Category Archives: History

Art, Arts & Literature, Collections, History, Museums, Profiles, Videos

Exhibitions: “Outstanding! THE RELIEF FROM RODIN TO PICASSO” At Städel Museum

Video Leave a comment

Städel Museum Frankfurt (May 23, 2023) – Rodin, Matisse, Gauguin, Picasso, Jean Arp, Yves Klein… They all created outstanding art in the truest sense of the word—reliefs. This summer, the Städel Museum is presenting a major exhibition on the relief from 1800 to the 1960s.

OUTSTANDING!

THE RELIEF FROM RODIN TO PICASSO


5/24–9/17/2023

“This summer, our visitors will have the opportunity to encounter an exciting artistic medium—the relief: an art form between painting and sculpture that literally breaks through the confines of the frame and bursts the boundaries of our sense of sight! We are devoting a major exhibition to this sometimes underacknowledged medium.”

Is it painting or sculpture, surface or space? Hardly any artistic medium challenges our sense of sight like the relief. And that is what has always made it so appealing for the most famous artists. From 24 May to 17 September 2023, the exhibition will present prominent works spanning some 160 years by Bertel Thorvaldsen, Jules Dalou, Auguste Rodin, Medardo Rosso, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Alexander Archipenko, Jean Arp, Kurt Schwitters, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Yves Klein, Louise Nevelson, Lee Bontecou and others.

Documentaries, Ecosystems, History, Reviews, Science, Travel, Videos

Ecosystems: Biodiversity In The British Isles (2023)

Video Leave a comment

DW Documentary (May 19, 2023) – Human pollution is increasing worldwide. The overexploitation of nature is endangering biodiversity and plastics and chemicals are destroying many of humanity’s nature-based livelihoods.

But there is hope. The UK is not exactly known for its stringent environmental policy and following Brexit, many fear that standards are likely to deteriorate. But the UK is also home to coastal regions and islands characterized by wild beauty — and breathtaking diversity. The documentary takes us through some of the most remote landscapes of the country, from the Shetland Islands to Cornwall, the Hebrides and many other areas.

In each location, the film shows the amazing biodiversity of fauna and flora present. The Pembrokeshire Coast National Park in Wales is known for large breeding colonies of many seabird species. Few people live on the Hebrides, located off Scotland. These wild islands are still a natural paradise of rocks, sand and moor. As such, they are biotopes for exotic species such as puffins and guillemots.

In this cinematic journey to the most beautiful natural sites in Britain, viewers meet the people who are trying to protect species threatened by extinction by preserving their habitats. It is a story of hope, one that indicates that a change in people’s thinking is taking place.

Culture, History, Reviews, Travel, Videos

Travel: Lighthouses Of Ouessant Island, France

Video Leave a comment

FRANCE 24 (May 18, 2023) – We take you to the westernmost point of France; the last piece of civilisation before the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean. Ouessant, located 25 kilometres off the Finistère coast in Brittany, is a rugged and fascinating island, where less than 500 people live all year round.

We meet a fisherwoman, a doctor and a photographer who appreciate its raw beauty. The island is also home to no less than five lighthouses that have guided generations of sailors along this fearsome coast. The locals call them the “heroes of Ouessant”.

Art, Arts & Literature, Collections, History, Museums, Profiles, Videos

Arts: Meissen Porcelain – ‘A Fox with a Chicken’

Video Leave a comment

Getty Museum (May 17, 2023) – Imagine a menagerie of over 500 life-sized porcelain animals long gallery in a palace in Dresden. A Fox with a Chicken was a part of this new creation commissioned by Augustus II “The Strong” in the 18th century to share his love for Japanese porcelain with others.

A Fox with a Chicken

Meissen Porcelain Manufactory (German, active 1710 – present), Model by Johann Gottlieb Kirchner (German, 1706 – 1768)

Johann Gottlieb Kirchner produced the model for this life-size porcelain sculpture of a fox-looking a little guiltily around the chicken it is about to devour-as part of an extraordinary commission from Augustus the Strong, elector of Saxony and king of Poland, who envisioned a life-size porcelain menagerie for his Japanese Palace in Dresden. The Meissen Porcelain Manufactory had been operating for only twenty years when Augustus commissioned this series of porcelain animals to be rendered “in their natural sizes and colors.” The production of porcelain models of this size had never been attempted before in Europe.

Art, Arts & Literature, Collections, History, Profiles, Videos

Artists: Post-Impressionist Paintings Of Paul Gauguin

Video Leave a comment

Sotheby’s (May 16, 2023) – Vice Chairman of Global Fine Arts, Simon Shaw, discusses a few extraordinary works coming to Sotheby’s this May from the Ambroise Vollard Collection, including Paul Gauguin’s Nature morte avec pivoines de chine et mandoline.

An exquisite example of Gauguin’s unbound creative spirit, Nature morte avec pivoines de chine et mandoline is filled with the sort of rich, jewel-like hues and striking tonal and textural contrasts that characterize the artist’s greatest works. The present painting was executed in 1885 at a watershed moment in Gauguin’s career, during which time he began to move away from the Impressionist aesthetic that had previously influenced his painting toward a new and more expressive stylistic idiom.

Expanding upon the bold coloration and defiant brushwork pioneered in works like Nature morte avec pivoines de chine et mandoline, Gauguin soon became a leading figure in the Post-Impressionist movement.

Culture, Food, History, Restaurants, Reviews, Videos

Food: The History Of Los Angeles Sushi Restaurants

Leave a comment

Los Angeles Times Food (May 16, 2023) – Times writer Daniel Miller spent nearly eight years researching the origins of sushi in Los Angeles. In 2022, Daniel met with Gil Asakawa, an author and journalist who writes specifically on the Japanese-American experience, to find the location of L.A.’s first sushi bar. Along the way, the two stop by several restaurants and locations in Little Tokyo to look into the evolution of sushi.

Arts, Culture, History, Magazines, Previews, Reviews, Travel

Arts/History: Smithsonian Magazine – June 2023

Leave a comment
Smithsonian Magazine The Art of Memory June 2023 image 1

Smithsonian Magazine – June Issue

Artist Joseph Stella Painted Nature in Vibrant Color

Opener - Flowers

Cities weren’t the only subject that fascinated this acclaimed Futurist

By Amy Crawford

He famously captured industrial America—the Brooklyn Bridge, Pittsburgh’s steel mills—with his monumental canvases. But the painter Joseph Stella (1877-1946) looked to nature for respite, escaping his Manhattan studio to visit the New York Botanical Garden and to paint in southern Italy, where he grew up. “My devout wish,” the artist wrote, “[is] that my every working day might begin and end—as a good omen—with the light, gay painting of a flower.”

Anne Frank’s Childhood Friend Recalls Their Years Before the Holocaust

After fleeing her native Germany, a young Jew found companionship and community as the Nazis approached

Animals, History, Nature, Reviews, Television, Tributes, Videos

BBC Tributes: Sir David Attenborough Turns 97

Video Leave a comment

BBC (May 8, 2023) – Sir David Attenborough was born in London on May 8, 1926 and educated at Wyggeston Grammar School, Leicester, and Clare College, Cambridge where he took an honours degree in Natural Sciences. He did two years National Service in the Royal Navy and then spent some time on the editorial side of the University of London Press.

Sir David’s broadcasting career spans over 50 years. It began in 1952 when he joined BBC Television as a trainee and then became a producer working in the studios of Alexandra Palace in north London, from which the world’s first television service was broadcast. 

Culinary Arts, Food & Drink, History, Hospitality, Reviews, Videos

Food: How The Michelin Guide Rates Restaurants

Video Leave a comment

CBS Sunday Morning (May 7, 2023) – First published in France in 1900, The Michelin Guide has been awarding stars to restaurants for about 100 years. Today, it rates the work of chefs around the world, including in the United States.

Correspondent Kelefa Sanneh talks with an anonymous Michelin restaurant inspector, and with chefs at a restaurant with a coveted Michelin star.

Art, Arts & Literature, History, Profiles, Videos

Artists: French-American Artist Louise Bourgeois’ Iconic “Spider” Sculpture

Video Leave a comment

Sotheby’s (May 6, 2023) – Fraught with chilling grandeur, Spider from 1996 is the ultimate embodiment of Louise Bourgeois’ singular contribution to the history of Modern Art.

Among the earliest monumental iterations of Bourgeois’ Spiders, the present work represents the absolute zenith of her artistic practice and the most ambitious embodiment of her signature motif; decades later, her towering Spiders stand among the most iconic sculptures of the twentieth century.

In its elegant yet otherworldly presence, Bourgeois’ spellbinding Spider speaks to the conceptual concerns at the very heart of her oeuvre: an unflinching confrontation of her own emotions and psyche, translated into sculptural form.