Ben Miller examines a piece of trinitite—glass formed in the 1945 Trinity nuclear test—and a stained-glass window formerly installed in Yale’s Hopper College, both featured in John Stuart Gordon’s new book “American Glass.”
Kilt built: The Victoria & Albert opens a satellite museum for Scottish design
It’s good to stand in a new civic building like the V&A Dundee and feel the well-earned pride of people who’ve done something grand. Not just the curators, the rest of the staff, the local officials, and the building team. The new museum enlisted the entire city. For them, it’s a measure of Dundee’s future.
Monster mash at the Morgan Library
Museums and other cultural institutions the world over are celebrating Frankenstein this year, as 2018 marks the two hundredth anniversary of the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s book.
The Beguiling Berthe Morisot
An exhibition in 1876 at Paul Durand-Ruel’s gallery in Paris drew ridicule from art critic Albert Wolff, who warned readers of Le Figaro: “Here five or six lunatics, one of whom is a woman . . . have gotten together to work. These self-styled artists call themselves ‘Impressionists.’ ”
At the Wadsworth: Disquieting art from frightening times
An exhibition at the Wadsworth explores the monstrous aspects of twentieth century politics
How modern architecture came to Miami Beach
In 1933 Florida Governor David Sholtz wrote that the states various exhibits at Chicago’s Century of Progress exposition were “but the ‘Show Rooms of the state,'” adding, we further invite you to visit the ‘Play Ground of the Nation.'” The Florida Tropical House, constructed for the Home and Industrial Arts Group section of the exposition and built alongside ten other homes on the shores of Lake Michigan, was one such showroom.
Curious Objects: Reading Congress the Riot Act—Henry Highland Garnet’s “Memorial Discourse”
It’s a month of firsts. Curious Objects is taking its first steps into its second year, and this month’s episode is the first to focus on rare books dealers, Heather O’Donnell and Rebecca Romney, principals of Honey and Wax Booksellers.
Around the world with art deco
The Wolfsonian’s exhibition Deco: Luxury to Mass Market offers an overview of this new aesthetic, presenting its unfamiliar dimensions and different iterations in Europe and across the Atlantic. Art deco is primarily characterized by an emphasis on surface decoration, symmetry, angularity, and stylization.
Women’s work at Hawthorne Fine Art
As the cultural tides seem finally to be lifting women artists into prominence on par with their male counterparts, more and more are emerging into public view. Several museums and galleries are presenting women artist- Hawthorne Fine Art focused shows, and one of these is at Hawthorne Fine Art in New York, where you can find the selling exhibition Breaking All Bounds: American Women Artists (1825–1945).
Brothers in art and arms
Franz Marc and August Macke were both young artists—twenty-nine and twenty-three, respectively—when they first met in Munich in January 1910. Marc was Bavarian and Macke was from the Rhineland. They soon became friends and visited each other’s studios in and near Munich. They shared many affiliations, friends, and interests.