Culture

By Everett Potter Since the early 1960’s, I have spent part — usually the better part — of my summers in Western Maine. The distinctive mountains, pine trees, granite outcroppings and deep blue lakes that I know so well were all subject matter for the Maine painter Marsden Hartley (1877-1943).

By Bobbie Leigh The English writer  Stevie Smith liked  to write about characters who disappeared into the objects of their gaze. In one of her stories an office  girl goes to the National Gallery during her lunch break and studies  Turner seascapes  until “the spray reached out and sucked her

By Bobbie Leigh “All art is erotic,” Viennese painter Gustav Klimt famously said.   Klimt loved many women, fathered some 14 children, and never married. Women as well as his art patrons and collectors apparently adored him.  Although he is said to have had many affairs, his true love, who may

By Bobbie Leigh The three Abrahamic faiths that define Jerusalem have fought, protected, cherished, and preserved this ancient and mile-square city, each in its own way. Jerusalem 1000-1400: Every People Under Heaven, The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s  blockbuster new exhibition,  presents some 200 objects —reliquaries, ceramics, glass,  lamps and lanterns,

By Bobbie Leigh Have you ever heard of a collector commissioning a work of art  saying: “Do what you want and I will love it.”  Neale Albert is that rarity.  He is a  collector who commissions artists to  create miniature bookbindings and  asks  only that they give him their best

By Richard West “He hinted of pubs where life can drink its fill.” (Patrick Kavanagh) I propose a change in exercise routines, from jumping to conclusions, skipping bail, and prematurely crossing bridges. Instead a literary pub crawl that combines aerobics, limbering up the intellect, and weight lifting glassware.  And where

By Bobbie Leigh Art critic and painter Roger de Piles said it best: “Excepting Titian only, van Dyck surpasses all the painters that went before him, or have come after him, in portraits.”   That was in 1706.  Still true? You can decide after seeing the phenomenal exhibition, “Van Dyck: The

By Bobbie Leigh For the in-the-know or the inexperienced,  Asia Week New York is a marvel:  five auction houses and  45 international Asian art galleries  transform Manhattan  into a  once-a-year- showcase  for museum-quality exhibitions. “Asia Week New York, now celebrating its seventh anniversary, is more exciting than ever,” says Lark

By Bobbie Leigh Coney Island, the people’s playground at the southern tip of Brooklyn, is an American icon –like Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, and Niagara Falls.   The exhibition “Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland 1861-2008,” at the Brooklyn Museum  covers almost 150 years of the historic playground. It closes March

Visit Voronet and Sucevita, vividly painted church monasteries in the Bucovina region of northern Romania, and you will be blown away. Eight churches in this region are listed as UNESCO World Heritage sites, but these two— the youngest and the oldest—are the most compelling.