Culture

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.

by Bobbie Leigh Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart changed the world. He still “owns”  the Austrian city of  Salzburg where he was born, lived, and performed.  Mozart Week  in January as well as the Salzburg Festival  are  like Wagner’s  Bayreuth, a must on any music lover’s  list.   The  Hollywood film, “Sound of

By Bobbie Leigh At the recent New York Times travel show, a visitor queried cruise and tour companies searching for a Black Sea cruise.  She found a few but none as compelling  and complete as the joint Yale and Metropolitan  Museum of Art’s circumnavigation of the Black Sea, September 24-

By Bobbie Leigh The Whitney Museum of American Art opens May 1 with a flourish of buzzy celebrity gatherings, a block party and free admission May 2. The inaugural exhibition, “America is Hard to See,” is huge, some 600 works by 400 artists tracing the history of American art from