Among the many discussions that are not worth anyone’s time is the one about whether fashion should be considered art or not. When the American Folk Art Museum asked thirteen designers to create something based on an object in its collections, the idea was not to prove that, hey, designers are artists too, nor was it to rescue folk art …
Shows, fairs, and auctions
Shows and auctions Jan 15 – 19 The LA Art Show; Los Angeles, CA laartshow.com January 21 – 26 New York Ceramics Fair; New York City newyorkceramicsfair.com January 22 – 26 Metro Show; New York, NY metroshownyc.com January 24 – 26 Armory Antique Show; New York City armoryantiqueshow.com January 23, 24 and 27 “Important American Furniture, Folk Art, Silver …
Exhibition openings through February 16
Bamboo Yards, Kyobashi Bridge from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo by Utagawa Hiroshige I (1797-1858), 1857. Woodblock print. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Exhibition openings January 28 “Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Hill Collection”; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY “Stories in Sterling; Four Centuries of Silver in New York”; Henry Morrison Flagler Museum, Palm Beam, …
Living history: A New England couple reanimates the past
An interior view signed by James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) hangs above a veneered walnut dressing table, Boston, 1710-1730, formerly in the collection of Eric Martin Wunsch. On the dressing table, from left, are a delft hand warmer shaped like a book, London, probably Southwark, dated 1665 and initialed “B./I.E”; a delft jug with armorial decoration, London, 1699; and a Charles …
Wild at heart: Rediscovering the sculpture of Anna Hyatt Huntington
Cranes Rising by Huntington, 1934. Bronze; height 45, width 16, depth 22 inches. Art Properties, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University in the City of New York, gift of the artist; photograph by Mark Ostrander, courtesy of the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery. The energy of some art only becomes apparent with the passage of time. Anna …
Piero della Francesca at the Met
Four paintings (three from European institutions and one from a private collection in New York) created by Piero della Francesca for private devotion will be shown together for the first time: St. Jerome and a Donor; Madonna and Child with Two Angels; Saint Jerome in a Landscape; and Madonna and Child. The exhibition follows upon the Frick Collection’s popular showing …
Early American Guitars at the Met
Early American Guitars: The Instruments of C. F. Martin Not for guitar lovers only, some thirty-five instruments from the Martin Museum in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, display the history of the great American guitar firm from its beginnings with the Viennese style instruments of C.F. Martin Sr., who came to this country, encountered Spanish style guitars here, and combined the two styles …
Looking East at the Frist
It is interesting to speculate on what Western art might look like had Japan not opened its ports to international trade in the 1850s, sending forth a flood of textiles, woodcuts, lanterns, screens, and other objects that captivated artists from Mary Cassatt and Claude Monet to Frank Lloyd Wright, who once described himself as “enslaved” by Japanese prints. Interesting and …
Upcoming shows and fairs in New York
Armory Antique Show The Armory Antique Show is a crowd pleaser, offering a playful abundance of eclectic wares at a range of prices. Organizers promise roughly one hundred specialists in antique and vintage furniture, folk art, Americana, modern design, garden ornament, lighting, jewelry, silver, textiles, and ceramics. Under new management this year, the Armory Antique Show was recently acquired by …
Editor’s letter, January/February 2014
Is it too soon to propose a quota on installations of contemporary art in period settings? Yes, I know, everything is mashable these days, but not all these border crossings of present into past deserve a visa. I recently went in search of a silver box in one of the period rooms of a major museum (it wasn’t there). What …
