I am going to cut right to the chase and tell you that I LOVED the exhibition, Capa in Color, at the International Center of Photography. Robert Capa (1913-1954) is certainly best known for his incomparable black-and-white war photography (he documented five wars during his short lifetime and was killed in the midst of First Indochina War) and for co-founding Magnum Photos (the first, and still foremost, international cooperative agency for freelance photographers.) But Capa had another body of work that included absolutely exquisite color images that appeared in magazines such as Life, The Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s and one of my personal favorites, the travel magazine Holiday, a fantastic publication known for working with the world’s finest photographers and writers. These images are perfectly evocative of their era and, especially for a postwar American audience, captured a world quite far and away. Capa in Color presents this body of work for the very first time and contains more than 100 photographs culled completely from ICP’s own collection. After all, Capa’s younger brother, the renowned photographer Cornell Capa, founded ICP to preserve and impart Robert Capa’s tremendous legacy. With this great show, they clearly continue to do so.
Capa in Color runs through May 4.
www.icp.org
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| Fortunato Depero, Skyscrapers and Tunnels (Gratticieli e tunnel), 1930. MART, Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Italy © 2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SIAE, Rome. Photo: © MART, Archivio Fotografico |
What looks to be an amazing exhibition is opening today at the Guggenheim Museum. Italian Futurism, 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe is a major multidisciplinary installation including fine art, film, fashion, design, performance, architecture and the written word (to name a handful) from this tremendously influential, avant-garde movement that essentially revered the new — technology, speed, industry, youth, urbanism. The first show devoted to Italian futurism in the United States, it includes more than 300 works organized chronologically over its 35 year period, and is poised to be one of the standout exhibitions of the year. I know where I’ll be this weekend.
Italian Futurism, 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe runs through September 1 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
www.guggenheim.org
Today is Gertrude Stein’s birthday, it’s my birthday too. I love sharing a birthday with her and without fail find a reason to make mention of this each and every year. Here is a bit of proof. This year I would like to discuss the recently published 75th anniversary edition of her charming book, The World Is Round, illustrated by Clement Hurd. This reprint is gorgeous in the very same size as the first edition and with the same striking blue illustrations and text on the same lovely rose paper. This brand new version also includes two interesting essays, one by Hurd’s son, artist Thacher Hurd and one by his wife, writer Edith Thacher Hurd, both of which add enormously to the story of this great collaboration. In fact I never knew that Clement Hurd studied in Paris with Fernand Léger and other modernists — of course Stein chose him as her illustrator. The World Is Round is indeed a treasure. Happy Birthday Gertrude!
The World Is Round by Gertrude Stein (HarperCollins Publishers, 2013)
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People walking down stairs, Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne, 1937.
Photograph F. S. Lincoln.
Fay S. Lincoln Photograph collection, 1920-1968, HCLA 1628, Special Collections Library, Pennsylvania State University. |
As I was writing our recent post on Maynard L. Parker, I couldn’t help but think about F.S. Lincoln (1894-1976), another great American architectural photographer of the same era. Based in Manhattan, Lincoln extensively documented the work of some of the most notable New York architects and designers of the time including McKim, Mead & White, Eugene Schoen, Ely Jacques Kahn, Joseph Aronson and Russel Wright, among numerous others. His work appeared in a wide range of shelter magazines such as Architectural Forum, Architectural Record and House & Garden. He also captured the two New York World’s Fairs and many of the international expositions in Europe, and received large commissions to photograph Colonial Williamsburg and antebellum architecture in the deep south. My favorite F. S. Lincoln photographs are always very distinct, very orderly black and white images of the some of the finest American and European modern design, architecture and interiors.
I recently came across a most fantastic book — Maynard L. Parker: Modern Photography and the American Dream. Published in 2012 by Yale University Press, it is a beauty. I must admit, I had never heard of Maynard L. Parker (1900-1976), one of this country’s most prolific and I would also say influential commercial architectural and design photographers of the twentieth century. From the 1930s through the 1960s, Los Angeles-based Parker’s carefully constructed images of a new modern American aesthetic and way of life, captured mainly in Southern California, filled the pages of numerous leading shelter magazines such as Architectural Digest, Architectural Forum, Sunset and Good Housekeeping. But it was with House Beautiful and its legendary editor-in-chief, Elizabeth Gordon, that Parker enjoyed his most successful and important partnership. In addition, Parker documented the homes of a number of Hollywood celebrities, and the work of a number of celebrated architects, among them Frank Lloyd Wright, Harwell Hamilton Harris and Pierre Koenig. Maynard L. Parker Modern Photography became an enormously successful business and Parker himself, working full-time since the age of 16, did without a doubt, embody the American dream. Although the coffee table cut of this volume could be misleading, it contains seven great, scholarly essays about the life, career and legacy of Maynard L. Parker. I found it seriously enlightening and quite a visual feast. And right now, in the dead of winter, those coastal and poolside photographs of sunny Southern California especially spoke to me!
Maynard L. Parker: Modern Photography and the American Dream, edited by Jennifer Watts (Yale University Press in association with the Huntington Library, 2012)
I’m getting ready for a trip to Paris and Rome in March. One of my favorite go-to travel resources is LUXE City Guides. These tiny, fold-out guides are the perfect quick reference. Modern, stylish and spot-on they brilliantly lack superflous text and are void of photographs. LUXE City Guides also has mobile apps, online updates and a really great blog. Have I already checked the LUXE Rome guide for the best gelato in the city? Of course.
www.luxecityguides.com
I just finished reading The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel, in anticipation of the soon-to-be-released film of the same name. It is the story of the allied force of quite notable art professionals including museum curators and directors, conservators, architects, artists and art historians that volunteered to risk their lives to protect, save and recover Europe’s most important buildings and landmarks and stolen works of art, cultural objects and personal property during and immediately following World War II. It is completely fascinating. The Rape of Europa, both the book by Lynn H. Nicholas and the subsequent documentary, is a brilliant telling of this most tragic moment in history and one whose aftermath still exists to this day. Edsel, actually a co-producer on the documentary, later focused his own tremendous research specifically on those men in the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives unit (MFAA) and their remarkable and heroic efforts to preserve the artistic heritage of Europe. I can’t wait to see the film and I can’t wait to read Edsel’s new book, Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation’s Treasures from the Nazis, published last spring.
The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter (Center Street, 2009)
www.monumentsmen.com
With temperatures below zero, I am happy to have the chance to escape to warmer waters. My good friend and owner of the extraordinary store of the same name, Jung Lee has discovered a new treasure of a book, FRENCH RIVIERA: Living Well Was The Best Revenge. The description on the store website describes the book best by saying: there has never been any place on earth quite like the French Riviera in the 1920s and early 30s. Artists and writers from all over the world—including Picasso, Man Ray, Stravinsky, Coco Chanel, Cocteau, Edith Wharton, Diaghilev, and Hemingway—came to invent a new way of life. It’s no surprise that such a delightful book would be chosen to be among the exquisitely curated objects of Jung’s store.
available at jungleeny.com
One of our favorite holiday books and one our family reads together during this week every year is Will Moses’ Silent Night. Will Moses is a great-grandson of renowned primitive painter Grandma Moses, grandson of folk artist Forrest King Moses and a celebrated American artist in his own right. In addition to his paintings, which can be found in such notable collections as the Smithsonian Institution and the White House, Moses has written and illustrated several books for children. Silent Night is set in a small Vermont village on Christmas Eve as a baby is about to be born. This beautiful story is the perfect reminder of a simpler, less complicated life that we often crave, especially during this season.
“Now, as children often do, Andy crawled up onto that giant quilt-covered featherbed, lying so close to the baby that he could smell her baby sweetness. And it was right there that Andy fell asleep on that special night. A silent night, when a new baby came to a wintery Vermont valley, where snow clouds hung puffy over the hills and farms, barns, narrow lanes, and skating ponds.”
Perfectly lovely. Thank you for this Will Moses.
Silent Night by Will Moses (Philomel Books, 1997)
I recently watched What Maisie Knew (having missed it while it was in theaters in the spring), a contemporary and quite good adaptation of Henry James’ novel of the same name. For some reason I couldn’t stop thinking about it and so felt compelled to read the book as well. Although the filmmakers describe it as a reimagining of the novel, which it definitely is, some of the most striking subtleties are in place. It makes complete sense to make a modern-day retelling of this very modern late 19th-century work. It is heartbreaking for sure, especially on film, and especially with a rather exceptional cast that includes Julianne Moore, Alexander Skarsgård, Steve Coogan and Joanna Vanderham. But the very best part of What Maisie Knew, all of the beauty and earnestness and perfect nuances, exist in the brilliant performance of Onata Aprile as Maisie. Quite unbelievable actually.
