Art and Photography Archive |
George Stacey and the Creation of American Chic - I’ve written dozens of pieces for House & Garden and Architectural Digest without once hearing George Stacey’s name. That is not quite how he planned it, but close. When he
Georgia: A novel of Georgia O’Keeffe - When it comes to culture, Americans are like baby birds --- we like our nutrition pre-chewed. So if I wanted to learn about Hadley Richardson, perhaps Ernest Hemingway’s greatest love,
Great Houses, Modern Aristocrats - When we tell our family stories, most of us can’t go back more than three or four generations before we’re talking about an ancestor who crossed an ocean. Not so
Great? Or snobbish? You make the call. - A new friend and I were walking, and the conversation turned to Venice, and because I had a few tidbits still accessible in my fading memory, I mentioned Carlo Scarpa.
Helmut Newton - In 1987, when I was a Contributing Editor at New York magazine, Tina Brown took me to lunch and showed me a mock-up of a Vanity Fair cover: Faye Dunaway,
Henri Cartier-Bresson - Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) was to photography what the Impressionists were to painting. Those breakthrough artists grasped that the latest innovation in technology --- pre-mixed paints, packaged in
Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs - GUEST BUTLER JANE CHAFIN has been an artist, writer and editor. She began her career as a painter and museum registrar in Los Angeles, then moved to New York in
Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment - I tried hard to duck this one. But my friend can be annoyingly persistent, and it was a book of photographs taken by Dorothea Lange, whose pictures of the 1930s define
Jennifer Post: Pure Space: Elegant Minimalism - I'd never heard of Jennifer Post until I read about her book party in New York Social Diary. The
Joan Miro: I Work Like a Gardener - If you’re not a foodie, tapas gets old fast --- by our third day in Barcelona, my daughter was Googling Italian restaurants. Yes, Gaudi's Sagrada Familia is the eighth wonder
Joni Mitchell: Morning Glory on the Vine: Early Songs and Drawings - I note two key events in Joni Mitchell’s life in 1971. One was public: On June 22, she released “Blue,” the most essential of her essential albums. If you not own
Katsura - The book you really want is Katsura: A Princely Retreat. It’s out of print, but you can find a copy at Amazon.com for $140. Failing that, you’ll be well rewarded
Living Artfully: At Home with Marjorie Merriweather Post - Fifty Shades of Grey is the porn favorite for seventy million people. House porn is the guilty pleasure of many fewer. I’m in that group. I don’t look at coffee table books about
Looking for the Summer - Looking for the Summer Jim Brandenburg The last time I was in the Boundary Waters
M. C. Escher Pop-Ups - Twenty years from now, someone will make a breakthrough in the arts, technology or design, and remark, “Well, when I was a kid, there was this book….” He or she
M.C. Escher - SUPPORTING BUTLER: You can become a patron of this site, and automatically donate any amount you please — starting with $1 — each month. The service that enables this is
Man with a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud - Guest Butler Jane Chafin is director of the Offramp Gallery in Pasadena, California. A former painter, she has worked as a registrar at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery and written
Marc Lagrange/Helmut Newton - 1987. Tina Brown was trying to lure me to join her at Vanity Fair. I wanted to jump across the table and hug her, but I struggled to play
Mark Hampton: An American Decorator - Talk about being born for the job! When Mark Hampton was wearing shoes, his feet were exactly 12 inches long --- he could pace off a room without a tape
Martha’s Vineyard: To Everything There Is a Season - I met Peter Simon in 1969 at the radical/hippie farm in Vermont that Ray Mungo chronicled in Famous Long Ago: My Life and Hard Times With Liberation News Service. I
