Manet/Velazquez at the Met (2003)

This was an extraordinary exhibition – in fact, three exhibitions in one. First, Velazquez and the Spanish Old Masters; second, Manet and his contemporaries; third, the Great American Portraitists. Like all major Metropolitan exhibitions these days, it was too big, and the “story” it told could have been better presented in half the space. But […]

A Meditation on Beauty

      We ran across a fascinating exhibition in Berlin last year called “Beauty” (more exactly, “Schonheit”), in which an Italian diplomat selected 100 objects from the various German national collections. My favorite display lined up three female busts: the famous one of Queen Nefertiti, a Florentine Renaissance marble, and a 13th-century terra cotta from […]