Category: visual

So, Manet’s “off-the-cuff spontaneity” took a little more work than he, and art historians following his words, ever claimed. “Most of these things seem to have been traced from more searching and careful drawings that he’d made in his sketchbooks. He would take semi-transparent letter paper, lay it down over a sketchbook page, trace that design with a wash of grey watercolour and then basically colour it in with watercolour.” – The Observer (UK)

The staffers walked a picket line in front of the former Scottish Rite Temple on Friday. “We’re here to work! We want to work!” they chanted, and “Let us in! Let us in! Let us in!” – Los Angeles Times

“We need to think about how we regulate these institutions. And maybe ask, why are they tax exempt to begin with? Are the benefits outweighing the costs to the public?” The Marciano situation has also highlighted issues of pay equity at museums, which frequently have a coterie of well-remunerated administrators at the top, followed by a much larger subset of poorly paid workers at the bottom, many part time. – Los Angeles Times

In the $450 million project announced four years ago, two smaller buildings and a plaza have already been added to the MFAH’s campus. The expansion’s centerpiece, the 183,528-square foot Kinder Building, is now scheduled to open next fall, with a grand atrium, two conference rooms, a 200-seat auditorium, a pair of restaurants, and 15 galleries. – Houston Chronicle

The scope of the destruction is stunning: 89 medieval churches, 5,840 khachkars and 22,000 tombstones, the report said. The annihilation of cultural heritage dwarfs the more widely reported and condemned razing of sites by Islamic State in Syria and the Taliban in Afghanistan. – Los Angeles Times

For just $76 per person, you can take a guided tour through the halls of the Vatican after the crowds have gone home. Tour groups now arrange affordable, intimate nighttime visits to the heart of Vatican City. – Artnet

A tersely worded email sent to employees at 6:13 p.m. Tuesday stated that attendance was low and that the museum would be closing its current exhibition effective Wednesday. – Los Angeles Times

“Paris’s National Picasso Museum and the Giacometti Foundation are teaming up to manage the new institution for at least the first five years, from June 2020 through June 2025. (After that, they may extend the partnership or hand the museum over to Chinese management.) The institution will present up to four exhibitions each year.” – Artnet

Cave art had a profound effect on its twentieth-century viewers, including the young discoverers of Lascaux, at least one of whom camped at the hole leading to the cave over the winter of 1940–41 to protect it from vandals and perhaps Germans. More illustrious visitors had similar reactions. – The Baffler