Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Berlin Philharmonic completed a three-day visit to Carnegie Hall in New York. The world’s greatest orchestra and its greatest conductor, Kirill Petrenko, did not disappoint.  The programming combined an anniversary  (the 200th birthday of Anton Bruckner), with fresh visits to favorites like Anton Dvorak’s 7th Symphony and a Violin Concerto by the film composer Erich Korngold.

The 331 works of art in the gift include 132 paintings, 130 sculptures, thirty-nine drawings, and thirty decorative arts objects, creating an important addition to the Clark’s holdings. The entirety of the Tavitian gift will be on view when the new Aso O. Tavitian Wing opens. Following an introductory presentation at the time of the new wing’s opening, the works on paper included in the gift will be made available for study purposes and be presented in periodic displays. The majority of paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts objects will be shown on a continual basis, both in the new Tavitian Wing and in the Clark’s permanent collection galleries.

Darrel Ellis & Miguel Ferrando, delves into the intertwined lives and artistic journeys of two figures who were more than just friends—they were creative soulmates. Though their careers spanned only a handful of years (Ellis died of AIDS in 1992 at 34, and Ferrando in 1996, at 38 ), their work, showcased side-by-side, offers a rare glimpse into a  unique artistic creative partnership from the 1980s.

Bert Stern’s children, Trista and Bret, comment on the exhibition, “We are thrilled to bring our father’s iconic 1962 shoot with Marilyn Monroe back to vivid life at the beautiful Sohn Fine Art Gallery. Marilyn was our dad’s dream girl, a unique mix of actress, model and ‘American goddess’ (as he called her) that he never encountered before or after. He told us, ‘Stars die, but light goes on forever.’ Through the magic of photography, Marilyn Monroe is still reaching us with her light today.”

In the late 1960s a new generation of artists revitalized the Boston art world. They created Studio Coalition the nation's first open studios event. Katherine Porter emerged with immediate recognition and success. She was shown twice in Whitney Biennials and exhibited in major galleries. Social concerns informed her work. She moved a number of times seeking a like minded community. We reconnected when for several years she lived in Vermont. In her final recent move she settled in Santa Fe.

Sarah Ganz Blythe, a highly respected curator, educator, and scholar with more than 25 years of museum experience, will be the new Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director of the Harvard Art Museums, interim Provost John Manning announced Wednesday. Ganz Blythe is joining Harvard from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum, where she is currently deputy director, exhibitions, education, and programs.

Seventy five years ago the artists Weldon Kees and Fritz Bultman organized the summer long event Forum '49. In weekly lectures and panels the issues of the day were debated from the fine arts and architectures to jazz, literature, psychoanalysis the face off of Paris vs New York and the threat of Stalinism. The exhibits were staged in a popup space in protest over the conservative programming of the Provincetown Art Association. The dissent moved to New York and a petition against the Met signed by the Irascibles including P'town artists.

Mark Morrisroe, who died at 30, was the most innovative of the artists shown as the Boston School at the ICA in an exhibition curated by Lea Gangitano. Since his premature death his reputation has continued to grow. This is his fifth solo with Clamp Gallery. His work has been acquired by numerous museums.

On June 1, 2024 the Berkshire Music School, in partnership with Ventfort Hall, welcomes Brandon Patrick George, flute, for Berkshire Music School's Annual Gala to raise funds for BMS’ Community Engagement programs, including pay-what-you-wish group classes, need-based private lesson scholarships, and outreach assemblies and workshops in public schools.

Tucked away in Glens Falls, New York is the small but magnificent Hyde Museum. In a rural industrial setting it is astonishing to encounter a collection of Old Masters and modern works that run the gamut from Rembrandt to Picasso and beyond.

For under a million dollars, MFA curator Kenworth Moffett, presented Jackson Pollock's Lavender Mist to the acquisitions committee. In an epic pratfall the trustees under orders from the new director, Merrill Rueppel, turned it down. In a matter of weeks it was acquired by the National Gallery. The MFA later acquired two works by the abstract expressionist artist. Several years ago a Pollock, now owned by the Norton Museum, sold for $200 million.

Currently Native American artist, Jeffrey Gibson, is the first to be honored by an exhibition in the American Pavilion of the Venice Biennale. We first encountered him when he exhibited with Camillo Alvarez in his Boston based Samson Gallery. At the time I was researching and curating Native American art. We met for a studio visit in 2006.

The Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida is one of the most unique, and curious collections in America. It is sited on a manicured, tropical, 66-acre campus that conflates nature, leisure, warmth and depth in Old Master paintings, Ancient Mediterranean art, Asian art, 19th and  20th century art, prints, drawings and photography, as well as extensive circus related memorabilia. There are period rooms with collections of decorative arts. Through expansion it is now the 20th largest American museum.

In conjunction with the 160th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) will present newly commissioned and recent works by Sadie Barnette, Alfred Conteh, Maya Freelon, Hugh Hayden, Letitia Huckaby, Jeffrey Meris, and Sable Elyse Smith in a new exhibition visualizing Black freedom, agency, and the legacy of the Civil War today and beyond.

For the past 15 years artist Peter Dudek has been a part of a team of three that manage Bascom Lodge on Mount Greylock. Prior to that, with Maggie Mailer, he managed Storefront Artists Project in Pittsfield. It brought life to the moribund downtown. Recently we met to discuss a limited edition facsimile of a 1951 Met catalogue American Sculpture.

Coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of Picasso’s death, Young Picasso in Paris highlights a significant work, Le Moulin de la Galette (ca. November 1900), from the Guggenheim collection. The famous dance hall—formerly a mill engaged in the production of a brown bread, or galette—had also been depicted by such avant-gardists as Ramón Casas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Vincent van Gogh.

De Montebello, who was formerly Executive Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has repeatedly refused to address staff concerns about health and safety for both staff and the collection itself.  

The realist painter Alfred Leslie had a major impact on the Boston Art World. In 1976 he had a solo exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts. He also commuted to teach at the Boston University School of Fine Arts.

Through January 29 the Institute of Contemporary Art is displayng a gallery with 11 totemic ceramic standing figures by Rose B. Simpson. A graduate of RISD she grew up in a culture noted for its distinctive pottery created by her mother, Roxanne Swentzell, her late grandmother, Rina Swentzell and her late great-grandmother, Rose Naranjo.

The Buffalo AKG Art Museum (formerly the Albright-Knox Art Gallery) has announced the promotion of Dr. Tina Rivers Ryan, a specialist in modern and contemporary art and one of the world’s leading experts on art and technology, to the position of Curator.

On Sunday, September 4 at 4 pm, the renowned Knights Orchestra returns to the Clark to celebrate the current Rodin in the United States: Confronting the Modern exhibition. This free outdoor concert takes place on the Fernández Terrace near the Clark’s Reflecting Pool.

Through September 18 the Clark Art Institute is presenting the blockbuster exhibition Rodin in the United States: Confronting the Modern. More documentary than retrospective it tells the tale of Rodin in America and his great collectors. All but one of the 50 sculptures and 25 drawings are loans from American museums and private collections. This is the must see exhibition of summer in the Berkshires.

Julia Bullock has made a big opera career outside conventional wisdom. At the Aix Festival in Provence this year she sang Olivier Messiaen's Harawi, a challenging work to which she brings unusual insights.

On Saturday, July 23 at 3 pm, the Clark Art Institute hosts a performance by acclaimed Jacob’s Pillow alumnus Jonah Bokaer. The choreographer and visual artist performs a solo choreography inspired by Auguste Rodin’s sculpture, Fallen Angel.

The Rodin exhibition explores changing perceptions of the sculptor’s work, beginning with the first acquisition made by an American institution—the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1893—and Rodin’s controversial debut at Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition in the same year. The exhibition examines the collecting frenzy of the early twentieth century, promoted by noted philanthropist Katherine Seney Simpson, avant-garde performer Loïe Fuller, and collector Alma de Bretteville Spreckels