A Century of Mourning Attire at the Met

Editorial Staff Exhibitions

Death Becomes Her, the Costume Institute’s first fall exhibition in eight years, examines American and English bereavement rituals of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Period fashions and accessories, including hats, shawls, parasols, and jewelry, along with fashion plates, satirical illustrations, and mourning pictures reveal the formal rituals of bereavement, mostly observed by women. A woman’s selection of mourning clothing …

Egon Schiele at the Neue Galerie

Editorial Staff Exhibitions

What Egon Schiele would have achieved had he lived beyond his twenty-eighth year is a matter to keep art historians up at night. When he died of Spanish influenza in 1918 he had already accomplished an astonishing amount: some three thousand drawings as well as paintings and sculpture of sufficient merit to position him as the heir to the late …

Salon style at the New-York Historical Society

Editorial Staff Exhibitions

There is an excellent reason why we no longer hang paintings as they have now done in an odd but worthy exhibition at the New-York Historical Society. Indeed, even at the N-YHS, that hanging would be inexcusable, were it not for the fact that the whole point of The Works: Salon Style at the New-York Historical Society, (on view through February …

The democratization of glamour

Editorial Staff Exhibitions

Every age sets its own standard for beauty and style, but rarely has there been an era when glamour and self-display dominated the spirit of the time as they did in the 1930s and 1940s. In spite, or perhaps because, of the Depression and its aftermath, jewelry and fashion designers were busy creat­ing new styles meant for a new elite–the …

Made in Texas

Editorial Staff Exhibitions

Beeville, Texas, is not on everyone’s bucket list, but a visit to the Beeville Art Museum this fall will provide a fascinating look at life in the lone star state in the last half of the nineteenth century. Made in Texas: Art, Life and Culture, 1845-1900 brings together Texas-made art and objects that reflect the lives of Texans from the …

Thomas Hart Benton at the Met

Editorial Staff Exhibitions

To understand the significance of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s installation of Thomas Hart Benton’s ten-panel America Today so many decades after it was created for the New School for Social Research in 1930 and 1931, you need to know a little about the school in those heady days. Founded in 1919, by the 1930s the New School had become …

Two military portraits: El Greco and Pulzone

Editorial Staff Art, Exhibitions

Last Friday I had the pleasure of attending one of the Frick Collection’s “Summer Nights,” a series that offers free after-hours admission and a number of activities centered on a single exhibition–lectures and live music among them. This particular evening was focused on Men in Armor: El Greco and Pulzone Face to Face, an exhibition with just two paintings. Jeongho …

Japanese screens

Editorial Staff Art, Exhibitions

 By Ruth Davidson; Originally published in January 1971 For the enchantment of visitors to Asia House Gallery this month and next there will be on view byōbu, or Japanese painted screens, from twelve museums and private collections in New York. Arranged so as to suggest their appearance in a Japanese house, the twenty six screens will be shown in two …

A Fruitful Exchange

Editorial Staff Exhibitions

In both the academic and museum worlds, Native American and Euro-American stories have usually been told separately, presented in separate contexts, and their histories explained from their singular perspectives. But many twenty-first-century museums are beginning to move in a new direction in interpreting the history and mutual influences of the two cultures. Floral Journey: Native North American Beadwork, an exhibition …

Farther afield: Philosophy in the museum

Editorial Staff Art, Exhibitions

In a refreshing new twist on how to bring new life to long-revered art and objects both the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam have invited philosophers to play the role of curator   DRESDEN CONSIDERS THE BOWL Philosopher Wolfgang Scheppe has collaborated with the staff of the Dresden State Art Collections to present an exhibition in …