In this time when the world seems full of darkness, both natural and political, I have been distracting myself by reading Orlando Whitfield’s new book All That Glitters: A Story of Friendship, Fraud, and Fine Art (Pantheon Press). The fraud was committed by...
“The catbird seat” is an idiomatic phrase used to describe an enviable position, often in terms of having the upper hand or greater advantage in any type of dealing among parties. It derives from the secluded perch on which the gray catbird makes mocking...
Leaving aside the World War II years, which were more than just an “era,” there have been two periods in the past hundred years that have caught the popular imagination. The more recent was the Sixties in America, particularly the Summer of Love in 1968. ...
I ran into Robert Simon at an Appraisers Association reception recently. Bob is one of the preeminent dealers of Old Master art in America, and I took the opportunity to ask him about the current state of the Old Master Market. I was surprised, though I shouldn’t have...
Summer normally brings family parties on the deck for Roberta and me, and at a recent such get-together I was talking with my nephew Greg, about whose boyhood enthusiasm for collecting baseball cards I have written. Greg, now middle-aged, long ago put his baseball...
