Adolf Konrad, packing list, December 16, 1963. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree One of my greatest joys and, along with brushing my teeth, one of the great constants in my life, is making lists. While my abiding affection for ordering, lining up and then crossing out (what pleasure!)…
Beatnik William Burroughs’s dreams, English art critic John Ruskin’s chess moves, and Bob Dylan’s never-ending tour would seem to have little in common. All three, however, are chronicled in a remarkable exhibit at The Morgan Library and Museum on personal diaries. Long before there were blogs, people actually wrote their jottings in notebooks. The exhibition…
The finalists for the 2011 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature have been announced. Philadelphia’s Rosenbach Museum and Library has become home to Maurice Sendak’s only mural. Jonah Lehrer retrieves Thorstein Veblen’s forgotten essay on why Jews become intellectuals. An Iranian grandmaster claims to have beaten an Israeli chess record after playing 614 people simultaneously…
Alex Ross and Norman Lebrecht examine digitized music manuscripts from the Morgan Library. A couple of Israelis have recorded a song entirely using iPhone apps — and it’s a hit. A forthcoming biography of J.D. Salinger and Henry Kissinger’s “On China” are among The Daily Beast’s most anticipated books of 2011. Is Frank Gehry’s design…
While Hanukkah preparations and aftermath can overshadow every other human activity in December, ‘tis also the season for classical concerts, especially although by no means exclusively, in the New York area. These can include much Yiddishkayt, despite the seeming omnipresence of Handel’s “Messiah.” Mahler-lovers will not want to miss the much-loved British conductor Sir Colin…
“Roy Lichtenstein: The Black-and-White Drawings, 1961-1968” opens and closes, quite fittingly, with doors. “Knock Knock,” a 1961 drawing, greets visitors entering the single-room exhibition. The title words splay from an all-white door, its shape defined by heavy, even black lines. Short marks indicate the thwap of invisible knuckles. Later, after circling the perimeter, you step…
A few weeks ago, at an absorbing lecture offered as part of the Morgan Library’s “Demons and Devotion: The Hours of Catherine of Cleves” exhibit which opened January 22 and runs through May 2, the art historian James Marrow explained the exquisite imagery found in the 15th-century Dutch illuminated manuscript on view. Included are such…
On February 7, the George London Foundation will present a special recital at the Morgan Library in New York, with pianist Jeffrey Cohen accompanying singers June Anderson and Sean Panikkar, as prelude to this year’s George London Competition Finals on March 19 also at the Morgan Library. The family of Canadian-Jewish baritone George London (born…
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