New York Art Notes

Fall 2025 I’ve covered the Met’s big show for the fall, Divine Egypt, in a separate post and will briefly run down here the other art highlights of October in New York and Washington–the latter because although the National Gallery was closed by the government shutdown we went ahead with our planned four-day visit. A […]

Siena at the Met

“Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350” confirmed the view arrived at on our recent trip to Italy, including Siena, that Sienese painting is a cul de sac in the history of art. The exhibition’s first gallery is centered on the Met’s prize Duccio and I cynically wonder if the show was not conceived as a […]

Italy ’24

Italian art, 1300-1500, was the unstated focus of our trip with the Santa Barbara Museum of Art to Hill Towns of Umbria and Tuscany from September 26 to October 9. Without notes, the stops blend together, but for the record we visited Montefalco, Todi, Spello, Spoleto, Bevagna, Clitunno, Orvieto, Assisi, Perugia, Sansepulcro, Monterchi, Siena, Pienza […]

New York Spring

Just as Broadway had, for us at least, an unexceptional spring, the art I saw in New York on this visit left few lasting impressions, which I will briefly highlight. Before we left for Africa we went to the Neue Galerie for the final days of its Klimt Landscapes show. There were a handful of […]

Black Art

We had a fortuitous 30-hour immersion in Black culture: the Brooklyn Museum’s exhibition of art from the collection of Alicia Keys and Swizz B; Hell’s Kitchen, the Alicia Keys musical on Broadway; and Harlem Renaissance at the Met. I reviewed the play elsewhere, but the two art shows were an interesting complement to each other. […]