Following my last blog post on Donald Judd’s Chinati Foundation in Marfa, TX, we move on down the road to tiny ghost town, Terlingua. Once a thriving mercury mining town on the way to Big Bend National Park, Terlingua is now occupied by a few dozen living inhabitants who have moved into the falling down structures […]
I had no idea what to expect from Donald Judd’s Chinati Foundation, named for the nearby West Texas mountains. I couldn’t imagine how a bunch of spare aluminum boxes in a former Army warehouse would strike me, if at all. But I did know that I love Tex-Mex food, the wildness of the Southwest (see […]
“I’m really a traditional painter, not avant-garde at all. I wanted to follow a tradition and extend it.” — Richard Diebenkorn. My friends Susan and Leslie and I are all a little in love with Richard Diebenkorn, envying his close circle who were given his charming cigar box lid paintings as gifts. Why weren’t we […]
The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, has a knack for mounting shows that pull together beautiful art, thoughtful curator-ship, and illuminating ephemera. “History in the Making: 100 Years after the Armory Show” is no exception. At the core of this exhibition is evolution: specifically, how the collection’s founder, Duncan Phillips, grew from—dare we say it?—a […]
The National Gallery of Art is many things to those of us lucky to live in or around Washington, DC: a place to soothe the soul, delight the senses, and feed the mind. Last Wednesday my friend Karen alerted me to a gallery talk by David Gariff, a renowned Munch art historian—part of the 150th […]
I’ve always thought Picasso was over-rated, but never believed anyone agreed with me. After seeing this stunning show at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, I find that I’m not alone. Duncan Phillips, the founder of the Phillips Collection, felt that that Braque had advanced “the amazing innovations of Picasso.” Just so. In 1927 Phillips […]
As an accompaniment to this fabulous show at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, students from the Kirov Academy of Ballet of Washington, DC performed excerpts from L’apres-midi d’un Faune (Afternoon of a Faun) and The Firebird on July 13, 2013 in two standing-room-only performances on the mezzanine just outside of the […]
Readers of this blog may remember that my first posting about this remarkable show at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, ended on a poignant note: that Vasiliev Nijinsky had been institutionalized for schizophrenia, never to dance again. Pondering this sad loss, you leave his tortured drawing, “A Mask,” and walk up the […]
Down the hill from the Philadelphia Museum of Art is the companion Perelman Building, a 1927 Art Deco gem with light pouring into its cathedral-like entrance, expansive galleries, and an inviting café with outdoor dining space. Take the shuttle bus (walking across the busy boulevards in this part of town can be hazardous to your […]
Each year, Hammond-Harwood House, an Anglo-Palladian historic house and museum in downtown Annapolis, affords the area’s voyeurs access to charming gardens hidden away behind its diminutive houses. Thirteen lovely gardens, some tiny, some grand, provide myriad gardening ideas and the pure enjoyment of seeing green spaces only the homes’ owners usually enjoy. The self-guided […]