noted by Henry Hudson in 1609, during his expedition up the river that bears …