Samurai at Boston MFA!

boston musuem of fine arts samurai on horseThe Museum of Fine Arts Boston presents, not the Tom Cruise movie, but, “Samurai! Armor from the Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Collection” featuring the extraordinary artistry of the armor used by samurai—the military elite led by the shoguns, or warlords, of Japan from the 12th through 19th centuries.” “…more than 140 objects from the Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller collection, including armored horses carrying combat-ready samurai in full regalia. Highlights include helmets of lacquered metal adorned with emblems often inspired by nature—which signaled the status of the wearer, differentiated samurai from each other, and also frightened the enemy on the battlefield—and full suits of exquisitely crafted armor, weapons, horse armor, and accoutrements used for both battle and ceremonies.”

 

Samurai! Armor from the Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Collection

Until August 4, 2013 – Museum of Fine Arts Boston

Avenue of the Arts, 465 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA

boston museum of fine arts  samurai mask

 

The Guggenheim’s European Art Collections

European artists escaping the turmoil of World War II came to New York during the ‘40s to work and exhibit. A lot of their paintings were collected by the Guggenheim Museum in NYC:

 “Kandinsky: 1911-1913 until April 2013

The acquisition of Kandinsky’s paintings and water colors started in 1929. “This intimate collection exhibition highlights paintings completed at the moment the artist transitioned toward complete abstraction and published his aesthetic treatise, On the Spiritual in Art (1911). 

 

 

 

“Thannhauser Collection” ongoing

The vast art collection of Justin Thannhauser, son of an art dealer, includes works by such artists as Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Camille Pissarro, Pierre Auguste Renoir, and Vincent van Gogh.

 

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

89th Street and 5th Avenue, NYC

 (Image: Vasily Kandinsky, “Composition VII”, 1913)

The MET Goes Punk!

The MET  Punk“The Met’s current Costume Institute exhibition, PUNK: Chaos to Couture, examines punk’s impact on high fashion from the movement’s birth in the early 1970s through its continuing influence today. Featuring approximately one hundred designs for men and women, the exhibition includes original punk garments and recent, directional fashion to illustrate how haute couture and ready-to-wear borrow punk’s visual symbols.”

PUNK: Chaos to Couture
Until August 14, 2013

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
5th Ave and 86 Street, NYC

Harlem Book Fair 2013

Harlem Book Fair 2013

Its that time of year again. This annual event involves over 200 exhibit booths, music, panel discussions and children’s activities. It’s a great way to spend a Friday night / Saturday in the city.

 “The vision of the Harlem Book Fair is to partner with local
and national leadership organizations under the banner of literacy
awareness, affirming HBF as the nation’s largest African American
literary event celebrating family literacy, community empowerment,
and community cooperation. “

 

2013 Harlem Book Fair

Friday July 19 / Saturday July 20, 2013

Schomburg  Center for Research in Black Culture

West 135th Street between Malcolm X Blvd and Fredrick Douglas Blvd

Oba!

This is just one of the many beautiful Benin bronze figures included in the Metropolitan Museum’s “Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas” exhibits.

“Oba” was the term used for King in Benin, West Africa (now part of Nigeria).  I am so grateful that some of this former kingdom’s art has been preserved.

Art can be such a history lesson sometimes. So often it represents what is most important to a people during specific periods of their time.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
5th Ave
and 86 Street, NYC

www.metmuseum.org

*Head of an Oba, 16th century (ca. 1550) Nigeria; Edo, Court of Benin (Brass)

Treasures from the Kinsey Family at Moad

MOAD  Kinsey collection

The Kinsey Collection: Shared Treasures of Bernard and Shirley Kinsey

“Five centuries of African American history, culture and heritage… the exhibition celebrates Bernard and Shirley Kinsey’s passion for collecting objects of extraordinary significance over the 40 years of their marriage. 

One of the largest private collections of African American artifacts, documents and artwork, the Kinsey collection of rare books and manuscripts, paintings, prints, sculpture, and photographs includes an early version of the Emancipation Proclamation, correspondence between Malcolm X and Alex Haley, slave shackles, a 1773 first-edition copy of poems by Phillis Wheatley”, and more.

 

 

The Kinsey Collection: Shared Treasures of Bernard and Shirley Kinsey

Until May 19, 2013

MoAD – The Museum of the African Diaspora

685 Mission Street San Francisco, CA