About MsSusanB

Arts and technology writer who is in the know about the latest and greatest that New York City – and other places in the country – have to offer and the fossils that are being dug up around the world

World Wide Web (and Weft) of Past Centuries at The Met

Posted on December 23, 2013 by MsSusanB

1730s Dutch brocaded satin, featuring exotic Asian islands and fauna, was refashioned into a more fashionable French frock in 1770. Source: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The Elizabeth Day McCormick Collection

1730s Dutch brocaded satin showing exotic Asian islands and fauna was refashioned in 1770 into a more fashionable French look. Source: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

A joyous collaboration among eight departments of the Metropolitan Museum of Art has written a new history of how a global network of fabric trade and manufacture once served the same purpose that YouTube, music videos, shelter magazines, Vogue, and The New York Times Style section do today – to present images of the latest trends and make anyone in the world that sees them understand the clothes or accessories needed to be “on trend” with other sophisticates.

Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500–1800, running through January 5, tells a monumental story about how trends went viral pre-Internet. It was a slower world dominated by sailing ships versus transoceanic cables, but the tale spanning centuries, continents, and cultures shows how gorgeous garments, incredible tapestries, bedazzled church vestments, quilted bedding, luxurious wall hangings, tour-de-force printed fabrics, and royal furniture telegraphed “trend” in a different way.

Embroidered muslin dress and fichu. The 18th c. craze for Neoclassical across Europe drove massive imports of lighter-than-air Bengali muslin. Source: The Met

Embroidered muslin dress. The 18th c. European Neoclassical craze drove massive imports of airy Bengali muslin. Source: The Met

The show can’t fully be appreciated in just one walk-through. Each textile and garment is incredible to behold, and the network of interrelationships among craftsmen, artisans, tradesmen, royal buyers, rich merchants, and brave sailors traversing strange shores is equally rich, complex, and layered.

This two-dimensional pageant, enhanced by exquisite gowns and garments whose fabrics were sourced from the four corners of the globe, is given the full-bore treatment in the top-floor galleries reserved for blockbusters.

How do you tell a story this big? The curators decided to put a large interactive map of the 16th- to 18th-century trade routes right inside the door, which brings you up to speed on the French, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and British trade routes linking the Americas, India, the Orient, and islands.

Then come the galleries dedicated to the styles and fiber-tech associated with each – silks woven in China for Europe and Japan, Spanish embroideries that reference Islamic carpet borders, weavings made by Peruvian grand masters of the art, and Indian resist-dye masterpieces that turned into English chintz and fabrics for the King of Siam.

Japanese Jinbaori made from Dutch 17th century wool and Chinese silk, a luxury item worn over samurai armor. Source: John C. Weber Collection

17th c. Japanese Jinbaori made from Dutch wool and Chinese silk, a luxury item worn over samurai armor. Source: John C. Weber Collection

In the Spanish gallery, you’ll see how the crowned double-headed eagles of the Hapsburgs adopt kind of a Chinese-phoenix look when 16th-century Iberian traders commissioned silk artists in Macau to create silk they could sell back home. By the 17th century, everyone – East and West – had become accustomed to enjoying “exotic” images from halfway around the world – birds, animals, architecture, flowers, and landscapes. It had the same impact as Google Earth and World Wide Web access today.

One of the more startling facts is that before Commodore Perry “opened” Japan to the West (ref. Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures, the musical), Japan was more into luxury-goods consumption than production. Apparently, the trend was to import the ultra-luxury, Dutch wool, and make it into topcoats that Samurai warriors could drape over their armor.

If you don’t see this in person, visit the online exhibition site for an encounter that’s a real treat: You’ll get to zoom into each quilt, drape, embroidery, dress, shawl, and piece of fabric to see it all super-close.

A late-18th century Indian-chintz Dutch jacket that knocked-off a French designer jacket in pink French fabric. Both have similar exotic floral prints. Source: The Met

Click on the “full screen” button on each and toggle in to examine all of the glorious detail. The web site will tell you the story and show you the items in each gallery. You’ll be surprised to find the genesis of the fabrics-on-walls interior-decorating craze for country homes in the late 1700s and how men-only clubs adopted both plain and exotic dressing-gown dress from the Orient (a style also featured prominently in the current FIT show).

The King of Siam’s royal 18th century guard wore these resist-dye tunics. Fabrics were made in India and tailored in Siam. Source: Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

Magritte’s Surrealist Train Departing MoMA for Houston

Posted on December 21, 2013 by MsSusanB

Magritte’s 1938 oil, La durée poignardée (Time Transfixed) from The Art Institute of Chicago’s Winterbotham Collection. © Charly Herscovici ADAGP–ARS, 2013

One of the most recognizable trains in the history of modern art hasn’t left the station. It’s coming out of the wall at MoMA until January 12 as part of the tribute to Belgium’s only big-time Surrealist painter, Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926–1938. But don’t worry – this intriguing tribute chugs on, arriving at The Menil in Houston on Valentine’s Day (February 14) and at Chicago’s Art Institute on June 25. Catch it, because it’s loaded with new revelations, in person and on line.

In person: So many of paintings are icons of 20^th century art, that it’s shocking to think that one anarchic visual artist had the chops to turn out so many great works in such a relatively short period of time. Walking through the first couple of galleries, you’ll recognize many famous images, but check out the dates on the labels: 40 were done in just his first three years in Paris between 1927 and 1929! He was so prolific, it makes you wonder when he made time to hang out at cafes, discuss dreams, and publish with Breton and the rest of the crew.

Jasper Johns owns the small version of Magritte’s 1935 oil La clef des songes (The Interpretation of Dreams), which uses English. © Charly Herscovici ADAGP–ARS, 2013. Photograph: Jerry Thompson

Jasper Johns owns the small English version of Magritte’s 1935 oil La clef des songes (The Interpretation of Dreams). © Charly Herscovici ADAGP–ARS, 2013. Photo: Jerry Thompson

Magritte liked making the familiar unfamiliar, playing with fact and fiction, probing dreams and reality, and appropriating pop culture into an art context.

Like Andy Warhol, Magritte began as an ad illustrator, and MoMA’s curators have included a few of his early fashion illustrations. It’s surprising to know that phrases that he injected onto his canvas (like “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”) were written in a script that was one of the most recognizable fonts used in European newspaper and magazine ads in the Twenties.

Was appreciation of Magritte’s ground-breaking cultural appropriation and subversion lost on our own American Pop pantheon? Not really, and the evidence is that one of the best examples of Magritte’s sly presentation of an everyday-object grid with ironic words was lent by the midcentury grandmaster, Jasper Johns.

So much contemporary pop culture and advertising art has reinterpreted, reimagined, and referenced Mr. Magritte’s images that it’s easy to forget that they rocked the world in the Twenties. His reverberation with our beloved 1960s Pop masters (and this show) reminds us that Mr. Magritte truly blazed an innovation pathway in taking the everyday and turning it into art.

MoMA discovered something lurking beneath the surface of its Magritte’s 1936 oil, Le portrait (The Portrait). Gift of Kay Sage Tanguy. © Charly Herscovici ADAGP–ARS, 2013

MoMA discovered something historic lurking under Magritte’s 1936 , Le portrait (The Portrait). Gift of Kay Sage Tanguy. © Charly Herscovici ADAGP–ARS, 2013

And speaking of pioneering, check out the amazing interactive site that lets us enter Magritte’s mind; learn how he turned nature, desire, dreams, language, and symbols into troubling, evocative, subversive works; and see the behind-the-scenes conservation and curatorial work. The beautiful, musical experience is designed by Hello Monday, and should probably win a Webby Award. See it now.

You’ll see how MoMA took off the old varnish, examined the canvases under ultra-violet light, and did detective work of which Magritte and his silent-movie-icon inspiration, Fantômas, would be proud.

Spend time letting each painting’s mini-site load into your browser window, click to hear the curators talk, and keep scrolling down to see what the conservators discovered. You can even toggle back and forth to see the surface of the painting and X-ray.

As a preview, here’s the YouTube video about the “lost” Magritte painting that conservator Cindy Albertson found lurking underneath The Portrait.

And while you’re at it, you might take a minute to see what technology was at work in possibly Magritte’s most famous image:

FIT’s Fresh Take on History via Monocles, Wigs, and Gowns

Posted on December 16, 2013 by MsSusanB

1924 short-hair, no-hips “boy” look with the signifying monocle.

FIT’s powerful exhibition, A Queer History of Fashion: From the Closet to the Catwalk, throws open the window on what the curators felt was an untold story, and they’ve done history proud — creating a show and website featuring key clothing, points of view, and socio-political breakthroughs during more than 250 years of LGBT history. Visit before January 4.

If you think you know everything about fashion, peruse FIT’s downstairs gallery (or the website) and see how quickly you learn a new angle, a clue, or an insight from the context in which the curators tell their story – a style, epaulet, pattern, tie, mod look, or detail that conveys entirely new meaning.

Right at the foot of the stairs, you’re confronted with side-by-side late 19^th century and early 20^th sartorial clues sported by the era’s elegant lesbians and gay dandies – shirt collars and ties and Mr. Wilde’s telltale green carnation.

The suit that Andy had made in Hong Kong in 1956 on his first trip abroad compared to his super-hip King of Pop 1960s uniform.

Entering the main gallery, you’ll meet monocled ladies of 1920s Montmartre posing in the “boy look” that went viral throughout the Twenties. Yes, the short hair and mode de le garçonne was adopted by every flapper in the world, but the curators link these changes to trends first sported in scandalous Parisian same-sex clubs.

The clothes tell story after story of how iconic fashion trends were first incubated within gay subcultures – Gernreich’s unisex caftans in the 1960s, YSL channeling Marlene’s tuxes into his 70s “Le Smoking” looks, leather trends in the 80s, and Versace’s bondage dresses in the 90s.

The mannequins have often been touched up with accessories and wigs to evoke innovators and eras, such as the two wigged Warhols, including his striped T and skinny jeans look that seems so “now”.

Other clothes suggest additional narratives: slinky glamour gowns channeling a gay designer’s obsession with feminine ideals, camp queen adaptation of exaggerated feminine points of glory, pre- and post-Stonewall sartorial identity, and even what people are wearing today for their same-sex wedding ceremonies.

Naomi flaunting Gianni’s 1992 bondage-inspired leather couture.

So many stories, so little time. The security guards literally had to turn the lights off last Saturday night (when FIT closes at 5pm) because the throngs of captivated museum-goers simply didn’t want to leave with so much yet to absorb – Dietrich’s cross-dressing wardrobe on loan from Berlin’s film museum, a Charles James gown from Doris Duke, a Halston provided by Lauren Bacall, the iconic CK underwear billboard image from Times Square, Larry Kramer’s YSL Rive Gauche suit from the 70s, a Mugler-designed gown for chanteuse Joey Arias, and Ru Paul’s red vinyl…well, outfit.

And we haven’t even touched upon the Versace section filled with his Warhol patterns, studded leather, and Baroque-print fantasies. One fan confided that it was her second time because the visuals, details, and narratives were so much to take in.

If you can’t get there before January 4, check out the clothing, concepts, oral histories, and historic timeline on line and yak about it on Facebook.

From Mr. McQueen’s Plato’s Atlantis collection, 2010.

Hear what inspired curators Valerie Steele and Fred Dennis in this 6-minute Culture Beat episode, and go to FIT’s YouTube site to hear what 20 designers, celebs, and academics had to say at FIT’s symposium on the queer history of fashion.

Here’s Simon Doonan of Barney’s (think windows) talking about how gay style had an impact on the 1960s look on Carnaby Street (so, that’s where those flowered shirts came from!), why overt visual influences are not so evident today, and why the next generation needs to learn about the “fallen heroes” of the late 20th century design community.

When Whales Walked Explained at AMNH

Posted on December 11, 2013 by MsSusanB

Whales exhibit tells the evolution story. Courtesy: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

Right inside the exhibit, Whales: Giants of the Deep, the American Museum of Natural History answers two questions that have stumped centuries of nature lovers – how did the world’s largest sea-loving mammals ever evolve from land animals, and who are their closest relatives?

In the last 20 years, DNA experts and paleontologists have been hacking away at these questions, and the show provides some startling visuals and answers: Whales (a group that includes dolphins and porpoises) came from four-legged animals that hovered close to shore lines, snapping up fish. Oh, and their closest relatives on the Mammal Tree of Life are…get ready…hippos. See the show before January 5.

Clue to solving the mystery – the skull of Andrewsarchus, three feet long, found in 1923 by Kan Chuen Pao on AMNH’s second Gobi expedition. Courtesy: AMNH/R. Mickens

The first thing you’ll see is a massive skull of Andrewsarchus, a 45-million-year-old whale cousin, who would have stood over six feet tall at the shoulder. He was found in Mongolia on the famous AMNH Central Asiatic Expedition in the 1920s (remember the dinosaur eggs?) and to this day is the only one found.

The paleo team compared the features on his skull to other mammals, ran their analysis through cladistics software, generated a family tree, and learned that Andrewsarchus falls somewhere near the evolutionary point where whales and hippos had a common ancestor, a key clue.

Artist Carl Buell’s depiction of Pakicetus, the oldest known ancestor to whales

A huge discovery in Northern Pakistan in 1983 began to unlock the rest of the mystery. Found in 50-million-year-old Eocene rocks, remains of the enigmatic, four-legged, fish-eating Pakicetus were discovered at the edge of what was once an ancient sea. It was deemed by scientists to be the earliest known modern-whale ancestor. Many specimens were unearthed, with ear bones looking like modern-day dolphins, but ankle bones more like a pig’s, giving scientists a reason to place his ancestry in the “artiodactyl” category, which includes hippos, pigs, antelopes, camels, and other even-toed hoofed animals. Subsequent finds and DNA analysis of modern whales further solidified the hippo-relation hypothesis.

Cladogram showing family relationships of whales and artiodactyls from the AMNH guide for students in grades 6-8

The show includes a full replica of his skeleton, along with other fossils from the subcontinent showing the transition of four-legged wolf-sized animals to the streamlined bodies that we now associate with ocean- and river-going cetaceans. You’ll see a terrific video that animates the transition from longer-snouted, web-footed fish-eaters that paddled through estuaries (Ambulocetus), to more streamlined sea-going mammals whose front legs became flippers and back legs disappeared nearly completely. Kutchicetus (43-46 million years ago) shows evidence that it probably did some deep dives, and Durudon (37 mya) had nostrils at the top of his head, flipper-hands, and apparatus at the end of his tail that suggests a support for flukes.

A clue from India. Artist Carl Buell’s depiction of Kutchicetus, dweller in ancient tropical seas

A clue from India. Artist Carl Buell’s depiction of Kutchicetus, who lived in ancient tropical seas

The show was originally organized by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, and features a mix of AMNH and Te Papa artifacts and insights.

There are many other wonderful biological, historical, and cultural details to the whale story, as the YouTube below shows (84K hits and counting), but shout-outs must be given to the two stars — large Sperm whale skeletons (think Moby Dick) on display, lovingly named and transported here by the Maoris, who found the stranded duo, prepared, and blessed them for special appearance in New York.

Sporting Pastels in Winter

Posted on December 8, 2013 by MsSusanB

Coypel’s large 1743 double portrait – quite a masterwork in pastel, chalk, and watercolor on four joined sheets of handmade blue paper, mounted on canvas.

Most of the subjects are sporting pastels, but a few are wearing brilliant hues that haven’t faded over time in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s micro-show, Eighteenth-Century Pastels. The show is sort-of hidden away at the top of the grand stairs in Gallery 624 in the European painting galleries through December 29.

It’s a confessional of sorts. The Met admits that it’s given star status to the pastel drawings of 19^th-century luminaries Cassatt, Degas, and Manet for nearly a century (thank you, Mrs. Havemeyer!), but only recently started acquiring the pastel artists who were genuinely the masters of the craft – the pastelists of the 18^th century, who catered to kings and royalty.

The drawings are brilliant, but the lights are dim in the gallery to preserve the fragile medium. It’s ironic that the colors still sing after hundreds of years since they’re only bits of colored dust hanging on to delicate, handmade blue paper.

Check out the detail on Coypel’s lace.

It’s why the sheer size of Coypel’s gigantic pastel/watercolor 1743 portrait of François de Jullienne and his wife is such a wonder. We’ve clipped some of the detail here to show how the ball of yarn, lace cuffs, and necklaces virtually leap off the paper due to their incredible detail. Is this really just a chalk drawing? No wonder that pastels at that time carried the prestige of fine oil paintings in the best homes of Europe.

Although you have to peek around the other side of this panel, the Met has also given a view into how the magic happened.

The curators display a rare 1810-20 cabinet that shows how pastel artists arranged their medium, color by color, in cabinet drawers made specifically to hold the chalk and pastel crayons. The artist would draw within arm’s length of the cabinet, reaching for whatever subtle shade he or she felt appropriate to create the lifelike illusions.

The tiny show has striking works by Mr. La Tour, a favorite of Madame de Pompadour who obviously had access to the inner circle. Near a beautiful portrait of her architect hangs a small, intimate portrait of Louis XV – a preparatory work for a later portrait that shows off La Tour’s of-the-moment quality. He was known for his spontaneous life drawings, and this seemingly natural portrait shows why he received so much patronage.

Apparently, La Tour had seven drawers in his studio cabinet and collected hundreds of crayons from the finest makers in Europe.

La Tour’s 1745 small pastel, Préparation for a Portrait of Louis XV, gives royalty the natural treatment

Enjoy his work, Wright’s stunning black-and-white portrait of a British “girl with an earring”, and the most adorable Italian boy and girl in the world at the top of the stairs.

Meet American Legends at The Whitney

Posted on December 5, 2013 by MsSusanB

Charles Demuth’s precisionist take on the grain elevators in his hometown, My Egypt, 1927.

Five reasons to cozy up with the stars in the American Art Walk of Fame in the Whitney’s top-floor show, American Legends: From Calder to O’Keefe before December 15 when they come down to make room for the next batch of legends from the Whitney’s massive collection:

#1: Charles Demuth. See how he turned the industrial landscape of his Lancaster, Pennsylvania hometown and flowers from his garden into magic. Experience Demuth’s oil, My Egypt, a pristine oil that looks like it was painted yesterday. He captures the monumentality of the local grain elevators and uses his title to channel the greatest architectural feats of the ancient world. The beautiful floral watercolors were some of Ms. Whitney’s favorites.

A Joseph Stella masterpieces: The Brooklyn Bridge: Variation on an Old Theme, 1939.

#2: Joseph Stella’s interpretation of 1930s New York, including one of his best-known works, The Brooklyn Bridge: Variation on an Old Theme, 1939. Here, the painting evokes a cathedral’s stained glass window but it’s actually a love letter to the iconic structure that he painted so many times in his career. If you’ve never walked across this bridge, listen to a civil engineer interpret Mr. Stella’s work on the Whitney’s audio guide.

#3: Immersion into bygone New York. Check out Coney Island’s main attraction in 1913 via Mr. Stella’s Luna Park (here’s the audio). Also, the show has many Reginald Marsh works of life during the depression, including Why Not Take the “L”?, and the original “ten cents a dance” girls in his 1933 portrait of taxi dancers.

#4: The whimsy of sculptor Elie Nadelman, whose large, rounded, folk-art-inspired figurative sculptures could certainly work in Mr. Calder’s crazy circus (which is here, too), if they could only be shrunk down to fit into his tiny, tiny circus ring.

Reginald Marsh asks commuters a question in Why Not Use the “L”?, 1930

Mr. Nadelman looms large in the Whitney collection, and it’s nice to have a great, big room to dance around all his sculpted people.

#5: Georgia O’Keefe shares a gallery room with Marsden Hartley, a nice pairing of visual mystics captivated by symbols, nature, mysterious abstractions, and the evocative power of landscapes.

There’s a lot to enjoy about many of the other featured legends, so hurry over to drink in the colors of Stuart Davis, watercolors of John Marin, the sharp visions of Ralston Crawford, and eight other anchors of the Whitney collection.

Stella’s 1913 take on the magic of Coney Island’s main attraction, Luna Park

Who will be featured next on the top floor? We’ll see who the curators pick on December 21, when they reveal their next group of Legends.

Artistic and Ethnic Identities Explored in La Bienal at El Museo

Posted on December 2, 2013 by MsSusanB

Ethno Portrait Cultural Test Shot by Sean Paul Gallegos alongside Reserved Ancestry made from Air Jordans, Arrow collars, and fur.

Indian Removal Act Skeuomorph by Sean Paul Gallegos wearing Reserved Ancestry (on right) sculpted from Air Jordans, Arrow collars, and fur.

Get to know some of NYC’s best new artists by strolling through El Museo del Barrio’s La Bienal 2013 on the Upper East Side before January 4.

Full of fun, reality, street life, high-art provocation, and what it’s like to be an artist in 2013, the show has it all – installations, videos, performance-art artifacts, photographs, sculptures and even a tintype. Take a look at some of our favorites on the Flickr feed, and go to the excellent website for El Museo La Bienal 2013: Here is Where We Jump, the seventh edition of this working contemporary artist showcase, which explores both formal-art and ethnic identity issues.

Small detail of Ignazio Gonzalez-Lang’s Guess Who – a grid of 100 inkjet prints of police sketches that appeared in NYC newspapers papers. In this 2012 work, he arranged very similar portraits side by side.

Look closely at the pieces by Sean Paul Gallegos, an artist who considers himself a product of colonial ancestry (his father is Tiwa and Spanish from New Mexico and his mother is Cree and French from Canada). Gallegos juxtaposes his “anthropological” self-portrait with his Native American-inspired headdress made entirely out of cut-up Air Jordan sneakers, Arrow shirt collars, and fur.

A grid of 100 inkjet prints of police sketches by Ignazio Gonzalez-Lang, an NYC Puerto Rican artist, also puts identity to the test. For Guess Who, he’s collected police sketches that have appeared in New York City newspapers, slapped them into a grid, and arranged them in pairs that look all-too-similar. Super thought-provoking.

The Cortez Killer Cutz Radio installation by Eric Ramos Guerrero, a Philippines-born artist, also gets into your head but out of your comfort zone. It’s a full-size, two-room simulation of a Southern California hip hop/R&B radio station streaming late-night song dedications by girlfriends to their incarcerated boyfriends.

Close-up of the doll-artist contemplating her studio output in Julia San Martin’s Dollhouse

Julia San Martín’s Dollhouse, on the other hand, is a very tiny, detailed installation of a look into the mind and work of the artist. On a miniscule set of her studio, a doll-size painter works on her paintings and drawings, which the Chilean-born artist often rearranges and reshuffles to mimic the working life and consternation of deciding what to paint and what to show.

RISD-trained Gabriela Salazar also looks inward to her studio experience, but in a more formal way. As an artist that often creates large-scale constructed works in the community, she’s taken the remainders of some of her projects – wood shims, foam, cardboard, felt, rope, and wire – and turned them into tiny-scale minimal masterworks, all displayed in a type of “gallery show within a show.”

Ramón Miranda Beltrán’s historic documents cast in concrete, featuring President McKinley’s treaties that gave Guam and the Philippines to the US after the Spanish-American War

And be sure to look for Gabriela Scopazzi’s hilarious Amarilla video where she seranades a captivated group of llamas with an aria. (Sorry, it’s for in-person viewing only and not on the web.)

Work through the show’s website to see more of each artist’s work and learn more about what makes them tick.

Met’s YouTube Star Seeks Holiday Friends

Posted on November 27, 2013 by MsSusanB

Mr. Roentgen's Berlin Secretary Cabinet, the viral NYC museum YouTube sensation, awaiting visitors in Met Gallery 553

Mr. Roentgen’s Berlin Secretary Cabinet, the viral NYC museum YouTube sensation, awaits visitors in Met’s Gallery 553

It’s lonely at the top. More specifically, it’s lonely in the Metropolitan Museum’s Gallery 553, where one of the biggest YouTube stars in NYC museum history is holding court until January 26 – David Roentgen’s Berlin Secretary Cabinet, which has racked up 4.4 million hits since his show, Extravagant Inventions, closed last January.

That’s right. A piece of mechanical furniture has 4.4 million YouTube fans (in addition to 13K on the Met’s own website) – quite an achievement since it had only around 200,000 when its show closed. It’s not the only piece of mechanical furniture to gain big YouTube numbers (another has over 91K), but to put the Cabinet’s achievement in perspective, consider that the Met’s McQueen video has only racked up 72,000 views in the two years since that blockbuster ended.

The crowds were crazy for the 18^th-century marquetry extravaganza (see our earlier post), and the Met asked the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin if it could keep the YouTube star a little longer.

The Cabinet’s video, displayed also in the gallery, has gone viral with 4.4M views

The Met dedicated a cozy corner of its First Floor to the Cabinet and some of its other pieces from Mr. Roentgen’s studio — a rolltop desk and tall clock from the Met’s own collection, and a mechanical table lent by the Cooper-Hewitt. Take a closer look on our Flickr feed.

But every time we pass by, the Cabinet seems a little lonely. The Met says it’s likely the most expensive piece of furniture ever manufactured (there were only three), but it seems like the Fabergé eggs in the hallway are getting all the foot traffic. Yes, they’re beautiful, but a piece of marquetry that’s gone viral is something that deserves some in-person praise.

During the holidays, just hang a left at the Christmas tree. Look for a tall stately Cabinet in a gallery on the right after you pass through the European Sculpture Court and before the rooftop elevator. Spend a little time with the star before he decamps the Big Apple for Berlin.

Roentgen’s Rolltop Desk also has its own video and has 59,000 YouTube fans of its own

If you want to see the Roentgens in performance, the Met’s hosting a gallery talk and demo of the mechanical furniture at 2:30pm in Gallery 553 on December 17 and January 14

The Cabinet’s mega-hit video (produced by the Berlin museum, but posted by the Met) is also on display in the gallery — no people, no curators, no talking, no cats…just subtitles, a human hand wielding a key, and the magnificent magic of Mr. Roentgen. Hold on for the hidden easel.

Oldest Painted Theater Curtain in America on View in NC

Posted on November 25, 2013 by MsSusanB

The original 1858 William Russell Smith drop curtain, displayed in Thalian Hall’s Parquet Hall

Lincoln was prepping for his sixth debate with Douglas in Illinois when the curtain went up on October 12, 1858 at Thalian Hall in Wilmington, North Carolina – the same curtain, still on display, that is considered to be the oldest existing theater drop in America, painted by Philadelphia-trained landscape artist William Russell Smith.

Back in the 1850s, major theaters up and down the East Coast were in pursuit of the classically trained Smith to create romantic, ethereal landscape images on the gigantic canvas curtains that audiences saw when they entered opera houses. Typically framed by an ornate proscenium, the drop transported theatergoers to the work of make-believe, Moliere, and Macbeth – staples of the touring companies and troupes of the time.

Detail of original drop curtain, done in distemper on 30-foot canvas

Detail of 1858 curtain, distemper on a 30-foot canvas

Today, except for Wilmington’s Thalian Hall treasure, those grand masterpieces are gone, victims of time, decay, and impermanence like the superstars of yesteryear. It’s quite a miracle that Thalian’s original curtain has still survived, considering that it’s not painted in oil, but distemper – a less permanent, water-soluable medium, essentially colors ground into glue. When an artist applies the wet pigment, he sees the opposite color, which gradually turns into the “true” color when the paint dries. It’s a process that could only be executed by a skilled master, particularly on a 30-foot wide canvas. The surface of the curtain holds the granules (like a piece of paper holds pastel fragments).

Wilmington, NC’s Thalian Hall, built 1855-1858, one of the oldest continuously operating theaters in the South

No wonder Smith purpose-built a huge studio in his home with poles that could be raised and lowered as he worked on a gigantic scale first with a charcoal sketch, then with distemper (move over, Chuck Close!). When Smith finished painting his commission, he carefully folded the canvas, rolled it on a long pole, and had it delivered to the opera house.

Thalian Hall received its long-distance delivery this way, because Smith never set foot in North Carolina. The new opera house was designed by New York architect John Trimble, who built Barnum’s Museum and many New York theaters of the mid-1800s, including the New Bowery. Smith’s curtain was the finishing touch, depicting an Aegean sailing ship arriving at classical islands filled with temples dedicated to Apollo, evoking commencement of the ancient Olympiad.

Detail of Thalian Hall’s beautifully restored proscenium and box

The curtain was in service from 1858 until 1909, when a restoration was planned. Historians know it was hung again by 1938 (see the photo in our Flickr feed). It got hurt a little in the 1940 WPA renovations, and was known to be back in place in 1947, but disappeared after 1963. It was rediscovered in 1979, when Mrs. Juanita Menick, the president of the board, told the new Thalian director that she might still have an old curtain that she took years ago to her home for safekeeping. Thank goodness for those large, Southern homes.

Although only 15 feet of the original 30-foot drop remained, tribute was paid to the historic artwork. The fragile canvas was used as part of the set for Thanlian Hall’s 125^th anniversary celebration, and now hangs, ready for its closeup, in the luxurious entry to the theater’s orchestra section.

Hear how executive director Tony Rivenbark rediscovered it, and watch historian David Rowland’s talk about the life of William Russell Smith (at 4:20), whose romantic landscapes of New England somewhat predated the Hudson River School; the imagery used in the magnificent theater curtains (at 30:22); and the astonishing discovery recently made in Smith’s grand studio (at 35:30) in this YouTube video.

Thalian Hall’s balconies and orchestra

You can read more about the historic theater on its website (and check out the video on Thalian’s “thunder roll” device, another “only remaining in America” theatrical wonder). Glimpse more of this theater’s grandeur and photos of the illustrious performers who have trod its boards on our Flickr feed.

In Wilmington, you can view this remarkable piece of theater history any time during box office hours.

Science Superwomen at Grolier

Posted on November 23, 2013 by MsSusanB

Portrait of Louise Bourgeois Boursier in one of her early 17th-c books on obstetrics, medical must-reads for over 100 years

Just because the confab is ending, it’s no reason not to acknowledge the loving assembly of super-fantastic women pulled together by the curators at the Grolier Club for the astonishing exhibition, Extraordinary Women in Science & Medicine: Four Centuries of Achievement, which closes today.

Inside the Club’s small gallery, ten cases and other repositories enclose the names, histories, portraits, papers, and publications of 32 remarkable women that deserve high praise and high fives. Yesterday the gallery was packed with academics, admirers, school groups, and bibliophiles who couldn’t contain themselves at their astonishment at the relative obscurity of some of these grand dames in our pop-culture-saturated psyches.

Get to know some of our favorites:

Louise Bourgeois Boursier (1563-1636) was the first woman to write a book on obstetrics – a pioneer in evidence-based medicine. Having observed 2,000 deliveries as a midwife, she personally delivered all of the children of Henry IV and Queen Marie de Medici of France, including Louis XIII.

Madame Du Chatelet’s name is absent from the top book, which she co-wrote in 1735 with Voltaire about Newton’s philosophy

Physicist, mathematician, and author Madame du Châtelet (1706-1749) was the first to translate Newton’s work Principia Mathematica into French. To this day, it’s the standard translation for students there, although in its day, only Voltaire’s name was on it, since it was considered inappropriate to print a lady’s name on a frontspiece. Her dad, who worked for Louis XIV, encouraged her scientific accomplishments, but her mom bucked her all the way. She worked on scientific philosophy, the properties of fire, and made breakthroughs in the understanding of kinetic energy – a foundation of the 150-years-later E = mc².

Laura Bassi (1711-1778) was the first female physics professor in Europe and the second woman in Europe to actually have a university degree. Remarkably she still had 12 children, had a cheerleader in Pope Benedict XIV, and had the reputation and chops to do most of her work from home.

Victorian-era portrait of Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace, with her 1843 “computer” program – the published sequence by which Babbage’s analytical engine could perform calculations

Lord Byron’s daughter, Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace (1815-1852) created, according to some, the first computer program. She translated an Italian engineer’s description of the analytical engine designed by mathematician Charles Babbage, but she added a lot of her own notes to explain its difference from earlier incarnations and explained the steps by which it could perform complex calculations. She felt it was important to use calculating machines to do more than mathematics, and she speculated that a computing engine “might compose music” and other “poetic” things.

Everybody knows that Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) innovated modern nursing, but the exhibit showcased the fact that she got her ideas across because she was an expert statistician. She used stats to kick-start evidence-based healthcare. Think about it: life before Excel.

Madame Curie (1867-1934), along with Florence, is the most famous of the Grolier group – the first person (and only woman) ever to have received two Nobel Prizes in two scientific disciplines (physics and chem). After discovering radioactivity, polonium, and radium with her husband, the Polish super-achiever applied radiology to help surgeons deal with battlefield injuries in WWI, accompanied by her 17-year-old daughter, Irène (1897-1958). Irène also later won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for creating radioactive elements.

Nightingale’s 1858 document for Queen Victoria’s commission, proving that Crimean War casualties were mostly from preventable diseases

New Yorker and Nobel-winner Gertrude Elion (1918-1999) never got a doctorate, but climbed her way to innovation from a job as a lab assistant. Say thank-you to her for inventing the first anti-cancer drugs, anti-viral drugs, and drugs to enable human organ transplants. Her pharma inventions treated leukemia, malaria, meningitis, and led to the development of AZT.

According to the curators, the show – which includes Curie’s apparatus, Ada’s portrait from London, a box showing how pre-mainframe pioneers tracked and sorted results of their experiments, and other items – will have a second life as a traveling exhibit and website. Until then, find out more by picking up the catalog, crammed with interesting essays, to this unforgettable tribute.

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