A new exhibit at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Arts provides a survey of the portraits of America’s first president and war hero, General George Washington. 15 of the most famous and interesting likenesses are the work of the American master Gilbert Stuart, and behind the series lies a fascinating tale of the evolution of an artistic relationship between painter and subject. Washington was not an easy personality to capture on canvas, but over the years, Stuart managed to break down the president’s defenses, and earn the trust of the most powerful man in a new country.
Tag: 11.04.04
Ballet Master Thompson Dies
Basil Thompson, the acclaimed former ballet master of Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet and soloist with the American Ballet Theater, has died of sudden cardiac arrest at age 67. Thompson was on the dance faculty of the University of Iowa, and had recently consulted on the Joffrey’s revival of “Petrouchka”.
Christie’s Auction Nets $128 mil
A 1904 Monet oil painting of the British Parliament has sold at auction for $20 million. “It was the first time the painting – titled Londres, le Parlement, Effet de Soleil dans le Brouillard – had been offered on the open market. The sale, which also included works by Miro and Van Gogh, fetched a total of $128.2m.”
Dublin’s Historic Abbey Theatre Struggles (And On Its Birthday)
Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, “associated with the greats of Irish culture, including W B Yeats, Augusta Gregory, Sean O’Casey and J M Synge, is embroiled in an off-stage drama which rivals its front-of-house productions. Mounting debts, disastrous box-office numbers and a very public row between board members and the theatre’s creative director, Ben Barnes, have rather overshadowed the festival to celebrate the founding of what was intended as a cornerstone of Irish cultural and artistic life.”
Culture Lottery – Ten Years Of Good Work
“In England, £1.86bn of lottery money has been pumped into the arts over the past decade, £1.3bn of which has been capital investment to create 100 new venues and refurbish 500 others. The arts councils in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have disbursed another £400m, and the UK film industry has received over £100m. The arts – museums in particular – have also been able to tap into huge amounts of cash from the millennium fund and heritage fund, taking the investment into the stratosphere. No wonder Arts Council England (ACE) wants to blow its own trumpet.”
Protests Over Graham Greene Bio
The last installment of Norman Sherry’s massive biography of Graham Greene was supposed to be a victory lap for the biographer. But “members of Greene’s family are furious that Mr. Sherry – who had exclusive access to many of the author’s papers – chose to highlight Greene’s fondness for prostitutes and his sordid sexual pursuits. The new volume has received widespread praise in the United States, but critics in England have condemned its unconventional style and are livid. Mr. Sherry has interjected himself into the narrative, dropped in bits of his own poetry, even included a picture of himself riding on a donkey in Mexico as he retraced Greene’s research for the novel The Power and the Glory.”
The Last-Ever Studio Opera Recording?
Studio recording of opera is almost exactly a century old. A new recording of Tristan now underway is “almost certain to prove the last commercial audio recording of an opera to be made in a studio. With the market shrinking and media formats changing, the figures just can’t be made to add up. In a broader cultural perspective, how much does this matter?”