Wallpaper
Roberta and I were in Paris recently and took the opportunity to visit the Musée National de l’Orangerie des Tuileries for the first time. Built by Napoleon III in 1852 to house his citrus trees during winter, the building, commonly called just l’Orangerie,...
Hogging the Spotlight
Ever heard of Babe Ruth? Sure you have. How about his teammate Lou Gehrig? Probably. What about their contemporaries Tris Speaker or Walter “Big Train” Johnson? Maybe not, although both of the latter were among the greatest baseball players of the 1920’s and were...
It’s Alive!
My wife has a friend in his 80’s who told her that at his age any gathering of peers begins with what he calls “the organ recital.” My liver’s been acting up, one person says. My knee is killing me, adds another. In like fashion, for the last several...
Wooden Nickels
An estimated 1.7 trillion images were produced in 2017. Think about that figure. Actually, you can’t think about that figure; you can’t even really get your mind around it. The estimate comes from a book on photography published a couple of years...
Magic and Monet
Suppose I came into a possession of a box of junk from my childhood that my mother had neglected to throw out. Included in the box might be an old baseball from my Little League days. What would that baseball be worth? Nothing, of course. You...
Out of Nowhere
Ever heard of Lynne Drexler? Up to a couple of years ago, you might be excused for not knowing of her. Born in Newport News, Virginia, in 1928, Drexler moved to New York in the 1950’s and studied with noted modernists Hans Hofmann and Robert...
Fake! Not!
I was manning a booth at an antiques show in Denver many years ago when a man came in, carrying a manila envelope from which he removed a photograph of a painting. “I’ve got a Winslow Homer that I want to sell,” he informed me. I was always interested in...
Cave Man
Almost a decade ago, Roberta and I were walking through Grand Central Terminal in New York when we heard exuberant, vaguely African dance music. We followed the sound and came upon a group of dancers wearing elaborate horse costumes and executing precisely...
Both Sides Now
My first job in the art world was working for Ira Spanierman, who used to run an advertisement with a large headline proclaiming, “We Will Pay Over One Million Dollars for Highly Important Paintings by . . .” followed by a laundry list of famous American...
The Last Laugh
Roberta and I were in Western New York a few days ago and took the opportunity to view the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum at Alfred University, a school which a friend who is a ceramic artist calls, “the established Mount Olympus in ceramic education in America.” ...
