Arts & Letters
78 articles filed under Arts & Letters.
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Arts & Letters
Aretha Franklin's Fierce Rebuke To Liz Smith
An Infuriated Aretha Franklin Writes to Gossip Columnist Liz Smith In 1993, at New York City’s Nederlander Theatre, Aretha Franklin joined the likes of Elton John, Gloria Estefan, and Smokey Robinson for an…
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Arts & Letters
Stocks are out. But art is in
Andy Warhol’s “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” sold in four minutes earlier this month for $195 million, an all-time high for an American work. Despite a foundering stock market, 2022 continues to be a big year for…
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Arts & Letters
Who Says Art Doesn’t Pay?
On May 16, Sotheby’s wrapped up its sale of an art collection that was put together by Harry and Linda Macklowe over the course of their 60-year marriage. The total take: $922.2 million. That made it, in…
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Arts & Letters
Ignacio Iturria's Undervalued Uruguayan Masterpieces
Que Pasa en el Cajon, 1994 By Ignacio Iturria 36” x 30” Mixed media on canvas I’m nuts over Ignacio Iturria. He’s probably the best-known Uruguayan painter of his generation. And yet his paintings are…
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Arts & Letters
John Cleese's Hilariously Pompous Reply To A Young Fan
In the 1980s, when old-fashioned fan clubs were all the rage, a 14-year-old “Monty Python” devotee named Matt Hyde wrote to John Cleese and asked whether such a club existed in his name. Thankfully, the answer…
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Arts & Letters
How to Say Adieu: Richard Burton to Elizabeth Taylor, June 25, 1973
People used to be more civilized than they are now. At least the actors were. Here’s an example – a short, elegant farewell letter from Richard Burton to Elizabeth Taylor, written just after she told him she…
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Arts & Letters
Francisco Amighetti's Woodcuts Revolutionized Central American Art
Francisco Amighetti Title: “Mother and Child” Medium: Oil on Board Dimensions: 23" x 18" Francisco Amighetti is one of the six Costa Rican artists that Suzanne Snider and I included as a major modern master in…
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Arts & Letters
Right Now, at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection
“Surrealism and Magic: Enchanted Modernity” Salvador Dali, “Uranium and Atomica Melancholica Idyll” (1945) I mentioned in a previous post that Surrealism is making a comeback. The current exhibition at the…
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Arts & Letters
Invisible Art” Goes for $1 Million at Auction
Click here.
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Arts & Letters
Shirley Jackson Strikes Back
If you are a Boomer, you probably remember Shirley Jackson. She was the author of six novels and hundreds of short stories, including “The Lottery,” the fictional tale of an annual ritual that takes place in…
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Arts & Letters
Letter to June Carter from Johnny Cash, June 23, 1994
“We get old and get used to each other. We think alike. We read each other’s minds. We know what the other wants without asking. Sometimes we irritate each other a little bit. Maybe sometimes take each other…
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Arts & Letters
Benjamin Cañas's Japanese-Inspired Surrealist Masterpiece Joins Collection
We just purchased this 20x24 painting by the surrealist Salvadoran artist Benjamin Cañas (1933-1987). “The War Lord” was commissioned by clients for their Japanese style home. It spurred Cañas to study…
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Arts & Letters
Frank Dicksee's Romeo And Juliet Crowned Britain's Most Romantic Artwork
This painting of a stolen kiss between the most famous star-crossed lovers of them all was voted the “most romantic artwork in Britain” by readers of London’s The Daily Mail. It was painted in oil by Frank…
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Arts & Letters
Who was Dorothea Lange?
The famous photo at the top of this issue – “Migrant Mother” – was taken by Dorothea Lange during The Great Depression. She began her career by doing photographic portraits. After the stock market crash of…
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Arts & Letters
Edna St. Vincent Millay to Witter Bynner, May 2, 1935
Edna St. Vincent Millay is one of my favorite American poets. I was both amused and bemused to discover that she didn’t like writing letters: Edna St. Vincent Millay to Witter Bynner, May 2, 1935 “I simply…
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Arts & Letters
Letter to the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, 1928
George Bernard Shaw wrote more than 60 plays, but he also wrote a lot of personal letters. I read once that he sent somewhere in the region of 250,000 letters and postcards during his lifetime, the majority in…
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Arts & Letters
Milligan’s Reply
After Spike Milligan published “Monty,” the third installment of his memoirs, a reader wrote to praise the book, but added that he was bothered by a reference Milligan made about “cowardice in the face of the…
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Arts & Letters
Guillermo Trujillo's El Cadejo Negro Joins Private Collection
Suzanne and I recently bought a treasure trove of Central American works for my collection from the Museum of Latin American Art in Los Angeles. Here’s one I particularly like, a large piece called El Cadejo…
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Arts & Letters
Surrealism is coming back!
“Tailleur pour dames” (1957) by Remedios Varo After a decades-long fascination with abstract geometrics, the art world is, once again, warming up to Surrealism. Last week, for example, two important museums…
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Arts & Letters
Christie's Spring Auctions Reach Record $334 Million
Christie’s started off the spring auction season strongly with a three-part auction in London and Shanghai, racking up $334 million in works from the 20th and 21st centuries. Die Fucshe (“The Foxes”), a 1913…
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Arts & Letters
L’empire des lumieres
L’empire des lumieres (1961) One of René Magritte’s “Empire of Light” paintings fetched nearly $80 million, the second-most valuable painting ever sold at auction in Europe. Click here.
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Arts & Letters
Letter from Ralph Waldo Emerson to his daughter, April 8, 1854
“Finish every day and be done with it. For manners and for wise living it is a vice to remember. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can…
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Arts & Letters
The Scream's Daring 1994 Oslo Museum Heist
“Thanks for the Poor Security!” On the opening day of the Norway Winter Olympics in 994, thieves broke into Oslo’s National Gallery and stole Edvard Munch’s The Scream. They left behind a note reading “Thanks…
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Arts & Letters
Man Ray's Iconic Portrait Could Break Photography Record
Le Violin, the photograph above, which was taken by Man Ray of his muse Kiki de Montparnasse in 1924, is expected to fetch between $5 million and $7 million at auction next month. If it sells in that range, it…
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Arts & Letters
From
“I’m writing to let you know I’m releasing you. I’m amputating you. Be happy and never seek me again. I don’t want to hear from you, I don’t want you to hear from me. If there is anything I’d enjoy before I…
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Arts & Letters
Widow's Letter To Port Authority Officer Lost On 9/11
It’s been 20 years since the September 11 attacks. This was taken from the book Letters of Note: New York… Uhuru Houston was born in Brooklyn in 1969. He joined the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey…
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Arts & Letters
The Captivating Impressionism of Giorgio Morandi
The culture and business of art is largely chauvinistic. Ninety-eight percent of the art that is made in one country stays in one country. But there is a class of art that crosses borders: the work of artists…
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Arts & Letters
Latin American Artists Showcase At Philadelphia Fine Art Fair
If you are in or around Philadelphia this weekend, check out the Philadelphia Fine Art Fair, where my Miami gallery (Rojas Ford) will be exhibiting some of our better Latin American artists. LINK.
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