Issue January - February 2017 (2024)

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America’s premier publication on the fine and decorative arts, architecture, preservation, and interior design. Each bimonthly issue includes regular columns on current exhibitions, personalities in the field, notes on collecting, book reviews, and more.

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IN THIS ISSUEWilliam Merritt Chase (1849-1916)Acclaimed American Impressionist William Merritt Chase enjoyed a lucrative and critically successful career painting portraits, landscapes and still life compositions in his bold, bravura style. He exhibited at major venues including the Boston Art Club, the Pennsylvania Academy, the Corcoran Gallery, the Brooklyn Art Association and the National Academy, which made him a full Academician in 1890. He also participated in expositions in Paris, Buffalo, New York, Charleston, and San Francisco, and was a founding member of the prestigious impressionist group, The Ten American Painters, beginning in 1902.His ability to capture the personalities of his subjects made him one of the most sought-after portraitists in the country. Commissions poured in, including several from the Earle family of Philadelphia, which had eight portraits done by Chase in the early 1900s while…1 min

IN THIS ISSUEEDITOR’S LETTERNot long ago I came across a graphic novel by the talented artist and illustrator Leanne Shapton entitled Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry. The book tells a love story in the form of an auction catalogue. Implicit in Shapton’s inventive and engaging format for charting the course of a romance is a commentary on the tendency to attach a price tag to every one of our possessions. It’s a useful caution at a time when contemporary art and “limited edition” designs are regarded as investment instruments first, and only secondarily (if at all) as, respectively, manifestations of cultural and philosophical inquiry, and elegant and imaginative solutions to practical needs such as a place to sit.…2 min

IN THIS ISSUEMatters of tasteOf the various epithets that have been used to describe Donald Trump over the past two years, one of the most repeated is “vulgar.” The word has been used to describe many things about America’s next president—his penchant for gold plating, his behavior toward women, his defiant anti-intellectualism, his unusual word choices (“schlonged”?), his tendency to put his name on things in large typeface. David Remnick, in a post-election piece in the New Yorker, went so far as to describe Trump as “vulgarity unbounded.” Are we about to have a four-year crash course in this topic? Maybe it’s time to take a closer look.The word derives from the Latin vulgus, meaning “common people,” and while not necessarily a pejorative—it can be applied to vernacular language, for example—it almost always carries…6 min

IN THIS ISSUEWilliam Merritt Chase (1849-1916)Acclaimed American Impressionist William Merritt Chase enjoyed a lucrative and critically successful career painting portraits, landscapes and still life compositions in his bold, bravura style. He exhibited at major venues including the Boston Art Club, the Pennsylvania Academy, the Corcoran Gallery, the Brooklyn Art Association and the National Academy, which made him a full Academician in 1890. He also participated in expositions in Paris, Buffalo, New York, Charleston, and San Francisco, and was a founding member of the prestigious impressionist group, The Ten American Painters, beginning in 1902. His ability to capture the personalities of his subjects made him one of the most sought-after portraitists in the country. Commissions poured in, including several from the Earle family of Philadelphia, which had eight portraits done by Chase in the early 1900s…1 min

IN THIS ISSUEFame is a bee: Eyeing Emily Dickinson at the Morgan Library and on filmNo other American poet—maybe no other American writer—excites more curiosity than Emily Dickinson. At a time when poetry barely registers with the reading public Dickinson news is usually big news—a portrait (invariably never authenticated) comes to light, a poetic fragment is found, and there is always one more clinical analysis of her mental state, as if that would bring us any closer to the woman who did not want to be known, who lived in seclusion in her family’s Massachusetts house, wore mostly white, and wrote some eighteen hundred syntactically and rhythmically challenging poems that beckon us seductively, but just as often keep us at something more than arm’s length.To clear away some of the mythological underbrush surrounding Dickinson, the Morgan Library and Museum’s exhibitionI’m Nobody! Who are you? The…3 min

IN THIS ISSUERestoring the lost laurels of Adolf DehnIn the summer of 1941, the artist Adolf Dehn (1895–1968) was riding high. Considered a master lithographer, he had been exhibiting extensively in New York City galleries and contributing regularly to magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker. Nearly every major American museum was acquiring his work. As the cherry on top, Lifemagazine celebrated Dehn’s art with a five-page spread in its August 8th issue. But within a few years, as art critics rushed to embrace abstract expressionism, Dehn and many other artists of the social realism school were virtually forgotten. A new exhibition opening this month at the Fairfield University Art Museum in Connecticut aims to restore some luster to Dehn’s name.The show focuses on his favorite subject: Manhattan, its people and its places. A native…2 min

Issue January - February 2017 (2024)

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