London, GB | Formerly of New York, Buenos Aires, Fife, and the Western Cape. | Saoránach d’Éirinn.

Art

The Neue Galerie

THE RECENT PURCHASE for the Neue Galerie of Gustav Klimt’s 1907 ‘Adele Bloch-Bauer I’ (above), alledgedly for a record-breaking price of $135,000,000, gives me the perfect opportunity to write a post on the eponymously recent addition to New York’s coterie of art museums. Since its 2001 opening, the Neue Galerie has resided in the handsome 1914 beaux-arts mansion on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 86th Street, designed by Carrère and Hastings (of New York Public Library fame) for industrialist William Starr Miller and later inhabited by Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt III. In the time since the construction of No. 1048, the rest of Fifth Avenue has undergone a lamentable transformation from a boulevard of beautiful townhouses and mansions to an avenue predominantly consisting of apartment buildings. While one appreciates the inoffensive design of the pre-war buildings on Fifth, there remain a number of thoroughly opprobrious modern interlopers which offend the graceful avenue. One can’t help but pine for Fifth Avenue before the mansions came down, but we can at least give thanks for holdouts like the Neue Galerie. (more…)

August 30, 2006 3:25 pm | Link | 8 Comments »

The Dream of Christopher Columbus

The Dream of Christopher Columbus, sometimes known as “Christopher Columbus Bringing Christianity to America”, by Dalí.

The two orbital paths in an armillary-like fashion around the sea urchin are taken to be a symbol for Man’s conquest of the Moon, which took place some years after the painting was finished.

Huntington Hartford commissioned the painting from Dalí for his Gallery of Modern Art which once stood in New York’s Columbus Circle.

October 14, 2004 6:19 pm | Link | 3 Comments »

The Death of Marat

The thirteenth of July is also the day that the brave heroine of France, Charlotte Corday, killed the murderous revolutionary swine Jean-Paul Marat. Marat received his M.D. from St Andrews, and his villainy is remembered in the annual Kate Kennedy Procession, in which he is rightfully described as a “paranoid demagogue.”

The assasination inspired David to paint his famous depiction of the event. It is one of my favourite paintings, and a brilliant piece of propaganda portraying a bloodthirsty hatemonger as an angelic martyr.

Remembrance via the great Irish Elk.

July 13, 2004 7:12 pm | Link | No Comments »

Bo Bartlett, The Bride

Bo Bartlett, The Bride
Oil on linen, 80″ x 100″
Private collection

July 13, 2004 12:08 am | Link | No Comments »

Bo Bartlett, Leviathan

Bo Bartlett, Leviathan
Oil on linen, 89″ x 138″
Private Collection

July 7, 2004 2:52 am | Link | No Comments »

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