A year or so ago someone asked me what my favorite painting was. "Of all time?" I gulped. After some cogitation, I offered up Bruegel’s Hunters in the Snow, seen years ago in Vienna, which I kept circling back to for hours, and which continues to haunt me.
Migrant Mother by photographer Dorothea Lange. (Courtesy Palm Beach Photographic Centre)
Sometimes a picture is more than a picture; sometimes it’s a message in a bottle from 150 years ago.
In this particular case, the picture is both an original albumen print and a gorgeous close-up portrait of a sleeping 2-year-old child. In the lower margin is written in longhand, "My grandchild Archie."
The photographer — and the writer of the marginal notation — was Julia Margaret Cameron, whose unusually intimate pre-Raphaelite images proved not only that photography was an art, but that women could master it.
It’s an arresting image, but it’s far from the only high point of the Palm Beach Photographic Centre’s "Full of Grace: The Child in Photography," the most extensive theme show the Centre has ever done.
It revives dormant memories of Edward Steichen’s "Family of Man" exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in 1955, which resulted in a book that sold four million copies.
In essence, the show traces the history of photography from close to its beginnings through modern masters such as Joel Meyerowitz and Gregory Crewdson in a knockout series of more than 250 prints, most of them original prints from private collections.
Billy Ray Cyrus
Billy Ray Cyrus is the latest celebrity to sign up with Amazon.com
The singer of “Achy Breaky Heart” and father and former co-star of Miley Cyrus has a memoir, “Hillbilly Heart,” coming in spring 2013.
Amazon.com, which has been aggressively expanding its publishing operation, announced Thursday that Cyrus would discuss with “great candor” everything from his early years to life as the parent of a teen superstar. Cyrus and his daughter starred together in the hit TV series “Hannah Montana.”
Others with Amazon deals include actress-director Penny Marshall and actor James Franco. Those books, however, will not be available everywhere. Barnes & Noble Inc. announced earlier this week that it would not stock releases from its rival retailer.
Louis Tyrrell, producing artistic director of the late, lamented Florida Stage, launches his new venture – dubbed The Theatre at Arts Garage, in Delray Beach – with a Master Playwright Series, this Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
For his first bestseller, novelist Eric Weiss exploits his New York outer-borough background and his Jewish roots. But in his personal life, he has turned his back on both of them.
It is no coincidence that the main character of Donald Margulies’ semi-autobiographical play Brooklyn Boy has the same name as that of illusionist Harry Houdini, but he cannot escape his past. In the middle of a promotional book tour for his new book – also named Brooklyn Boy – he is duty-bound to return home to visit his father, who is dying of cancer. It is a trip that will put him on a collision course with his ethnic identity which he has long denied.
Andre Masson's Le Temp Profane is part of the exhibit at the Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens. (Courtesy Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens)
It’s clear from the exhibition of André Masson’s work at the Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens that he functioned as both an original and as a synthesizer.
Some of his figures are more or less straight out of Marc Chagall, while in Sirens, he seems to be channeling Picasso; sometimes he even resorts to Picasso’s iconography – the bull. And sometimes, as with a painting called Avanche, he’s clearly playing around with what became abstract expressionism.
But the fact remains that Masson had his first one-man show in 1924, while Miro and Max Ernst were still wrestling with the precepts of surrealism, so it’s entirely possible that the entire crew were happily cross-referencing (read: pillaging) each other.
What’s clear is that Masson was a major figure in European art in the 20th century, an abrupt, slashing draughtsman, with a gift for bold colors and what the French have valued in their artists since World War I – a subtle aura of derangement.
In fact, Masson was a soldier in the war, and was seriously wounded. Once he recovered, he became known for what he called "automatism," by which he meant staying up for as long as possible, in order to exhaust himself before he began painting without any kind of planning or premeditation.
The idea was that art could only be pure if it came directly from the subconscious, without any mental editing.
'Recapturing the Real West' at the Society of the Four Arts features works like Philip Goodwin's 'A Pause on the Journey'. (John Woolf / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
ART-A-PALOOZA TIME!
Big fairs and new exhibits are stretching from West Palm Beach to Delray Beach.
The American International Fine Art Fair opens tonight and runs through Feb. 12 at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach. Click here for more
One of the most intriguing museum exhibits of the season opens Saturday at the Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach. Recapturing The Real West: The Collections of William I. Koch looks at the true story of Western expansion through paintings, photos and more, including the only known tintype of Billy The Kid. Koch, the Palm Beach energy magnate, has long been fascinated by the West and has meticulously collected its lore. The show will kick off with a lecture by Koch at 11 a.m. Saturday. Information: (561) 655-7226. | Directions, invite a friend
Opening today at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach is Tacita Dean, a self-titled show of the English artist’s "photo-based" work, in which she uses film images and adds to them everything from paint to text. Information: (561) 832-5196. | Directions, invite a friend
In Delray Beach at the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens, two shows open on Tuesday. Old Techniques, New Interpretations: Japanese Prints from the Paul and Christine Meehan Collection features 75 prints from masters of the form in 20th-century Japan. A second show, Mariko Kusumoto: Unfolding Stories, features the artist’s ability to turn metal sculptures into everything from street scenes to music boxes and clocks. Information: (561) 495-0233. | Directions, nearby dining
Pete Correale performs this weekend at the Improv at CityPlace, while Derek Richards and the Irish Comedy Tour head to Jupiter's Atlantic Theatre.
Pete Correale brings his perspective on the quirks of everyday life back to the Palm Beach Improv this weekend. He first stepped on stage in 1994 after graduating from Fredonia State College in New York. Since then he has showcased his material on television on Premium Blend, Shorties Watchin’ Shorties, Tough Crowd, Last Call with Carson Daly and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. In addition to working the stand-up circuit, he is a writer and radio personality. For four years he, along with former Saturday Night Live actor Jim Breuer, co-hosted Breuer Unleashed on Sirius satellite radio.
Directions, invite a friend: Pete Correale | Irish Comedy Tour
The laughs continue in Jupiter this weekend at the Atlantic Theater where it’s never too early to start celebrating St. Patrick’s Day! Get in the spirit with the Irish Comedy Tour, complete with a guitarist (Derrick Keane) from Dublin, on Saturday. Detroit native Derek Richards, who has appeared on the Bob & Tom Show, will entertain with tales about his pale Irish skin, the holidays and dating a stripper. Boston-born Mike McCarthy will showcase the no-holds-barred humor that has landed him on Comedy Central and Showtime. The boisterous, belly-laugh trio will perform two shows, one at 7:30 and one at 9:30 p.m on Saturday.
Paul Stapleton transforms ordinary objects into an unusual breed of sculpture. (Photo provided)
Things are changing in the art world, changing fast.
The evidence will be on view at the 16th annual American International Art Fair, which opens in downtown West Palm Beach Friday for a 10-day run.
What began as an art and antique fair is making a transition to an art and design fair.
The colors will be stark – black and white and gray, with LED lighting throughout the show. "There’s a movement toward minimalist works," says David Lester, whose company runs this fair and January’s ArtPalmBeach.
"A contemporary home tends to have white walls and neutral colors. The furnishings of today are rarely as ornate as in the past. Mar-a-Lago was typical of Palm Beach in its time, but today’s house is much more contemporary in nature."
The fair will still present a broad range, from 19th- and 20th-century paintings and photographs and sculpture to objects that are intrinsically beautiful, from a 17th-century Stradivarius violin to World War I-vintage automobiles.
At this year’s Red Cross Designers’ Show House in The Mansion in Old Northwood, open now through Feb. 18, area design firms have decorated 15 spaces and in three of the spaces, you will see the work of local artists incorporated into the décor.
Arruza's 'D-Vine Baby, $1,500.
Interior designer Joseph Publillones’ dining room is eclectic with a continental flair. The color palette is gray, with black, orange and touches of gold.
He started with a table base with feet created by Pedro Friedeberg, who is known for his Hand Chair sculpture. The chairs are Louis XVI style; the 1950s screen once graced a Christian Dior boutique, and the side table is hand-artisan-made from metal. The carpet is a new style by Stark, a patchwork with an overdye.
The table is beautifully set with crisp linens, a centerpiece featuring a collection of Japanese Kutani vases and Meissen china, celebrating the Year of the Dragon.
For art for this room, Publillones used a work by West Palm Beach photogrpaher Tony Arruza.
“I choose Tony’s photograph because of its detail,” Pubillones said. In the photograph, there’s an image within an image of a trellis and a vine. “It’s beautiful, taken in Puerto Rico, and as you look at it you’ll see an Asian baby’s face,” he said.
“The image appealed to me, but in addition, since the room has an underlying Oriental flavor with the vases, carpet and the dragon plates, it tied into the overall theme of the room.
“I call the painting, D-vine Baby.”
To lighten and update the dark mahogany den, Joseph Cortes of HomeLife Interiors used whites and ivories, and the Stark grass cloth on the walls is backed with silver, “to reflect light and give the room the glamor factor,” he said.
“The Stark carpeting is another big focal point. Its contemporary geometric pattern sets the tone in that room.”
He chose to integrate works by Palm Beach artist Clemente into the decor. “Clemente works in many different styles,” Cortes said. “The works we used in the den are free flowing forms of geometric shapes with energetic color. He wants to engage the viewer’s imagination to create his or her own interpretation.”
'Pendant' by Clemente, $11,500.
Cortes was drawn to Clemente’s work because they are expressive and airy. “They also created a focal point backdrop with our two HomeLife custom-designed chairs and the Mies van der Rohe table. Pendant, with its bold lines against a background of color, had the right amount of energy for the space and imparted a contemporary accent to the interior.”
Christopher Leidy of Christopher Leidy Images said that he painted the upstairs hallway his “usual color of battleship gray” and then he installed pieces of his limited edition fine art photography. “You will feel like you are doing the breaststroke through my upstairs underwater hallway world,” he said. “Please come and check it out!”
Christopher Leidy's photographs start at $4,000.
The 36th Red Cross Designers’ Show House is at The Mansion, 3001 Spruce Avenue in Old Northwood. The house was built in 1923 by Orrin Randolph and currently owned by Monique and John Book. Show House hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and noon to 4 p.m. on Sundays. Tickets are $30.
Photography by Carol Korpi-McKinley
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