Reimagining Modernism

[fusion_text]I don’t mind it when museums shake things up, to make you look at familiar works afresh and introduce new ones, but what the Met has done with its Modernism collection (1900-1950) is to destroy the context of its art without adding any new focus, leaving pieces dangling like isolated leaves on a naked branch. […]

Egypt at the Met

[fusion_text] The Met’s new show on the art of Egypt’s Middle Kingdom is pretty terrific – for me, not so much for its scholarship, which is largely beyond my ken, but just because Egypt’s art is so terrific. I don’t think the show argues that Middle Kingdom art is any better than art from Egypt’s […]

Picasso’s Sculpture

[fusion_text]Picasso’s paintings reimagine reality in wholly original ways, turning three-dimensional objects into convincing two dimensions. His sculptures then take those wholly original two dimensions and turn them back into 3D, a 3D no longer tethered to any recognizable reality. This trick is not all: every few years he creates in a new material: plaster, bronze, […]

Sargent at the Met

[fusion_text] In presenting an exhibition of works by John Singer Sargent, the Met has outdone itself again – or maybe I should say “overdone it again.” Going in, I was not a particular fan of Sargent, although I do consider “The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit” a definite inclusion on my list of favorite 25 […]

More American Art at the Met

[fusion_text]I was thrilled to visit the Members’ Dining and Lounge area on the 4th floor of the Metropolitan Museum last night (10/2/15) and find it hung with some of my favorites. A trademark A.T. Bricher hung over one couch, a Tonalist Childe Hassam over another, and a typical Hugh Bolton Jones over a third. Smaller works […]