Dora Maar, Long Known As Picasso’s Muse, Gets Her Own Billing Now

When Maar died at 89, Le Monde forgot to give her an obit until 10 days later, and The Independent said she’d be remembered forever as Picasso’s muse and his Weeping Woman. Now the photographer is getting her own shows, and they’re big – and meaningful: “The sense is of a curtain being pulled back. Forget those Picasso portraits: here is how Dora Maar actually wanted to be seen.” – The Guardian (UK)

Carol Brightman, The Chronicler Of The Dead, Has Died At 80

Brightman first published an acclaimed biography of Mary McCarthy, and edited the letters between Hannah Arendt and McCarthy, before she started to become fascinated by the world of the Grateful Dead and the band’s fans. “‘Deadheads are everywhere and nowhere,’ she wrote, ‘so much a part of American life as to appear almost invisible.'” – The New York Times

Disney Spent A Lot Of Money And A Quarter-Century Getting The Internet Wrong

Kara Swisher has been writing about companies and the internet for even longer than Disney has been trying to figure out how to deal with the contemporary world. Swisher: “Forget the dashing Mandalorian. Do you remember Starwave? Infoseek? Go? Daily Blast? Spoonful.com? Club Penguin? Tapulous? Maker Studios? I’d like to say I don’t either, but I know them very well. They were among the many failed efforts by Disney that I have covered as a reporter since the mid-1990s, when it became clear to Disney that this internet thing just might be a big deal.” – The New York Times

‘Setting Us Up To Fail’: More Than One-Quarter Of Australia’s Arts Organizations To Lose Federal Funding

This week is the application deadline for the next four-year round (2021-24) of Australia Council for the Arts funding for small-to-medium organizations, a category which includes all groups but the largest (such as Opera Australia, the Australian Ballet, and the state capitals’ major symphony orchestras and theatre companies). Hundreds of those organizations have already been eliminated, and of those remaining, the Council says that up to 60% will be unsuccessful. Project-to-project finding will still be available, but it has been slashed in recent years. – The Guardian