All of us know someone with a seemingly effortless sense of style. It’s usually a woman, someone to whom you could give a man’s old tuxedo jacket, a peasant blouse, a tartan skirt, and combat boots and say, “Make an outfit out of this.” She would roll up the jacket’s...

In 1981, in an act of faith that today makes me shudder at its innocence, my wife and I moved with our baby to New York from Chicago. The passage of time has mercifully dulled the troubles of those first days – moving into half the space we’d had in Chicago for twice...

One of the joys and nuisances of having been trained as an art historian is that you constantly see life imitating art. I was attending the opening of The Armory Show two weeks when I was struck by the sight of a young woman tending bar. “Excuse me, but would you let...

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood . . . ~Robert Frost Last summer I visited the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. It’s a terrific little museum and well worth taking time to visit when you’re in the Boston area. The...

I am ordinarily the soul of benevolence and good will toward all humanity, but there are occasional dark days, often caused by the failure of some museum curator to return my calls, when my spirit turns peevish and I entertain myself by playing a game of my own...

I was once visiting a collector’s home, admiring his works of art.  The paintings were first-rate and had one thing in common: they were all nudes.  Even the paintings which would properly be classed as landscapes had nude ladies populating them. I asked him what the...

Fear not, Gentle Reader.  The word you are about to hear may be said in the presence of small children and eminent divines. It will not cause a single eyebrow to be raised when dropped at the dinner table or inserted into august deliberations.  Most people would deem...

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. -Thomas Gray Years ago, I read an interview with the actor Bruno Kirby (Godfather II, City Slickers) who spoke in passing of the role that luck and connections had played in his...