by Sandy | Feb 11, 2010 | Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Film, Movies
Columbia Best Pictures Collection
Columbia Pictures has assembled a DVD box set of their Best Picture Academy Award winners from 1934, ‘It Happened One Night” to 1982, “Gandhi”.
The movies included in this 14 DVD set:
1934 It Happened One Night
1938 You Can’t Take It with You
1949 All the King’s Men
1953 From Here to Eternity
1954 On the Waterfront
1957 The Bridge on the River Kwai
1962 Lawrence of Arabia
1966 A Man for All Seasons
1968 Oliver!
1979 Kramer vs. Kramer
1982 Gandhi
(Of course, you can always rent – just to see if you agree with the winning choices)
by Sandy | Feb 9, 2010 | Art, Blogroll, Exhibits, Museums
Belgian artist Luc Tuymans will have his work on view until May 2, 2010 at the S.F Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition includes 75 of his paintings dating from 1985.
“Influenced by the Northern European painting tradition as well as by photography, television, and cinema, Luc Tuymans blends filmic techniques with a mastery of painting to explore issues of history, memory, and the mass media.”
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
151 Third Street, San Francisco, CA
Image: “The Diagnostic View V”, 1992, oil on canvas[ad#Adsense Link Unit][ad#Google Mobile]
by Sandy | Feb 7, 2010 | Art, Artist, Blogroll, Exhibits, Photograhy
“The Portrait Unbound” exhibit is a collection of 21 large photographs created by Robert Weingarten using composite digital images that represent his subjects.
There are portraits of Hank Aaron, Buzz Aldrin, Chuck Close, Jane Goodall, Dennis Hopper, Colin Powell, and more, that include not just pictures, but also their interests, accomplishments and passions.
“Portrait Unbound” – High Museum of Art Atlanta – until May 30, 2010
1280 Peachtree Street, N.E., Atlanta, GA
(Images: Musician Quincy Jones and former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell)
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by Sandy | Feb 4, 2010 | Art, Artist, Blogroll, Exhibits, Museums
I love watercolors – the result can look so easy and effortless – the best don’t reveal the skill and control required.
The Studio Museum of Harlem is showcasing 18 pieces on paper – A Delicate Touch: Watercolors from the Permanent Collection:
“Watercolor is quick, lightweight and portable. Successfully painting with watercolors requires dexterity, a soft touch and a delicate hand. The medium has an extensive history that dates back to European Paleolithic cave paintings. Scribes used watercolor to decorate illuminated manuscripts in the Middle Ages and European Renaissance. Eventually, watercolor became the technique of choice for artists to make sketches, copies and small-scale versions of larger works. Watercolor’s portability may account for why it was, and still is in many instances, the preferred painting style for depicting nature, wildlife and nautical themes.”
Some of the artists represented are Romare Bearden, Beauford Delaney, Norman Lewis, John Dowell, and Otobong Nkanga
Watercolors- lovely!
A Delicate Touch: Watercolors from the Permanent Collection
The Studio Museum of Harlem until March 14, 2010
144 West 125th Street, New York, New York
by Sandy | Feb 3, 2010 | Art, Blogroll, Culture, Exhibits, Museums
Jacob Lawrence: The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture
African American artist Jacob Lawrence (1918-2000) “created 15 dramatic and colorful silk-screen prints based on a series of 41 paintings entitled “The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture” that he completed in 1938. This exhibition will present all fifteen silk-screen prints from the Curtis Ransom Collection of African American Art, alongside the Dallas Museum of Art’s painting The Visitors, and a related portrait photograph by Arnold Newman of the artist from the DMA’s collections. “
Jacob Lawrence – until 5/23/10
Dallas Museum of Art
1717 North Harwood, Dallas, Texas
BTW: Toussaint L’Ouverture led the Haitian revolution of 1800. This former slave is credited with the creation of the Republic of Haiti in 1804.
(Images: “The Opener” and “General Toussaint L’Overture” )
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by Sandy | Feb 2, 2010 | Art, Blogroll, Exhibits, Museums
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art presents “Renoir in the 20th Century”.
This exhibit promises to “focus on the last three decades of Renoir’s career, when, following his rupture with impressionism, he turned to an art that was decorative, classical, and informed by a highly personal interpretation of the Great Tradition. Renoir’s paintings from this period, which have never been studied and shown as such, are often misunderstood as they do not fit comfortably into the history of high modernism.”
“Renoir in the 20th Century” – until 5/9/10
LACMA/ Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA
(Image: “Gabriele with a Rose” , 1911, oil on canvas)
by Bob Martin | Feb 1, 2010 | Museums
The F. W. Woolworth building in Greensboro N.C. has been transformed into “The International Civil Rights Center and MuseumIt ” and continues its testimony on this country’s unjust and bias treatment towards its own people. One purpose that a museum serves is that of a place where the past can be contemplated. Not often is it in a place where history was actually made. 
Fifty years ago the Woolworth Company building and it’s lunch counter was the start of a movement that gave rise to much of what we’ve become proud us in this country. It is also a reminder that if we (collectively) have treated people cruelly in the past, we are certain to do it again. Lets stay on our toes.
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by Bob Martin | Feb 1, 2010 | Exhibits, Galleries, Museums
It is said that creativity is what has us (not sure who the us is) excel in the world, which in my thinking is another way to say we better support the arts.
Bedroom at Arles - Roy Lichtenstein
I don’t think you need to know a lot about art, just know what it is that you like and can afford. Regardless of the price, if it brings you joy it is well worth it. Start off small, visit local artists and get to know them and support them. You will never know where this could lead. A famed example of artist support is currently on exhibit at the National Gallery of Art, until May 2, 2010: The Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection includes works by Willem de Kooning, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns and Jackson Pollock, well known artists, but they were not always well known. So become a collector of works that you like.
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by Sandy | Jan 31, 2010 | Art, Artist, Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Museums
The French artist Matisse, (1869-1954), is known for his use of glorious color in both his paintings and lithographs. However, this exhibit, according to the Art Museum of Chicago curators, focuses on “the time between his 1913 return from Morocco and his 1917 departure for Nice witnessed the production of the artist’s most demanding, experimental, and enigmatic works: paintings that are abstracted and rigorously purged of descriptive detail, geometric and sharply composed, and dominated by the colors black and gray.“
About 100 pieces will be included in:
“Matisse and the Methods of Modern Construction” * 3/20 – 6/6/10
The Art Institute of Chicago, 111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
(Image: “Bathers by a River”, 1913)
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by Bob Martin | Jan 27, 2010 | Directors, Film, Movies
Vera Farmiga
This film turned out to be more then I expected. I expected grown up humor, well acted, well written and directed movie about road worries, consultants who spend their lives someplace other then home. I was expecting an expansion of the films trailer. The film is much better then the trailer suggest. Up in the Air brings to the foreground the cost of being efficient. We’ve become consumed with records and “stats” as if they accurately reflected our lives. We count how many FaceBook friends or Twitter followers we have.
“
I thought we signed up for the same thing… I thought our relationship was perfectly clear. You are an escape. You’re a break from our normal lives. You’re a parenthesis.” Alex Goran
We conveniently use our “staying in touch” toys to distance ourselves from the people we need to be in touch with. We’ve begun to outsource our caring to the internet and our avatars.
I really enjoyed this movie and want to see it again. It’s fun and painfully true.
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