James McAuley— In late December 1962, the old woman, then 86, welcomed Philippe Jullian into her apartment in the avenue Gabriel, not far from the Champs-Élysées. Lady Alice Townshend, as she was known by then, had written a letter to Jullian, renowned aesthete, art critic, and man-about-town, who had recently
Jonathan Petropoulos— At the start of my sabbatical in the summer of 2000, I was living in Munich, making it easier to contact Lohse. I had his telephone number and could ring him up somewhat freely. Not long after I had settled in, Lohse invited me to his home. He
Natalya Semenova– Why do people even begin collecting? This has been bothering me for a long time. After all, I collect the stories of my protagonists in the same way they collected paintings and sculptures. Collecting is undoubtedly one of the most ancient viruses, even though collectors as we know
Anni and Josef Albers were two of the most influential figures of 20th-century modernism. Anni was a textile artist, and Josef was a professor and artist in glass, metal, wood, and photography, in addition to being the creator of one of the most important explanations of color theory principles, The
For more than 30 years, Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner have devoted themselves to contemporary art, and through their passion and acumen have assembled an extraordinary collection. This fall, the Whitney Museum of American Art is publishing a handsome, illustrated volume that is the first to document the collection
Ivy Sanders Schneider — Makeup can act as a symbol both of liberation and oppression. Contentious and unavoidable, ads for lipstick line the subway, and giant mascaraed eyes blink from billboards. People across ages, genders, and geography wear it – a swipe of tinted chapstick, a little foundation, or maybe
Elizabeth Malchione – Like many Yale students this summer, the Pearlman Collection is traveling abroad. Earlier this month, the exhibition Cézanne and the Modern: Masterpieces of European Art from the Pearlman Collection moved into the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence, France—the second stop of its international tour. The exhibition features fifty
Our just-released book Wunderkammer by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien is a gem. It’s a gem that is filled with gems. It is a gorgeously designed documentation of a project initiated by Williams and Tsien: they invited 42 celebrated architects and designers from around the world to create a personal
Bernard Berenson’s life is an inspiring story of a poor immigrant to America achieving great fame and fortune. A sensitive and articulate consumer of art, his incredible eye and his talent for engaging listeners in interpretations of artworks took him from his humble beginnings to a lavish lifestyle assisting Gilded
For the May 13 centennial of Joseph Pulitzer Jr.’s birth, Marjorie B. Cohn, author of Classic Modern, the first biography of Joseph Pulitzer, Jr. to focus on his art collecting—arguably his greatest passion—and his role in bringing modernism to the American Midwest, writes here about one of the pleasures of writing the biography of a