Billie, Robert, Check's in the Mail, Stop that Check! & Would You Like Lace with That?

ARTS ALMANAC-

April 7, 1915: Billie Holiday, American singer, was born. "Billie Holiday (born Elinore Harris) was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed Lady Day by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday was a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. Above all, she was admired all over the world for her deeply personal and intimate approach to singing. Critic John Bush wrote that she "changed the art of American pop vocals forever."

April 7, 1990: "The Perfect Moment", an exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs, opened at Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center; the center and its director were indicted on obscenity charges. In 2000 the subsequent trial was chronicled in the television movie Dirty Pictures.


IN THE NEWS-

- NEW YORK: "Representatives of a lender seized artworks from Berry-Hill Galleries, a well-known American art specialist on Manhattan's Upper East Side, after a judge found the gallery had defaulted on a debt of $9.5 million. As people from the gallery and the bank, American Capital Financial Services, congregated Tuesday on the first floor of the gallery's stately townhouse, handlers carried the artworks, primarily paintings, down the street toward Fifth Avenue, where they deposited them into two large moving trucks." Read the full story

- 10,000 bought fake art for over $20 million : "A woman from La Canada was sentenced to 84 months in federal prison for selling bogus artwork on national television networks in a scheme described by United States District Judge Gary Feess as “audacious.” Kristine Eubanks, 52, together with her husband Gerald Sullivan, ran a company called Fine Art Treasures Gallery that sold bogus artworks both on DirecTV and The Dish Network during the period 2002 – 2006. The art being sold was said to have been found at “estate liquidations” and created by such noteables as Chagall, Picasso and Dali". Read the full story


IN OUR STORE-

“Plain & Fancy. American Women and Their Needlework, 1700-1850”

By Susan B. Swan.

Published by Holt, Rinehart & Winston in 1977.

An extremely important study, illustrated with examples from the collections at Winterthur. " 'Plain & Fancy' traces the social history of women and the evolution of stitchery trends and practices from 1700 to 1850. More than 150 photographs from the renowned collection of the Henry Francis duPont Winterthur Museum illustrate plain and fancy sewing -the simple but essential household work and the elaborate, ornamental examples".

$35.00

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Windmills, Raphael, Lalique, Moreau & Celluloid...

IN THE NEWS-

- Junkyard Poet of Whirligigs and Windmills : LUCAMA, N.C. — "Just when you think you’ve traveled too far down Wiggins Mill Road, and you start to look for a spot to turn around, the rusting masterworks of Vollis Simpson loom into view. Thirty feet in the air, held aloft by sturdy steel pillars, are some of Mr. Simpson’s pieces: a team of horses pulling a wagon, a metal man strumming a guitar and an airplane cum rocket ship that might have escaped from an old comic book. They are painted in a dozen colors and festooned with propellers that spin in the breeze. With every gust they creak and whir like some phantasmagoric junkyard band..." Read the full story


ARTS ALMANAC-

April 6, 1483: Raphael, Italian painter and architect, was born. "Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance, celebrated for the perfection and grace of his paintings and drawings. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period."

April 6, 1826: Gustave Moreau, French painter, was born. Moreau "was a French Symbolist painter whose main focus was the illustration of biblical and mythological figures. As a painter of literary ideas rather than visual images, Moreau appealed to the imaginations of some Symbolist writers and artists, who saw him as a precursor to their movement."

April 6, 1860: Rene Lalique, French jeweler and important figure in the Art Nouveau movement, was born. "Recognized as one of the world's greatest glass makers and jewelry designers of the Art Nouveau and Art Deco periods, René Jules Lalique was an imaginative and creative artist, designer, and industrialist in all his work. It was said of him 'his work frankly bears the mark of our complicated civilisation, a thirst for elegance, novelty, comfort and luxury".

April 6, 1869: Celluloid is patented by John Wesley Hyatt. First used as an ivory substitute in billiard balls, it rapidly came to be used to manufacture all matter of jewelry and decorative household articles, and is considered the first plastic.

April 6, 1929: André Previn, German-born composer and conductor, was born. He is a winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings.


IN OUR STORE-

"Lalique for Collectors"

By Katharine Morrison McClinton.

Published by Charles Scribner's Sons: 1975.

One of the first books about collecting Lalique, by a very popular antiques writer. McClinton provides a fairly comprehensive survey of Lalique and his work, from jewelry and glass vases to boxes and radiator caps. The book is heavily illustrated, with some catalog pages included. There are more recent, more comprehensive, books about Lalique, but Katherine McClinton was a widely recognized author on 19th and 20th century antiques, including landmark books on Art Deco and silver, and what you are really buying here is her insight into the subject.

$45.00

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“Lalique par Lalique”

By Marc & Marie-Claude Lalique.

Published in Lausanne by the Societe Lalique/Edipop in 1977.

A legendary volume on the art glass bookshelf, an explosive celebration of the glass and jewelry of that most graceful of French designers, Rene Lalique. English / French text.

$150.00

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“Pressed Glass, 1825-1925”

By Jane Shadel Spillman.

Published by the Corning Museum of Glass in 1983.

A delightful, colorful catalog to an exhibition featuring specimens from the Museum’s collection. The commercial process of pressing glass was perfected between the first decades of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth, and this exhibition catalog describes and illustrates this important progress and described its techniques, the innovators behind them, and the glass they produced.

$20.00

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Bette Davis, Van Gogh Cereal, Sexy Art, Gregory Peck & Brass Bands

ARTS ALMANAC-

April 5, 1908: Bette Davis, American actress, was born. Davis was "known for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, and was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional comedies, though her greatest successes were her roles in romantic dramas."

IN THE NEWS-

- If you were a Vincent Van Gogh fan with two tons of Malt-O-Meal cereal and a free weekend, what would you do? "Students at Sky View High School completed a 6,400-square-foot replica of Vincent van Gogh's "Starry Night" made out of breakfast cereal. Humanities teacher at Sky View, Doyle Gedded had more than 150 students participate on the project, which used more than two tons of cereal donated by Malt-O-Meal across the floor in the school's gymnasium..." Read the full story

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April 5, 1732: Jean-Honoré Fragonard, French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism", was born. "One of the most prolific artists active in the last decades of the Ancien Régime, Fragonard produced more than 550 paintings (not counting drawings and etchings), of which only five are dated. Among his most popular works are genre paintings conveying an atmosphere of intimacy and veiled eroticism."

April 5, 1752: Sébastien Érard, French musical instruments maker who patented many of the elements used in the modern grand piano, was born. Erhard "specialised in the production of pianos and harps, developing the capacities of both instruments and pioneering the modern grand piano."

April 5, 1900: Spencer Tracy, American actor, was born. Tracy appeared in 74 films from 1930 to 1967. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Tracy 9th among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time. He was nominated for nine Academy Awards for Best Actor, winning two.

April 5, 1908: Herbert von Karajan, Austrian conductor, was born. "His obituary in The New York Times described him as "probably the world's best-known conductor and one of the most powerful figures in classical music". Karajan conducted the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra for 35 years. He is the top-selling classical music recording artist of all time, having sold an estimated 200 million records during his career."

April 5, 1916: Gregory Peck, American actor, was born. "One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1990s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won his Academy Award. President Lyndon Johnson honored Peck with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 for his lifetime humanitarian efforts. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Peck among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking at #12.

IN OUR STORE-

Handwritten Letter Concerning the Coldstream Guards Band and Gramaphones.

Castle Hotel, Windsor: April 13, 1917.

"13th April, 1917 My dear ( illegible), I have heard from the gramaphone co'y & they are pushing on the machines as fast as possible, but will not despatch them until they hear from me further. It is difficult for me at present to make any definite appt's far ahead as one does not know from day to day what is likely to happen. If however, I find that I am free about the middle of a week I will 'phone you the day before & see how you are fixed. I take the five bands of the Brigade of Guards to Paris in a few weeks time for a week, at the invitation of the French Gov't. After this I take my own band to join the Guards Div., & will remain with the Div. until August. Whatever my appt's, I must try & fit them in this month. Until I hear from you I will give no further instructions as to the despatch of the machines & records. All kind wishes, yours as always, Mackenzie Rogan”.

John Mackenzie Rogan’s tenure with the Coldstream Guards Band had a number of highlights- the first British Army band to visit one of the Dominions (Canada, 1896), the first Guards Band to visit France at the invitation of the French Government (1907), the introduction of Tschaikovsky's 1812 Overture to Britain (in 1896 a Coldstream officer heard the work in Russia and returned with the score, which Rogan conducted at concerts throughout the country). In addition, Rogan conducted the Brigade of Guards bands at the funeral of Queen Victoria, the coronation and funeral of King Edward VII and the coronation of King George V.

$45.00

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Crumbling Icons, Missing Masterpieces, Peaceable Kingdoms, & Cycladic Art

IN THE NEWS-

- Crumbling Eyesore or Iconic Original for an Edward Hopper Painting? "The ghostly, crumbling husk of a 1920s filling station sits off Route 6 near the Truro, Cape Cod line, a ramshackle remnant of another era that might have influenced “Gas,’’ one of Edward Hopper’s famous prewar paintings. The fuel pumps with their red horse logos are long gone, the shattered windows are sheathed with peeling plywood, and a splintered roof is little barrier to the harsh elements that rake the Outer Cape." Read the full story.

- Was the FBI on the verge of recovering a Vermeer & Rembrandt stolen in the Gardner Museum theft, only to lose them to bureaucratic infighting two years ago? "That is the conclusion of a nonfiction book written by a now-retired FBI special agent who posed undercover in 2006 and 2007 as a wealthy art collector interested in purchasing several of the paintings through two Frenchmen who had alleged ties to the Corsican mobsters." Read the full story

ARTS ALMANAC-

April 4, 1648: Grinling Gibbons, Dutch sculptor and woodcarver, was born. "He became particularly known for his work in England, including St Paul's Cathedral, Blenheim Palace and Hampton Court Palace. He is widely regarded as England's finest wood carver."

April 4, 1780: Edward Hicks, prominent Quaker preacher & American primitive painter, was born. 'The Peaceable Kingdom', of which Hicks painted a number of versions in the 1820s, 30s and 40s, remains his most well-known work.

April 4, 1876: Maurice de Vlaminck, French painter, was born. "Along with André Derain and Henri Matisse he is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauve movement, a group of modern artists who from 1904 to 1908 were united in their use of intense color."

IN OUR STORE-

“Ancient Art of the Cyclades”

By Pat Getz-Gentle.

Published by the Katonah Museum of Art in 2006.

“This exhibition celebrates the much-admired works of art created during the third millennium B.C. by craftsmen of the Cycladic islands of the Aegean Sea. Early Cycladic objects, once viewed as archaeological curiosities, are today a source of widespread fascination and appeal. Their simple lines and spare elegance inspired such modern artists as Brancusi, Modigliani, and Picasso. Knowledge of Cycladic civilization has been fathomed through its artifacts, since there was no written language to help archaeologists. Curator Dr. Pat Getz-Gentle, an author and scholar who has devoted her professional life to the field, has written the essay for the comprehensive catalogue in which she puts forth the latest findings and her own theories on Early Cycladic culture”.

$30.00

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Peeps, Devo, & Russel Wright

IN THE NEWS-

- It's fair to say most art galleries don't worry about visitors eating the artwork : "While Michelangelo sculpted marble and Pablo Picasso painted canvas, a group of artists whose works are on display though Saturday at Riverfront Arts Center in Stevens Point picked a colorful and malleable medium to express their creativity: Peeps..." Read the story in the Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel

- Rock band Devo gives red cone hat to Ohio museum : "The oddball rock group Devo has donated one of the red conical hats from its hit video "Whip It" to an Ohio museum..." Read the story at the Associated Press Hey- I'm sorry, Mr. Associated Press -who you callin' "oddball"???

ARTS ALMANAC-

1691 – Jean Petitot, Swiss Huguenot enamel painter, died. A celebrated and ingenious artist, Petitot served as a Royal portrait enamelist to the courts of England, France and Poland during his career.

1904 – Russel Wright, American industrial designer, was born. One of the most influential designers of the 20th century, from the 1920s through the 1960s, Wright "created a succession of artistically distinctive and commercially successful items that helped bring modern design to the general public".


IN OUR STORE-

"Russel Wright. Creating American Lifestyle"

By Donald Albrecht, Robert Schonfeld & Lindsay Stamm Shapiro.

Published by the Cooper-Hewitt Museum and Harry N. Abrams in 2001.

“A master of 20th-century design, Russel Wright was a prolific and influential creator of items for the home, most famously his curvaceous American Modern dinnerware. Wright designed furniture, appliances, textiles, interiors, buildings, and landscapes, and with his wife Mary developed the concept of lifestyle marketing. Their 1950 Guide to Easier Living helped define a relaxed entertaining and living style that Americans still embrace today. This book describes his career and shows his work in 154 photographs, most in color, including page-filling settings created for this book and images of his Hudson Valley home Dragon Rock.”

$25.00

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Django, Max, Lady Liberty, Eggs, 2001 & Shakespeare (?)

IN THE NEWS-

- Django lives! In his centennial year, Reinhardt's gypsy jazz takes center stage : "He was a guitarist with such awesome, inexplicable technique that he left his peers with jaws agape, ready to abandon their instruments. Acclaimed as an innovator of a quintessentially American style, he first found fame in Europe. And since his premature death, his legend has grown exponentially along with his recorded legacy, with more of his music available today than at any point during his life..." Read the story at the Boston Globe

- Just in time for the Easter, Bonhams announces the sale 850 carved mineral eggs perfect for the connoisseur's basket. Skillfully produced by noted German craftsman Dieter Jerusalem from the historic carving locality of Idar-Oberstein, Germany, the eggs will be a notable feature of the firm's spring 2010 auction of Natural History... Read the story at ArtDaily


ARTS ALMANAC-

April 2, 1834: Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, French sculptor of Statue of Liberty, was born.

April 2, 1891: Max Ernst was born. German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. Ernst, a prolific artist, is considered to be one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.

April 2, 1902: "Tally's Electric Theatre", the first full-time, purpose-built movie theater in the United States, opens in Los Angeles, California.

April 2, 1968: The science-fiction film "2001: A Space Odyssey" had its world premiere in Washington, D.C.


IN OUR STORE:

"History Play. The Lives and Afterlife of Christopher Marlowe"

By Rodney Bolt.

Published by Bloomsbury in 2004.

“Without trying to prove it, Rodney Bolt assumes that, rather than dying at twenty-nine in a tavern brawl, Christopher Marlowe staged his own death, fled to Europe, and went on to write the work attributed to Shakespeare. This is the starting point for a mischievous and brilliantly written biography of Marlowe, which turns out to be a life of the Bard as well. Using real historical sources plus a generous dose of speculation, Bolt paints a rich and rollicking picture of Elizabethan life. As we accompany Marlowe into the halls of academia, the society of the popular English players traveling Europe, and the dangerous underworld of Elizabethan espionage, a fascinating and almost plausible life story emerges”.

Hardcover. 6”x9.5”, 388 pages, dust jacket. New

FREE, while they last.

One per person, please.

Hoards, Coffins, Studio-Taught, Self-Taught, Toshiro Mifune & Edo Arts...

IN THE NEWS-

- The Collector in Chief Hoards Nation’s Irreplaceable Stuff : "The National Archives are the repository of the nation’s heritage: the actual $7.2 million check with which the United States bought Alaska, strands of wampum attached to an Indian treaty, a letter from Annie Oakley offering President William McKinley 50 female sharpshooters to fight in the Spanish-American War. Slave ship manifests. Japanese surrender documents from World War II..." Read the story at the New York Times

- Ancient lead sarcophagus contains Roman VIP? "Who's in the Lead Coffin? “Very unusual and very intriguing” is how Nicola Terrenato from the University of Michigan describes a Roman-era lead coffin that has been uncovered in the ancient city of Gabii, 11 miles east of Rome. The professor of classical studies is the leader of an archaeological project to excavate the site. He added: “It's definitely the most unusual finding of the campaign so far.” Read the story at The Independent

ARTS ALMANAC-

April 1, 1852: Edwin Austin Abbey, American painter and illustrator, was born. The first "Great" illustrator of the Great Age of Illustration, Abbey moved from pen to brush and magazines to books, galleries and mural commissions. He remains best known for his murals and paintings of Shakespearean and Victorian subjects.

April 1, 1854: William "Bill" Traylor was born into slavery. The self-taught artist would live most of his life in poverty and die in obscurity in 1945, only to be "discovered" by art critics in the 1970s. His drawings are now avidly collected and are held in the collections of museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, and the High Museum of Art.

April 1, 1873: Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was born. "Russian composer, pianist, and conductor, he was one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, very nearly the last great representative of Russian late Romanticism in classical music. Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and other Russian composers gave way to a thoroughly personal idiom which included a pronounced lyricism, expressive breadth, structural ingenuity and a tonal palette of rich, distinctive orchestral colors."

April 1, 1883: Lon Chaney was born. "Nicknamed "The Man of a Thousand Faces," Chaney was an American actor during the age of silent films. He was one of the most versatile and powerful actors of early cinema. He is best remembered for his characterizations of tortured, often grotesque and afflicted characters, and his groundbreaking artistry with film makeup."

April 1, 1920: Toshirō Mifune, Japanese actor, was born. "Mifune appeared in almost 170 feature films and is best known for his 16-film collaboration with filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, from 1948 to 1965, in works such as Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, and Yojimbo. He is also popular for portraying Musashi Miyamoto in Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy."

'I Live In Fear' (1955) with Takashi Shimura (right).

'Stray Dog' (1949), with Takashi Shimura and Keiko Awaji.

IN OUR STORE-

“Bridge of Dreams. The Mary Griggs Burke Collection of Japanese Art”

By Miyeko Murase.

Published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art 2000.

“The Burke Collection of Japanese art is recognized worldwide as the most significant collection of Japanese art in private hands. This catalogue presents 168 masterpieces from the collection that date from the Protoliterate era (ca. 10,000 B.C.) through the Edo period (1615–1868), including handscrolls and hanging scrolls, woodblock prints, large screens, lacquerware, and ceramics. The text is written by the renowned scholar Miyeko Murase, the principal adviser to Mary Griggs Burke in the development of the collection. Murase presents Japanese art as an eloquent expression of Japanese culture; more than a record of an important exhibition, this stunning volume takes its place as a key resource for understanding and appreciating the art and culture of Japan.”

$45.00

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