Perhaps the best way to begin this piece about the Gibbes Museum of Art is to reflect on the expository words of the museum curators themselves … “An active seaport in the 1700s, Charleston was a melting pot of cultures, religions and traditions. Powered by the labor of enslaved peoples in the rice and indigo […]
On Plantation Row along the Ashley River west of Charleston are three magnificant properties, with Drayton Hall and Middleton Place flanking Magnolia Plantation. All three have stories to tell, featuring large in both local and US history. Drayton Hall was built in 1738 by John Drayton (c.1715–1779) — the great-grandson of Thomas Drayton Jr., who founded Magnolia Plantation in 1676. Although John […]
In retrospect, given my interest in the history of art and architecture, I’m surprised that I’ve never thought much about the difference between preservation and restoration. This is in part due to the National Trust for Historic Preservation using the word as an umbrella term, covering their work to maintain places where America’s history happened. […]
Three important historic plantations are located in a row along Ashley River Road, about 15 miles NW of downtown Charleston. Just past Trader Joe’s on Rte 61 we suddenly found ourselves cruising through a verdant wooded suburb that held a promise of bucolic delights. Of the three National Historic Landmarks located within a five-mile stretch, […]
Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987), magnified popular American culture in his art, and in so doing he himself became a paradigm of popular culture. “His pop sensibility embraced an anything-can-be-art approach, appropriating images, ideas and even innovation itself,” according to curatorial signage at Andy Warhol Portfolios: A Life in Pop. This exhibition, on through September 8th, […]
Painters by numbers. Canada has it’s Group of Seven. Cuba has Los Diez Pintores Concretos. The Taos Six applied academic techniques to indigenous themes, producing a uniquely American school of painting. Then there’s the international group of wildlife painters of the late 1800s and early 1900s — Richard Friese, Wilhelm Kuhnert, Bruno Liljefors, and Carl Rungius […]
Beginning with 75 students and 13 faculty members in 1931, RCA+D has grown to more than 110 buildings on 48 acres (SEVEN of which are art galleries!), 1600 students, and 140+ faculty members. Today it is ranked as one of the top art schools in the nation. […]
At the angle of New York Ave. and H St. NW in Washington DC stands a 1908 landmark that was built as a Masonic Temple. In that capacity, women were not permitted to enter the building. Today, that same building is all about women — although men are more than welcome! Refurbished in accordance with the […]
At the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC is an unexpected exhibition titled Impressive: Antoinette Bouzonnet-Stella (on through October 20, 2024). Ranging across the blue walls of three adjacent alcoves, a series of twenty-five 17th-century prints by artist Antoinette Bouzonnet-Stella (Lyon,1641-Paris,1676) depicts The Entrance of the Emperor Sigismond into Mantua (1675). The […]
The powerfully moving and iconic photograph, Migrant Mother (below), is the one image most people see in their mind’s eye when they think of Dorothea Lange. That was certainly true for me. But then I had the good fortune to spend time with dozens of her ground-breaking images, all equally eloquent and poignant, at the […]