Category: january 2020

Hope

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In Lower Manhattan

  • Every year, the Bell of Hope rings at 0846 local time to mark the moment when the first of two planes hit the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
  • St. Paul’s Chapel. Built in 1766, it is the oldest surviving place of worship in New York City. Still standing even though the twin World Trade Center towers (and the world as we knew it) collapsed across from it in the 9/11 attacks, earning it the loving title ”the chapel that stood”.
  • The New York Evening Post Building, an Art Nouveau gem, and a rarity in New York City

January 5th, 2020

In Pursuit of Fashion: The Sandy Schreier Collection

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”The Costume Institute’s fall 2019 exhibition featured promised gifts from Sandy Schreier, a pioneering collector, who over the course of more than half a century assembled one of the finest private fashion collections in the United States. The show explored how Schreier amassed a trove of twentieth-century French and American couture and ready-to-wear, not as a wardrobe, but in appreciation of this form of creative expression.” [source]

Sandy Schreier, a fashion historian and private collector from Detroit owns more than 15.000 couture items and accessories from France, American ready-to-wear, and early twentieth-century Italian designs. She also owns Hollywood costumes such as Rita Hayworth’s dress from ‘Gilda’, Zsa Zsa Gabor’s dress from ‘Moulin Rouge’, or the metal-mesh mini dress by Roberto Rojas that Twiggy wore in Richard Avedon’s photograph (second image, below). The Met exhibition featured just 80 of these collection items, and they took up the entire Costume Institute’s show space… makes you think of the size of storage room needed to house the entire collection, doesn’t it!

  • Roberto Rojas, dress, 1967 – Gold and silver metal mesh
  • Jessie Franklin Turner, tea gown, 1939 – Gown of peach and apricot silk chiffon
  • Zandra Rhodes, dress, A/W 1972-73 – Polychrome-printed silk chiffon embroidered with pink floral sequins
    Ensemble, S/S 1976 – Polychrome-printed blue silk chiffon embroidered with blue floral sequins
  • Philip Treacy, hat, Spring 2003 haute couture – Black braided straw with polychrome butterflies of painted turkey feathers
  • Bes-Ben, hat ca. 1946 – Red leather, red cotton thread, plastic-coated wire, and white beads
  • Alexander McQueen, dress S/S 2008 – Black silk twill embroidered with portrait of Isabella Blow in black and gold sequins and bugle beads
  • Probably French, evening dress, ca. 1925-28
  • Probably American or French, evening dress, ca. 1925-28 – Yellow cotton plain weave embroidered with gold metal paillettes, gold glass bugle beads, clear glass beads, and seed beads; clear glass crystals
  • Paul Poiret, ”Bataille” evening dress, 1925 – Gold pleated lamé and gold and black lace embroidered with black and silver sequins
  • Probably French, evening coat, ca. 1923-28 – Silver lamé embroidered with polychrome seed beads and silver metal cord
  • Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, ”Delphos” dress, 1920s-30s – Pleated black silk charmeuse, black silk cord, and brown-and-white glass beads
  • Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, Coat 1920s-30s – Brown and green silk velvet on silk-cotton ground printed with metallic pigment
  • Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, Coat 1920s-30s – Burgundy silk plain weave printed with metallic pigment, cord of burgundy silk and gold metal threads, cream-and-red and brown glass beads
  • Lucien Lelong, evening dress, S/S 1938 – Ivory silk organza with floral appliqué of ivory and green silk mousseline embroidered with white and green bugle beads
  • House of Dior, by Yves Saint Laurent – ”Aubade” evening ensemble, S/S 1958 – Dress and hat of blue-and-white warp-printed silk taffeta
  • Delicata Shoes, 1958 – Blue-and-white warp-printed silk taffeta, white and tan leather
  • House of Dior, ”Du Barry” evening dress, A/W 1957-58 – Pale blue silk satin

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

January 2nd, 2020

Félix Vallotton: Painter of Disquiet

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First steps into a new year – with Art

  • Self-Portrait at the Age of Twenty, 1885. Oil on canvas
  • The Sick Girl, 1892. Oil on canvas
  • Street Scene in Paris, ca. 1897. Gouache and oil on cardboard
  • Misa at her Dressing Table, 1898. Distemper on cardboard
  • Self-Portrait, 1897. Oil on cardboard
  • The White and the Black, 1913. Oil on canvas
  • Nude in the Red Room, 1897. Oil on cardboard
  • Nude Holding Her Gown, 1904. Oil on canvas
  • The Lie, 1898. Oil on canvas
  • The Provincial, 1909. Oil on canvas
  • The World’s Fair: Looking at the Jewels, 1901. Woodcuts
  • The World’s Fair: Fireworks, 1901. Woodcut
  • The World’s Fair: The Shower, 1901. Woodcut
  • Laziness, 1986. Woodcutva

From an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

January 2nd, 2020