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By BRETT ZONGKER

A new national museum telling the history of black life, art, and culture will soon begin taking shape as the 19th museum in the Smithsonian Institution to explore stories that have sometimes been left out on the National Mall.

President Barack Obama and former first lady Laura Bush will join Wednesday in celebrating the start of construction for the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

It will be built between the Washington Monument and the National Museum of American History as a seven-level structure with much of its exhibit space below ground. A bronze-coated “corona,” a crown that rises as an inverse pyramid, will be its most distinctive feature. Organizers said the design is inspired by African-American metalwork from New Orleans and Charleston, S.C., and also evokes African roots.

Some exhibits will eventually include a Jim Crow-era segregated railroad car, galleries devoted to military and sports history and Louis Armstrong’s trumpet, among thousands of items. There will also be a court for quiet reflection, Museum Director Lonnie Bunch said.

“We will have stories that will make you smile and stories that will make you cry,” he told The Associated Press. “In a positive sense, this will be an emotional roller coaster, so you want to give people chances to reflect and to think about what this means to them.” Read the full story

The Tiffany girls on the roof of the Tiffany studios in 1904; inset, the Wisteria lamp from 1901. (Photos courtesy New York Historical Society)

The lights are dimmed in the galleries of the Flagler Museum, bringing a liturgical hush to the illuminated beauty of the Tiffany lamps and windows on display.

Indeed, the brilliantly colored glass mosaics that make up the lampshades and windows constitute most of the light.

If people don’t genuflect before these works of art, it won’t be because Louis Comfort Tiffany and his staff didn’t deserve it.

The exhibition is titled "A New Light on Tiffany: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls," and it’s primarily drawn from the collection of the New York Historical Society. The focus is the work of Clara Driscoll, a girl born in the middle of the 19th century in Tallmadge, Ohio, who went to school in Cleveland then headed for New York to seek her fortune.

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What she found was a job as the supervisor of Tiffany’s glass-cutting operation, which numbered 35 women, and a loosely defined, but more important, job as a designer.

Driscoll’s contributions were largely unknown until her correspondence was discovered in 2005 at the Queens Historical Society and Kent State University.

Aside from giving scholars a great deal of information about just how the Tiffany studio worked, the letters also forced historians to revise their judgment that Tiffany himself had functioned as his own primary design director.

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Dennis O'Kain's photos from his Ironworkers' exhibit, on display through Jan. 29 at the Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens in Palm Beach.

Before Dennis O’Kain became a photographer, he was an ironworker. Before him, his father was an ironworker, too. So it was natural for O’Kain to chronicle the work of these high-rise heroes who maneuver like graceful dancers in a carefully choreographed ballet of cranes and cables, joists and trusses.

O’Kain has delivered an exhibition of photos taken between 1980-1990, Ironworkers: Balance, Form, Finality, to the Ann Norton Sculpture Garden in downtown West Palm Beach.

The photos feature tradesmen perched precariously on both the 52-story Georgia Pacific Center and the 55-story Bank of America Plaza (formerly the NationsBank Building) in Atlanta.

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Of his ironworker photos, O’Kain once said, “As a photographer I am always stuck somewhere between the literal-ness of documentary images and the notion that what we see is not always what we get.”
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'Blowing Kiss' by Barbara Mullen. (Courtesy Lillian Bassman)

Up front in the Norton Museum of Art’s new "Cocktail Culture" exhibit is a video clip of William Powell in full alcoholic splendor in 1934′s The Thin Man, a movie in which Powell might be completely sober for perhaps 10 minutes.

Those were the days.

Nobody got swozzled better than Powell – he made it look desirable. (I shudder to think of the vast number of alcoholics created by people trying to emulate the debonair drunks of 1930s movies.)

The film clips and objects in the Norton exhibit both precede and post-date Powell, but they don’t surpass him – nothing could.

The earliest parts of the exhibit are an orgy of Moderne – cocktail shakers, Cartier ashtrays, cigarette holders that Auntie Mame would kill for, cologne from the Stork Club and a real keeper: a champagne bucket in the shape of a top hat.

It’s a symphony of silver in designs both minimalist and maximalist, remnants of an era awash in post-Prohibition alcohol ardor.

There’s even a dress by MGM studio costumer Adrian – not a photograph, or design, but the actual dress. There’s also a cocktail table by Donald Deskey, who designed the interior of Radio City Music Hall.

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VIXEN: Victor Skrebneski’s 1967 photograph of Vanessa Redgrave was taken for the film Isadore and is on display in Palm Beach through Feb. 3.

All decades are not created equal, gallery owner Holden Luntz says.

Some burn brighter than others.

As proof, he offers the new exhibition, “Bold and The Beautiful”, which is comprised of photographs taken during decades when people lived “with exuberance.”

“The decades of the 1940s through the ’60s and the 1980s produced a rich tapestry of artistic trends,” Luntz wrote. “During these decades music, literature, politics, fashion, style and architecture were ablaze in energy and dynamism.”

To connect to these decades, all you need to do is look at the photographs.

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An unusual art installation is showcasing the Florida sky at the Ringling Museum of Art.

The so-called “Skyspace” opened Thursday. It’s a 24-foot square opening in a canopy that covers a courtyard outside of the museum. On Jan. 5, museum visitors can sit in the courtyard at sunset and watch the display.

The installation is a manipulation of the viewer’s perception of the sky by James Turrell. He’s an international artist whose palette is not paint, but light.

The Skyspace is the only such installation in Florida, and one of just two public installations on the East Coast. His other installation is in New York.

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports that the $2.9 million project was funded primarily through private donations.

Frank Weston Bessam's Red and Gold from 1915. (Photo provided)

The exhibition “American Treasures,” at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, is on loan from the respected Butler Institute of Art in Ohio.

It offers a snapshot of America through an array of 36 artworks. It covers two centuries of artistic achievement, and gives us a jumping off point for the exploration of our past.

Here are five artists worth checking out:

Robert Henri: This American painter and teacher was part of the famous Ashcan School that took its subjects from the streets, especially Depression-era scenes of uplift and despair.

Martin Johnson Heade: His landscapes, seascapes and still lifes of Florida were painted in a unique style that captured the romanticism of the 19th century.
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During World War II, American soldiers parade down Worth Avenue in Palm Beach. (File photo)

“Paradise in Peril: World War II in Palm Beach County,” the new exhibit at the Richard and Pat Johnson Palm Beach County History Museum, is a snapshot of the civilian and military efforts here during the war.

Palm Beach County was used as both a training ground for troops, and provided a civilian population ready to work for the war effort.

In 1940, the county’s airport, Morrison Field, was expanded to accommodate troops, and by February 1941, the first troops arrived. As local businesses reacted to the influx of military personnel and their families, local residents found jobs in a variety of fields, from construction to agriculture to service industries.

When Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 7, 1941, the military expanded its facilities to include Camp Higgins at the Lake Worth Inlet and the Boca Raton Army Airfield.
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Works by Leyendecker and Warhol are among those on display.

The old cliché is true: A picture is worth a thousand words. Maybe more.

Great illustrators have a gift for expressing a message through their art. They can capture an emotion, raw or romanticized, by providing a snapshot of life that visually represents a moment of joy and laughter or tragedy and tears.

Two exhibits featuring iconic illustrators are on display now at the the Esther B. O’Keeffe Art Gallery at the Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach.

The Art of Illustration, Original Works of Howard Chandler Christy and J.C. Leyendecker and Andy Warhol, The Bazaar Years 1951-1964, which features 45 pieces, will be on display until Jan. 15.
Both exhibitions are on loan from the Hearst Corp., New York. Most of the pieces have never been shown outside the company’s private gallery.
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Daruma, Seki Bokuo is just one of the pieces on display at the Morikami.

No doubt you’ve heard the cryptic question, ‘What is the sound of one hand clapping?’ Deliberately irrational statements are sometimes used in Zen, a form of Buddhism, to force people to recognize the limits of the intellect. In its simplest form, Zen is known for its reliance on personal introspection as a means of achieving enlightenment.

The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens opened “Zenmi: A Taste of Zen: Paintings, Calligraphy, and Ceramics” on Saturday. It features the work of Zen masters from the 17th to 20th centuries and the assertion that enlightenment can be attained through meditation, self-contemplation, and intuition. The pieces are on loan from the collection of Riva Lee Asbell.

The artists represented are venerated Zen teachers who took up the brush late in life to create religious art noted for its drama and boldness. The exhibition features more than 80 pieces, called Zenga, including paintings and calligraphy mounted as hanging scrolls, inscribed ceramics, and other objects dating back to the 17th century. This religious art was used in spiritual exercises, as aids to meditation, and as visual sermons.
Interested in exploring the concept of Zen and Zenga? The museum will offer two special events:

• Calligraphy Demonstrations by Zen Master Shodo Harada, at 5:30 or 7 p.m. today in the Seishin-an Tea House. Using brush and ink, Harada Roshi will demonstrate and explain calligraphy. Cost: $20. Reservations required. Call (561) 495-0233, Ext. 235.

• Living Zen: A Talk by Professor Jeff Shore, at 7:15 p.m. Nov. 18. Jeff Shore is Professor of Zen in the Modern World at Hanazono University, Kyoto, Japan. He has studied and practiced Zen Buddhism for almost 40 years. Cost: $10, $7 for members, in advance and at the door.
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