Tag Archives: museums

paintings from the hermitage return to england

Houghton Hall, Yorkshire, England image credit: Houghton International In an unprecedented move, The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg is temporarily reuniting 126 major Old Master paintings with their ancestral home of Houghton Hall in Norfolk, England from 17 May to … Continue reading →

royal treasures from England and Russia at London’s V&A

The Dolphin basin, V&A, London What did the courts of Henry VIII (England) and Ivan the Terrible (Russia) have in common?  No, this isn’t the lead to a joke, but the theme of wonderful exhibition at Victoria and Albert Museum … Continue reading →

Authenticity in the works of Lin Tianmiao, China’s most famous female artist

The Asia Society of New York currently has a retrospective on contemporary Chinese artist Lin Tianmiao that I went to see the other day.  I’m embarrassed to say, I didn’t know much about the artist but unlike many an exhibition, … Continue reading →

Château la Coste – an art and architecture walk in Provence

Today I’m over at MODENUS where as a contributing editor I’m writting about a relatively new and lovely, lovely contemporary art and architecture al fresco walk amongst the vineyards of Château la Coste, a wonderful 17thcentury property north of Aix-en-Provence. I encourage you to take a … Continue reading →

the underwater art-world of Jason de Caires Taylor

 CancĂşn, MĂ©xico   This past New Year, I had the good fortune to dive around the waters of Isla Mujeres and Punta Nizuc off CancĂşn in MĂ©xico in search of the legendary lost city of Atlantis. Truth be told, what … Continue reading →

Diego Rivera and the Rockefeller commission

Diego Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo are undoubtedly Mexico’s most famous 20th century artists.  But even the mightiest of artists do not have carte blanche to do as they please when commissioned by a powerful arts patron, as I … Continue reading →

fooling the senses

One of architecture’s marvels and a landmark relatively unknown to most visitors to the Eternal City, is Francesco Borromini’s masterly 17th-century trompe l’oeil perspective colonnade in the Palazzo Spada, just around the corner from the Palazzo Farnese. From afar, the … Continue reading →