The American Institute of Architects last week announced that Steven Holl would receive its 2012 Gold Medal. The New York City-based architect has taught at Columbia for almost 40 years, and designed projects in Europe, the United States, and China. One critic has written that “you don’t just walk through a Holl building. You embark [...]
Thursday, December 1, 2011
One of Venice’s most famous attractions was unveiled Wednesday following a three year $3.74 million restoration. This marked the first time in a century that the 400 year-old Bridge of Sighs (Ponte dei Sospiri) had undergone renovation. The project attracted some controversy, as the scaffolding placed at the site had been covered with paid advertising. [...]
Monday, November 15, 2010
Last Friday, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts previewed its new wing of art from the Americas. It will house more than 5,000 pieces, allowing the MFA to more than double its collection of American work on exhibit. Construction on the $345 million 21,000-square-foot wing began five years ago. Most of the museum’s artwork from pre-Colombian [...]
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Harvey Pekar, who chronicled his depressive, obsessive-compulsive life in the comic book series “American Splendor,” died yesterday in Cleveland at age 70. A retired VA hospital file clerk, Pekar began writing strips in 1972, his first being illustrated by underground comic book artist R. Crumb, whom he cited as a strong influence. Pekar, who also [...]
Monday, January 25, 2010
In an effort to solve the mystery of who inspired the Mona Lisa, Italian researchers have reached an agreement in principle with French cultural authorities to exhume the body of Leonardo da Vinci. His remains are interred at a chateau in the Loire Valley. If Leonardo’s skull is found, experts can recreate his face, and compare it [...]
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Jennifer Jones, Oscar-winning actress and Norton Simon Museum chair emeritus, died today at age 90. Jones, whose film career began in the 1930s, won an Academy Award for 1943′s “Song of Bernadette,” in the role as a French peasant girl who has apparitions of the Virgin Mary. Jones’ third marriage was to industrialist and art [...]
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Over a period of 33 years, Italian immigrant Simon “Sam” Rodia built a series of structures in the Watts neighborhood of L.A. Adorned with bits of tile, pottery, colored bottle glass, and shells, the Watts Towers were saved from demolition fifty years ago. In spite of official declarations that they were unsafe, the towers passed [...]
Friday, September 11, 2009
In 1994, as part of a facilities expansion project, the Palos Verdes Library District commissioned Gwynn Murrill to create original artwork for the Peninsula Center Library. The results were two bronze cheetahs and a carved limestone column. Murrill is best known for her three-dimensional sculpture, and the Library cheetahs are an abstracted idea of the [...]
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
An Australian sculptor has planned and supervised the building of 32 “land art” projects on five continents over the past ten years. The geoglyphs are formed from tens of thousands of tons of stones. Andrew Rogers was inspired by ancient America’s mound-builders, and by Peru’s Nazca lines. Rogers involves as many as 5,000 local people [...]
Friday, January 30, 2009
On Monday, Madrid’s Museo Nacional del Prado attributed “Colossus,” a work long thought to have been painted by Francisco de Goya, to one of his apprentices. The work, of a giant striding the earth as terrified villagers flee, may have been inspired by Spain’s wars with Napoleon in the early 19th century. A major attraction at [...]
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
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