As noted in Art and Activism: Projects of John and Dominique de Menil, edited by Josef Helfenstein and Laureen Schipsi, the de Menils’ collection was a conscious effort to increase others’ welfare. They considered art “a basic human necessity,” not something to be monopolized by the rich, and intended their art to educate generations that came long after them.
Although Garry Trudeau has been creating the Doonesbury comic strip for over four decades, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize twice and won it once, he has stated that his “scrawlings made the cartoon industry safe for bad art.” Brian Walker notes that he “had always felt that [Trudeau] had not received adequate recognition for his talents as an artist and graphic designer.” His Doonesbury and the Art of G.B. Trudeau restores the cartoonist’s reputation as a master of all aspects of his craft.
The new film The Help, based on Kathryn Stockett’s novel of the same name, has been a box office success but has also been met with some thought-provoking criticism. A review in RD Magazine claims that the plot suggests black women need white women to give them a voice, while
If the perfect crime is one that never gets discovered, then the perfect spy is one whose identity is never revealed. Edward Bancroft came close to becoming the latter: a century passed before the public realized that he had engaged in espionage. Many Americans do not even recognize Bancroft’s name,
The Detroit Tigers could really use Hank Greenberg right about now. The Cleveland Indians win on August 9 added up to an unlucky 13th straight loss for the Tigers against the team. Of course, wishing for a star player from half a decade ago would probably only contribute to the
The names Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan Massery may not be well known, but the image of them from September 1957 surely is: a black high school girl, dressed in white, walking stoically in front of Little Rock Central High School, and a white girl standing directly behind her, face
Follow @yaleSCIbooks No matter where you are in the U.S. this summer, you have probably felt the effects of the record-setting heat. While most of us are just sweating a little more than usual, our country’s agricultural community faces a depressing situation. The heat arrived with an extreme drought throughout
Evelyn Toynton’s forthcoming Icons of America biography, Jackson Pollock, explores how Pollock’s tortured and conflicted character transformed popular culture. Against a backdrop of criticism that found American art inferior to its European counterpart (Marcel Duchamp wrote that “The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges.”), Pollock’s controversial, even rebellious, work was provocative for generations old and new.
Michelle Stein— In The American Department Store Transformed, 1920-1960, Richard Longstreth documents the development of the department store as it moves from “a great, all-inclusive emporium that helped define the character and the purpose of the city” to its transformation into shopping centers and malls. Here in New York City,
Everything can be modernized: this is an idea that came close to being a “dogma” in the 1930s. Architecture, businesses, and infrastructure could progress, but so could corporate branding, family life, and even the human body. The push to advance socially and technologically is familiar today, but it had a