“Over the last several months, collectors of movie memorabilia have been rocked by claims that a Georgia-based collector, Kerry T. Haggard, has corrupted what had been seen as a relatively safe market for classic horror film posters by selling or trading forgeries of the promotional art for pictures like “Frankenstein,” “Dracula” and “The Mummy.”
Tag: 09.27.09
The De-Accessioning Wars Come To England
The national Museums Association has warned the city of Southampton to reconsider selling more than £5m worth of what the council calls “the family artwork” – a Rodin sculpture and a painting by Alfred Munnings – to help fund a museum devoted to the Titanic.
George S. Kaufman’s Shows: Still Funny After More Than 50 Years
“He and his collaborators instinctively recognized that pop culture and the manufacturing of pop culture was fast becoming one of America’s primary obsessions. They probably could not know that it would also became one of the country’s most profitable and world-dominant exports.”
Let’s Hold Back A Bit On The Dudamania, Okay?
Mark Swed: “[W]e must be cautious with our expectations. [Gustavo] Dudamel is not going to walk on water and he is not going to single-handedly save an art form that has no need of life support. Indeed, were classical music so irrelevant to our times and needs, it could never have produced a Dudamel.”
Lord Byron’s Letters: Get Yours Now!
“Sotheby’s is to auction the most important series of Byron letters to come to the market in more than 30 years, some of them unpublished. They were purchased by a former prime minister, the Earl of Rosebery, in 1885 and have remained with the family ever since.” They contain just the sort of gossipy goodies you’d expect.
NY Times‘s Chief Classical Critic Comes Out As Streisand Freak
Anthony Tommasini: “For me her ability to shape a phrase with velvety legato and find the right expressive coloring for each note and each word is the epitome of cultured vocalism.” La Barbra tells him that she never thought much about vocal technique: “I did it intuitively, unconsciously. I kind of like that.”
Ten More GOP Senators Pile On NEA
“Ten Republican senators have written to National Endowment for the Arts chairman Rocco Landesman, expressing concern that the Obama administration may have violated federal law by trying to use the agency for political purposes – something the White House and NEA have denied.”
China Produces A Crop Of Guerrilla Filmmakers
Using inexpensive digital cameras and editing software, a number of independent director-producers are working outside the limits of Chinese law, “provid[ing] unusual ground-level views of China that possess an unvarnished authenticity often missing from mainstream, government-sanctioned films.”
Chicago Lyric’s Orchestra Plays On Despite Labor Dispute (For Now)
The musicians did turn up in the pit for Saturday night’s season-opening gala, despite the fact that their last contract expired in April and negotiations for a new one broke down Friday. The players want a four-year agreement with givebacks now and payback later; Lyric management wants to wait out the recession with a single-year contract with a wage freeze.
Francis Mason, 88, Cultural Diplomat And Dance Advocate
“He emerged as a dance writer in the 1950s; more than 50 years later he was still at work in the dance field,” as editor of the magazine Ballet Review. Perhaps more importantly, ” as a knowledgeable cultural attaché in American embassies, he furthered the careers of many famous dance figures, notably George Balanchine and Martha Graham.”