Art · Cinema · New York · Society
A documentary about America's last two staff art critics has been released: House of Criticism, directed by Alison Chernick. The film tells the story of the lives of Roberta Smith and Jerry Saltz. Smith joined The New York Times in 1986 on a part-time basis; in 2011
Architecture · Museums · Science · New York · Society
A cunning bacterium has been found in the cooling tower of the Guggenheim Museum, infecting people through clouds of vapour. The bacterium is called Legionella, and its history belongs to the twentieth century. It was isolated after 1976, when participants in a convention of the American Legion fell ill at
Art · Observations · New York · Nature
If one is to recall how American painting began and what it portended, one must name the country's first major artistic movement, the Hudson River School. Its voice is usually presented as a hymn to untouched nature. But can you really not sense the anxiety in these majestic
Coming Up · Art · Museums · New York
A Dutchman, one of the pioneers of abstraction and co-founder of De Stijl, the international association for non-representational art, Mondrian fled the war and reached New York in 1940, where he fell in love with the city and with boogie-woogie and, by his own account, began to
Art · Cinema · Heritage · New York · Society
Gustav Klimt painted "Portrait of Fräulein Lieser" in 1917 and had not finished it when he died in 1918. The commission came from the wealthy Viennese Jewish Lieser family. For nearly a century the picture was known only from a black-and-white photograph of 1925: it vanished
Art · New York
There is, in principle, no genuine Bosch on the open market: not a single fully attributed painting or drawing by him has come up at auction since 1985, everything moves through private channels, and the surviving works of the master number some two dozen and a half worldwide, all of
Coming Up · Art · London · Museums · New York · Paris
If your holiday happens to land you in one of the three art capitals, here are three exhibitions for each, worth carving out half a day for. London 🎨 Frida: The Making of an Icon. Tate Modern, from 22 June. More than 130 works by Frida Kahlo and a separate strand
Archive · Faith · New York · People · Humour
John Paul II really was a sportsman, and a keen one, but he did not play baseball, and that is not him in the photo. The picture is genuine, but it shows Gene Greytak, an American estate agent who made his name on his resemblance to the pontiff and worked
Art · Observations · New York · Pop Culture · Humour
Brooklyn artist Jeremy Olson has dressed the windows of the Hermès flagship on Madison Avenue in New York as a surrealist installation: a body sinking into a sofa, surrounded by biomorphic furniture and lamps. Hermès wanted to play on its signature motifs and the equestrian theme, hence the appearance of
Art · Monarchies · New York · Pop Culture · Society Pages
Yesterday King Charles III and Camilla dropped in at Christie's in New York. Not for the sale, it must be said, but for a gala dinner in aid of the King's Trust, which turns 50 this year. At the preview of lots for the forthcoming sales,
Architecture · Observations · New York · Society
Have you come across reels criticising the new skyscraper in New York, which is being berated for blocking the view of the Empire State Building from Fifth Avenue? These lamentations have been turning up in my feed for a week now, and New Yorker acquaintances confirm that everyone is indeed
Faith · Art · Museums · New York
An ascetic, he refused meat even during a grave illness. When a dish of roast partridges was brought to him, the saint merely made the sign of the cross over them. The birds came to life at once and flew away straight from the plate. In this canvas of 1530