Category: february 2020

The Sacred Grove || Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

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Dating from Toulouse-Lautrec’s student days, this parody of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes’s The Sacred Grove mimics the style and subject of that allegorical composition celebrating the arts and muses but subverts the serious tone. A clockface appears on the ancient portico, a giant tube of paint is held aloft by one of the arts, and a circular loaf of bread, instead of a laurel crown, is held by the kneeling youth. The men advancing from the right are Louis Anquetin, a fellow student; Édouard Dujardin, Symbolist critic and founder of the Revue Wagnérienne; Maurice Barrès, Symbolist author; and Léon Bonnat, Lautrec’s first teacher. Lautrec himself is seen from behind, urinating on the ground, and a police officer tries to keep the intruders in line. [source]

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
The Sacred Grove, 1884
Oil on canvas

Princeton University Art Museum

The lion that was desperate

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The painting portrays the four evangelists with their symbols: Matthew with the angel, Mark with the lion, Luke with the ox, and John with the eagle, receiving the divine inspiration to compose their gospels.

All well and good, but what about that poor lion silently begging to be rescued…?

Abraham Bloemaert || The Four Evangelists, ca. 1612–15 – oil on canvas

Enjoying the collection at Princeton University Art Museum

February 15th, 2020

Oscar Hammerstein II Farm

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”In 1941, during a lull in his career, Oscar Hammerstein II and his wife, Dorothy, came to Bucks County looking for a retreat from New York City. While driving up the hill to Highland Farm, Dorothy spotted a rainbow and sensed this would be a magical place for her professionally floundering husband and their family. The move proved immensely wise as the bucolic countryside truly inspired Mr. Hammerstein. Legend is told that he was so moved by the views of cattle and corn fields in the early morning that he was inspired to write, “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” the opening song for Oklahoma!, on the front porch. Arguably, his most famous works were written while residing at Highland Farm including South Pacific, The King and I, Flower Drum Song, and The Sound of Music.

The Hammerstein family lived at Highland Farm for 20 years. During their residence, the home was constantly alive with many guests and children. Mr. Hammerstein was known to fly different colored flags as a message to the local children. One said, “Come and swim.” Another meant, “Let’s play tennis.” And still another said, “Stay away today.”

Oscar died at The Farm in August 1960 and was buried in New York. After his death, Dorothy moved from Highland Farm and sold it a year later. By the mid-1980’s, Mary and John Schnitzer had purchased the home, renovated it, and operated a Bed and Breakfast for almost 15 years. Mary sold Highland Farm to Shawn Touhill, a local developer, in 2003.

In 2007, Highland Farm was purchased by Doylestown resident, Christine Cole. While looking for a Bucks County barn to renovate, she was shown Highland Farm and instantly fell in love. Her business plans changed and she embraced the idea of becoming an innkeeper and starting a new venture. She immediately began remodeling and redecorating the home.” [source]

Each guest room has a theme dedicated to one of Hammerstein’s musicals; ours was the South Pacific, once the family’s master bedroom.

While the house is still operating as a B&B, the innkeepers have formed a nonprofit organization in an effort to raise funds to restore the property and build a museum and theatre education centre, in the premises.

Highland Farm B&B – The Oscar Hammerstein Museum

Doylestown, PA

February 14-16, 2020

Afterwork @MoMA

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Reaping the benefit of having MoMA at walking distance between home & work.

  • Dorothea Lange || Migratory Cotton Picker, Eloy, Arizona. November 1940
  • Dorothea Lange || Woman of the High Plains, Texas Panhandle. June 1938
  • Dorothea Lange || Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California. March 1936
  • Dorothea Lange || Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California. March 1936
  • Dorothea Lange || A Destitute Mother: The Type Aided by the WPA. March 1936
  • SITE, James Wines || Highrise of Homes, project (Exterior perspective)1981

    James Wines, a founding member in 1970 of the SITE (Sculpture In The Environment) architectural group, described the Highrise of Homes project as a “vertical community” to “accommodate people’s conflicting desires to enjoy the cultural advantages of an urban center, without sacrificing the private home identity and garden space associated with suburbia.” The plan calls for a steel-and-concrete, eight-to-ten-story, U-shaped building frame erected in a densely populated urban area. The developer would sell lots within this frame, each lot the site for a house and garden in a style chosen by the purchaser. The result would be a distinct villagelike community on each floor, with interior streets. A central mechanical core would serve these homes and gardens, while shops, offices, and other facilities on the ground and middle floors would provide for the residents’ needs.

    Developers considered Battery Park City, New York, as a possible location for the project, but it was never built.
  • Marlene Dumas || Chlorosis (Love sick), 1994 [detail]
  • Marlene Dumas || Chlorosis (Love sick), 1994
  • Marlene Dumas || Chlorosis (Love sick), 1994 [detail]
  • Frances Benjamin Johnston || From the Hampton Album 1899-1900. Geography: Studying the Seasons
  • Frances Benjamin Johnston || From the Hampton Album 1899-1900. Geography: Studying the Cathedral Towns
  • Frances Benjamin Johnston || From the Hampton Album 1899-1900. Stairway of Treasurer’s Residence: Students at Work

”After setting up her own photography studio in 1894, in Washington, D.C., Frances Benjamin Johnston was described by The Washington Times as “the only lady in the business of photography in the city.” Considered to be one of the first female press photographers in the United States, she took pictures of news events and architecture and made portraits of political and social leaders for over five decades.

In 1899, the principal of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia commissioned Johnston to take photographs at the school for the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris. The Hampton Institute was a preparatory and trade school dedicated to preparing African American and Native American students for professional careers. Johnston took more than 150 photographs and exhibited them in the Exposition Nègres d’Amerique (American Negro Exhibit) pavilion, which was meant to showcase improving race relations in America. The series won the grand prize and was lauded by both the public and the press.

Years later, writer and philanthropist Lincoln Kirstein discovered a leather-bound album of Johnston’s Hampton Institute photographs. He gave the album to The Museum of Modern Art, which reproduced 44 of its original 159 photographs in a book called The Hampton Album, published in 1966.” [source]

February 7th, 2020