Oh Canada!

It seems like ages ago when I was blogging that I would be giving a paper at the British Queer History conference at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and that I would be going to England for my dissertation fellowship at the Henry Moore Institute. Believe it or not, the time has arrived: I leave in the morning. I'm usually fully prepared to visit museums or do specific things when I go to a new city, but this time around I haven't had time to do any research on Montreal. The picture you see here is the facade of their Musée des Beaux-Arts (Museum of Fine Arts; image: Bruce Aleksander & Dennis Milam on Flickr), but I haven't even looked at the museum website yet to know what's on at the moment. I've never been to Montreal before. I've been to Vancouver twice, and loved it, but this French city should be a wonderful experience, assuming the weather holds up. But what is there to do in Montreal? If anyone out there has been and wants to make recommendations, please let me know! In the meantime I need to brush up on my "s'il vous plait" and "merci." Time also to practice my favorite safety-net phrase: "Je suis desole, mais je ne parl pas francais." A little bit of humility in Paris helped me tremendously in Paris. I wonder if Montreal will be the same?

Auction Results: Attics and Dags

You'll recall not too long ago I had blogged about Chatsworth: The Attic Sale, a Sotheby's auction of architectural features and household goods owned by the Duke of Devonshire's family for the past few centuries. That 3-day auction ended today. The total amount earned at the sale (including buyers' premiums) was £6,486,782, which converts to $10,319,821.48. The most expensive item sold for £565,250, more than double its estimated value. It was a white marble chimneypiece from ca. 1735. Located in what was the Grand Entrance Hall of Devonshire House, it measures nearly 6' x 8' and would have been quite impressive in the entryway. The image you see here is a detail of it, showing the exquisite carving.

Following up on my last post about the daguerreotypes up for auction at Christie's, the 3 particular works I cited all sold today as well. Girault de Prangey's building with palm trees in Egypt sold for $62,500, and his gardens of the Villa Medici sold for $68,500. As for the anonymous dag of the two women, it sold under its estimated value for $1,000. That's actually a reasonable price, and it only makes it even more discouraging that I didn't bid on it.

As an aside, I learned from RL after my last post that while it was true that dags showed a mirror image of the sitter, thus altering the truth of their left/right sensibilities, that only lasted for a few years. An advancement in the development of cameras was the inclusion of an internal mirror, which corrected the image so that it would show on the dag plate exactly as an individual truly appeared. The inclusion of this mirror is still a part of all film cameras today.

Dags at Christie's

This morning, I accompanied RL to Christie’s auction house at Rockefeller Center to see the exhibition of photographs going up for sale tomorrow and Thursday. There are nearly 300 items in the one sale, with work by everyone from Carleton Watkins (1829-1916) to Richard Avedon (1923-2004). We were most interested in the daguerreotypes though. Dags (as I will hereafter call them) are copper plates that have been sensitized to light with a combination of mercury, silver, and iodine. (RL, pardon my oversimplified explanation!) They were first announced to the public in Paris in January 1839 as the invention of Louis Daguerre (1787-1851) based on his experiments with Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765-1833), and thus are considered by most today as the first stable form of photography. The incredible details that dags captured had critics declaring they were mirrors with permanent reflections. Their one deficiency was that it was a one-off. William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) in England announced that the same year the invention of the calotype, a paper-based negative from which he could print positive prints. This easier reproducibility of images eventually led to Talbot’s process becoming the model for photography thereafter. But dags were still extremely popular because of the incredible clarity and detail seen in the shiny plates. Dag portraits were popular up to about 1860 because of the "photorealistic" quality seen in the portrayal of the sitter. Curiously though, because a dag is the negative of an figure or object, when you look at a dag you are actually seeing a mirror reflection of the subject as it truly appeared. In other words, a flower held in a woman’s left hand will appear in her right hand in the dag.

The image above is the cover of the catalog for the auction on October 7th of 73 dags by the French aristocrat Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey (1804-1892). An artist interested in architectural details and landscapes, he used dags on his trips to Italy, Turkey, Greece, and the Middle East to capture beautiful images with his own custom sized plates. He then would create drawings and watercolors and use them to make lithographs. Most remarkably, all of his dags were put in storage by him and only rediscovered in 1920, complete and intact. About a decade ago the owners began to auction some of this material off, and it’s only since then that photographic historians have been able to examine his dags and acknowledge Girault de Prangey’s place in the history of early French photography. (I owe a debt of thanks to RL for his photographic genius and for teaching me all about Girault de Prangey today!) Among the dags I particularly liked were this 1842 image capturing a large house and palm trees in Egypt, and this vista of the Villa Medici in Rome from the same year. What are their estimated selling prices? $30,000-$70,000.

My personal taste in art leans more toward figurative work, so the inclusion of a few portrait dags in the $2000-$3000 price range for the October 6th sale were of interest to me. Admittedly, they may not be perceived as great works of art, but they fascinate me as products of visual culture and social history. One in particular that interested me was the work you see here from ca. 1855 by an unknown photographer. It shows two young women holding a dag in their hands. Because the women wear the same dress, seemingly homemade in its design, it stands to reason they are working class or lower middle class. They are probably Americans and sisters. The dag they hold is surely that of a relative, perhaps their mother, whose absence is recreated in their lives using the "photorealistic" dag held firmly in their hands. Undoubtedly their dag shows someone who is deceased. It was not uncommon in the 19th century to capture the dead in photographic form so as to remember them as they appeared. Such was the power of photography once it was made widely available. But remembrance here is not just about the dag-within-the-dag. It is also present in the image of the two women themselves. This is layered memory in action, a photorecording of two sisters who are preserving their own existence, just as their relative before them had attempted to do the same at an earlier date. And yet, ironically—and sadly—, we know nothing about who these women were. They are nameless. This dag as we see it today thus becomes false memory, unsubstantiated remembrance. It presents to us simply what we see: two women from the mid-1800s trying to hold on to a glimpse of their past and preserve it for their future. It makes me wonder: should we dwell so much on recording the facts of our own past, or is it simply enough to leave behind a visual recording of our existence? I don’t know the answer, but I’m suddenly tempted to bid on the dag just for thinking about it this much.

If you want to know more about dags and the power of memory, read Geoffrey Batchen’s brilliant exhibition catalog Forget Me Not: Photography and Remembrance (2004).

World Habitat Day 2010

Monday, October 4th, is World Habitat Day, whose "purpose is to call attention to the current global state of the human habitat and push toward adequate housing for all. We hope that by raising awareness and advocating for universal decent housing we can dismantle and alter the systems that reinforce and entrench poverty housing. In doing so, we can make an affordable, decent place to live a reality for all." The United Nations has declared the first Monday of October to be World Habitat Day. According to Jonathan Reckford, the CEO of Habitat for Humanity International, this day is "an opportunity for us to raise our voices together and speak out against the lack of decent, affordable shelter that challenges so many families here in our country and around the world." Habitat for Humanity is one of the charities I support. After the devastations of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the earthquakes in Haiti, groups like Habitat for Humanity stepped in to assist in establishing basic housing needs for everyone. In their last fiscal year, they helped an estimated 63,000 families worldwide. What I especially like is that they utilize not just volunteers, but also team with local businesses, governments, and individuals so that they too are involved in the rebuilding of their own communities. I believe this instills a sense of pride in individuals to know they had a hand in helping construct their own housing. At some point in the near future, I intend to volunteer and help participate in a housing project somewhere in the world. (Care to join me? Let me know!) For now, though, a donation will do, especially since Habitat for Humanity has secured an anonymous donor who will match any donation made through the end of the day tomorrow.

Rebecca Solomon (1832-1886)

Having posted the other day about the relaunch of the Simeon Solomon Research Archive, I realized that today, September 26, 2010, is the 178th birthday of his sister Rebecca Solomon. She was an artist in her own right, and a highly successful one at that, considering the restrictions placed upon women at the time. CC and I have created a section devoted to her on the SSRA, where you can find a list of secondary sources about her work, her lifetime exhibition history, and a selected list of her paintings. The picture you see here is her 1866 watercolor The Wounded Dove (University of Wales, Aberystwyth), which was owned by the Welsh squire George Powell, a friend of both her brother and the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne. The picture isn't perfect in capturing with anatomical correctness the young woman seated in the chair, but the way she holds the dove with closed eyes certainly alludes to Dante Gabriel Rossetti's paean to his recently deceased wife in Beata Beatrix, a version of which he was painting at this time. Rebecca's picture shows her awareness of the Japonisme craze circulating among these artists at this time, as evidenced in the imported china and fans in the background on the mantle. Below if the biographical essay I've written about Rebecca Solomon for the SSRA. It updates and is adapted from an essay I published about her in The Review of the Pre-Raphaelite Society in 2004.

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Like many women artists, Rebecca Solomon has been overshadowed in art history by the male artists who surrounded her. In her case, what is more tragic is that no photograph exists that could show us what she even looked like. Despite living in the shadows of her artist brothers Abraham and Simeon, her relationship with each, especially Simeon, was strong. She shared studios with them at different points in her career, and she socialized in their circles of artist friends. She exhibited almost annually at the Royal Academy for 17 years, and participated in other exhibitions such as the British Institution and the Dudley Gallery. She was so well known among her contemporary female artists that she joined 37 of them, including Barbara Leigh Bodichon and Henrietta Ward, in a petition to have the Royal Academy open classes to women. Despite what amounted to a potentially lucrative artistic career, however, Rebecca has been largely forgotten and has had little written about her and her work, even though at the time her pictures were often reviewed favorably. Behind the Curtain (1858, Private Collection) was cited by a critic in Bentley’s Miscellany as “a first rate work.” On Peg Woffington’s Visit to Triplet (1860, Private Collection), considered her greatest success, the Art Journal wrote, “This is really a picture of great power … gratifying, encouraging, and full of hope…. [Solomon] adds another name to the many who receive honour as great women of the age."

Rebecca Solomon was born on 26 September 1832, the youngest of the three daughters born into the artistically-inclined middle-class Jewish family. Her mother Catherine Levy Solomon was an amateur artist of miniatures, and her brother Abraham was a painter who became famous for social commentary genre scenes such as Second Class—The Parting (1855) and Waiting for the Verdict (1857). Rebecca studied under her brother Abraham and attended Spitalfields School of Design. She shared his studios at 50 Upper Charlotte Street, from at least 1851 to 1856 and at 18 Gower Street from 1857 to 1862, the year of his death. Among her early works were copies after old masters and modern painters such as William Powell Frith, but she established herself in the contemporary world assisting artists such as the Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais. The best known example of her work is a version of Millais's Christ in the House of his Parents, which sold at auction in 2008 for more than £600,000 and is now in a private collection.

Contrary to what one would expect from a traditional middle-class Jewish family at the time, Rebecca did socialize with her brothers’ non-Jewish friends. Through at least the mid-1860s, George du Maurier and his wife were regular guests at the Solomons’ conversaziones and Rebecca in turn attended the Mauriers’ dinner parties. Rebecca also was friends with Agnes “Aggie” MacDonald (later Mrs. Edward Poynter, future President of the Royal Academy). On at least one occasion Aggie stayed with “Beckie” and her family at 18 John Street, Bedford Row, and on the visit of Aggie's sister Alice Kipling (mother of the novelist Rudyard Kipling), Beckie threw one of her "wildly incongruous" parties.

As Simeon’s immediate elder sibling, Rebecca may have had a hand in influencing his interest in Hebrew and Jewish subject matter, such as his first two Royal Academy offerings “Isaac Offered” (1858) and Moses (1860). Following the death of Abraham, these two siblings developed a closer relationship both personally and professionally. Rebecca shared Simeon’s studio at 106 Gower Street from about 1865 to 1867, and then at 12 Fitzroy Street from 1868 into at least the mid 1870s. The opening of the Dudley Gallery in 1865 with Simeon on the Administrative Committee provided Rebecca with another major venue to exhibit her watercolors. She also assisted him during his travels to Italy by acting as his agent with important patrons such as the Liverpool shipping magnate Frederick Leyland. Early on, however, Rebecca discovered the importance of exhibiting and marketing her own work, and she apparently did this with zeal. She participated in exhibitions throughout Britain, including in Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool, and Manchester. As an illustrator, her work appeared in The Churchman’s Family Magazine and London Society, and her paintings also were reproduced in papers such as the Art Journal and the Illustrated London News.

The greatest difficulty the art historian has in analyzing Rebecca’s work is finding many of her pictures. Very few are in public collections, and rarely do they come up for auction. As a genre painter, she painted works that often reflected gender and social class differences. Among these are The Governess (1854, Private Collection), where the sad governess looks longingly at the well-to-do happily married parents of the child she instructs, and A Young Teacher (1861, Private Collection), where a child playfully instructs her mixed-race nanny. She also painted historical and literary themes, probably because she had aspirations to be recognized as a painter of serious subjects. The Fugitive Royalists (1862, location unknown), for instance, depicts a scene during the English Civil War where an aristocrat and her son are offered asylum by a Puritan mother and her sick daughter, and The Arrest of the Deserter (1861, Israel Museum) is based on a scene in the 1844 comedy Dominique the Deserter by William H. Murray, where the main character in seventeenth-century clothing is led away in handcuffs by two soldiers while a woman pleads for his innocence. Simeon’s interactions with the Pre-Raphaelites also proved influential on Rebecca by the mid-1860s. Her painting Woman on a Balcony (ca. 1865, Private Collection) follows the pattern of the Venetian portrait-style works of Rossetti, Burne-Jones, and others of the same period, with a beautiful woman leaning out on a balcony gazing into the distance. The Wounded Dove (1866, University of Wales, Aberystwyth) reflects the Japonisme craze of the day, with a young woman, her hair down, caring for an injured dove, surrounded by Chinese ceramics and Japanese fans.

Little of Rebecca’s life after the mid-1860s is known. It has been said that she may have had a brief liaison with the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, but this is highly unlikely. She visited Italy at least twice during the late 1860s. She continued to exhibit along with her brother, and was included in the 1874 Society of Lady Artists Exhibition. Her career declined about the same time her brother’s did after he was arrested and charged with attempted sodomy. However, more recent evidence has surfaced that shows she was painting portraits into the late 1870s, including a posthumous picture of Anthony Rothschild for the Jews’ Free School, and the 1881 census shows her still listed as “artist painter” with a studio at 182 Great Titchfield Street in Marylebone, London. Supposedly she became an alcoholic like her brother, but this too is unsubstantiated. She was injured on the 20 November 1886 by a hansom cab that ran her over in the street, and later died of her wounds in hospital.

Teenage Dream

I spent most of Saturday in a funk for various reasons. I tried some shopping therapy, which sort of helped, but not completely. I went out with JM and AR at night, hoping that would help too, but even then I was feeling out of it and distant, emotionally bruised at times as well. Oddly, what has been making me feel better is listening repeatedly on my iPod to Katy Perry's song "Teenage Dream." I'm still trying to figure out why. Certainly it could simply be the beat of the song. It encourages easy dancing and has an uplifting pulse running through it. It could also be the timbre. I'm often affected by songs that has the singer reach a particular pitch, but usually they're ballads, not pop songs. Maybe it's the lyrics, although in general they're nothing special here. Still, I do find some sections surprisingly meaningful, like "Let’s go all the way tonight / No regrets, just love / We can dance until we die / You and I / We’ll be young forever." Or in another part: "So take a chance / And don’t ever look back / Don’t ever look back." Admittedly I'm finding meaning because of my emotional funk. I'm seeking answers to understand why I feel like I do, and the lyrics, beat, and timbre all combine to encourage me to want to do something more, to invigorate myself with greater opportunities of discovery, to fight the negativity and darkness that creeps in sometimes. This is my life. I need to live it. Okay, sure, the song is all about a girl meeting the perfect guy, and I admit there's an element of desire in me that pines for that same feeling of innocence, that sensation of sheer bliss that comes with passion and desire, connecting completely with someone who makes you feel whole, giving yourself completely to them because you trust them. I do desire that, partly because I missed out on that during my own teenage years, partly because I've been burned so many times, partly because I find my youth passing me by and the potential for those opportunities are becoming less and less likely to happen. The song is sugar pop fantasy, and yet it has this strange subtle power to drive me to want more for myself. "Don't ever look back"...for sure. I would post the video directly here, but EMI has prohibited embedding, so here's the link to it on YouTube.

Relaunch of the SSRA

My colleague and friend Carolyn Conroy in England and I have relaunched the Simeon Solomon Research Archive that I started 10 years ago. I must give Carolyn full credit for the current look of the site, which looks spectacular. bklynbiblio readers may remember some of my Solomon posts, including one on the passing of art historian Lionel Lambourne earlier this year, and a celebration of Solomon's birthday. The image you see here is one of his more beautiful works, a watercolor entitled Portrait of an Italian Youth from 1869, when he was in Rome on his third trip (image courtesy of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth). Below is the official release we issued to colleagues and collectors around the world.

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RELAUNCH OF THE SIMEON SOLOMON RESEARCH ARCHIVE
Ten years ago this week, I announced the first version of the Simeon Solomon Research Archive which I published on the Internet. From the feedback I have received through the years, it has been a significant resource for scholars and students interested in the life and work of Simeon Solomon (1840-1905), the gay, Anglo-Jewish, Pre-Raphaelite/Aesthetic artist. A debt of gratitude goes out to Julia Kerr of ArtMagick.com, who has assisted me with the hosting of the SSRA over the past few years.

Today, I am pleased to announce with my Solomon colleague Dr. Carolyn Conroy (PhD, University of York, 2010) the relaunching of the Simeon Solomon Research Archive with a new URL (http://www.simeonsolomon.com/), a new look, and more features than ever before. As you will see from the "About Us" page on the site, Conroy recently completed her dissertation on Solomon's life and career after his 1873 arrest for attempted sodomy. Her dissertation rewrites the past false assumption that Solomon essentially disappeared after his arrest, reconstructing his life based on heretofore unpublished information and demonstrating his surprisingly active level of artistic production for the next 32 years until his death. I have been actively engaged in research and publications on both Simeon and his sister Rebecca Solomon since the 1990s. Although my PhD dissertation is on a topic other than the Solomons, I am continuing to work on their extant correspondence and other Solomon-related projects.

Highlights of this latest version of the SSRA include:
** a complete redesign of the site by Conroy, including a site-search to assist in the finding of information
** a fully updated bibliography of about 300 secondary sources about Solomon from 1858 to 2010, with many of the early sources available in full text
** an image database of selected works of art by Solomon
** an exhibition history of works by Solomon
** a section devoted to the life and work of his artist sister Rebecca Solomon (1832-1886), including a biography, lifetime exhibition history, list of secondary sources, and beginning of an image database
** a planned section devoted to the life and work of his artist brother Abraham Solomon (1824-1862), including a biography, lifetime exhibition history, list of secondary sources, and beginning of an image database
** planned future enhancements including a page on Solomon's contributions to the Dalziels' Bible Gallery (1881)

Update your bookmarks to point to the new Simeon Solomon Research Archive at http://www.simeonsolomon.com/, and continue to check back for updates to the site as we continue to enhance it even more. Comments and suggestions are welcome, as are contributions from scholars who may have discovered a source of which we may not be aware.

World Alzheimer's Day 2010

September 21st is World Alzheimer's Day. According to their official website, this is "a day when the Alzheimer's Association joins with organizations and people around the globe to raise awareness about Alzheimer's and its impact on our families, communities and nations. Today, 35 million people worldwide are affected by Alzheimer's and related dementias, and this number is growing rapidly. World Alzheimer's Day is an opportunity to raise awareness about Alzheimer's disease and the need for more education, support and research." bklynbiblio readers will recall last year's post about this and previously when I organized a team for the NYC Alzheimer's Memory Walk (we raised almost $1,200!). This year, Celebrity Champions like Jean Smart (pictured right) are helping to spread the word and to drum up financial support to help find a cure and provide much-needed assistance to those suffering from the disease and their caregivers. This year, the Borman Family Foundation will match dollar-for-dollar every donation made by midnight on September 21st. I just made a $25 donation, and their match will make it $50! Any donation amount will make a difference, so help combat this devastating disease today.

Paintings within Paintings

I was invited to attend a workshop today at the Yale Center for British Art in association with the exhibition Seeing Double: Portraits, Copies, and Exhibitions in 1820s London, which opened in June and is closing this coming weekend (link to the exhibition guide). The one-room show is a small but focused exhibition about paintings within paintings, frequently shown as if on exhibition in the painting itself. The exhibition centers around the 1829 painting you see above, Interior of the British Institution Gallery by John Scarlett Davis. The scene depicts a gallery during an exhibition of modern British paintings, but as co-curator Catherine Roach pointed out during her gallery talk the picture in fact is artificially crafted. The two leading pictures that frame the left and right sides of the main archway are by Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds, two of the most important 18th-century British artists, and while we know both were in the 1829 exhibition, neither were hung in this location. This, plus the conscious rearrangement of other paintings on display, make us wonder why Davis would redesign such a space? Was it for pedagogical reasons for other artists? Was it to demonstrate his own skills as an artist? Was it meant to create a canon of masterworks of British paintings? And why the inclusion of the self-portrait by Reynolds, the 1st PRA (President of the Royal Academy), being displayed by Benjamin West, the 2nd PRA, to a viewer? Pictures such as this urge the viewer to look more closely at the inclusion of works of art in these pictures, and to reconsider their placement and value as such and for what purpose. The exhibition relates to Roach's forthcoming book on this topic, based on her recently completed dissertation.

Pictures such as these were not new in the 1820s. Paintings and prints had existed since the Renaissance of interiors of manor homes and palaces with art collections on the walls. Aristocrats traveling to Italy on the Grand Tour in the mid- to late 1700s would commission paintings of themselves standing amidst ancient works of art by artists such as Pompeo Batoni. Other artists, like Johann Zoffany, would paint galleries in museums to showcase the great works of art on display there as well. Co-curator Cassandra Albinson continued the gallery talk by drawing our attention to a small drawing by a woman artist of Thomas Lawrence's studio, in which one can make out many of his portrait paintings arranged in the studio as a showcase of his commissions at this time. What makes this drawing unique is that it is one of the only surviving examples of Lawrence's studio, which is unusual since he too was a PRA and a very important artist in his day.

We were given lunch and then listened to 3 short presentations by others working on topics related to this. Emerson Bowyer gave a very interesting talk about a bronze medal commemorating the renaming of the Louvre as the Musée Napoleon in 1802, designed by Dominique Vivant, Baron de Denon. The medal included on the back a display of the ancient sculptures appropriated from Rome and Florence as war booty and displayed in Paris. Bowyer considered the work as both a sculptural object and a form of commercial commodity, reducing the idea of ancient works of art to their financial value during Napoleon's imperial reign. Gustav Percivall spoke about J.M.W. Turner's painting Rome, from the Vatican. Raffaelle, Accompanied by La Fornarina, Preparing his Pictures for the Decoration of the Loggia, from about 1820. This painting includes in the foreground a number of works by the Italian Renaissance master Raphael, as well as a recreation of his decorative work in the loggia, and other unidentified pictures, all of which Percivall argued created organized chaos in the arrangement and significance of their presence on the canvas. (I wasn't always completely sure what he was talking about, and his ideas were challenged by a few people in the room.) Lastly, Bridge Alsdorf spoke about a small print from the 1890s by the Swiss-born artist Félix Vallotton. Shifting the focus away from pictures within pictures, Alsdorf drew attention to the idea of the spectator, as a caricature-like crowd of men gather before the window of a Parisian printseller gawking at his latest works for sale, which we, the audience, now cannot see. Following their presentations, there was a general discussion on various topics, including general issues about copies and reproduction, and the association of these paintings within paintings to printmaking and the commercial dissemination of art. All in all, the workshop made for an interesting afternoon of networking and intellectual repartee.

Autumn in New York 2010

It was a pleasure to wake up this morning and discover that the weather for the next week in New York City will be in the mid-70s, with lows dropping near 60 at night. All I could think about was, first, that I could wear one of my sports coats without sweating to death today and, second, that autumn was here. I did (black-and-white pinstripe blazer), but it isn't (gotta wait until Sep. 23). You can tell I get rather excited about autumn in New York. After this brutally hot and humid summer, I am looking forward to the weather cooling off, the leaves changing color, and my silk cashmere sweaters returning to the forefront of my wardrobe. In the art world, autumn is always a big kick-off season for exhibitions. Last week New York magazine published its annual fall preview issue, highlighting some of the big events opening up from September through November, including their top 20 art exhibitions. The challenge for me is that I'll be heading overseas in October, so I'm actually going to miss almost half of autumn in New York this year. I guess that means I have less time to see all these exhibitions, but fortunately many of them will still be on when I return. Here are a few that I'm eager to see:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art of course has a few blockbusters lined up for the fall, including "The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty" (Sep. 28-Jan. 2), an exhibition focusing on the Mongols in China during the 13th and 14th centuries, and "Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand" (Nov. 10-Apr. 10), which highlights the work of three of the great late 19th-/early 20th-century photographers. Of the three, I love Edward Steichen's work best. He managed to capture an incredible sense of atmosphere using photomechanical processes that he kept secret and few have ever been able to uncover. The image at the top of this post is one of Steichen's most popular and beautiful works, The Flatiron (1904), from the Met's collection.

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt will be at the Neue Galerie (Sep. 16-Jan. 10). While I have heard of this 18th-century sculptor, I know little about him, but the move from the neoclassical to the naturalistic in his busts should make this a fascinating exhibition.

Edward Hopper will be at the Whitney (Oct. 28-Apr. 10). I'm not a huge fan of Hopper, but there is something agonizingly urban about his work...the feeling of emptiness and solitude one can feel even in some of the most congested of places. (Think of Nighthawks [1942] and you'll see what I mean.)

Neo-Pop artist Jeff Koons will have a show at the Luxembourg & Dayan Gallery (Oct. 6-Jan. 21). People who love Koons these days think primarily of his large-scale puppy balloon sculptures, not the transgressive sex-filled cornucopias that first made him famous. Says New York magazine: "The uptown gallery partially restages one of the most howled-about exhibitions in New York art history: 'Made in Heaven,' Koons's 1991 depiction of himself in various states of coitus with his porn-star then-wife. Still outrageous, still prescient."

And finally there will be a fascinating counterbalance in the study of 20th-century art between classicism on the Upper East Side and abstraction in Midtown when the Guggenheim hosts "Chaos and Classicism: Art in France, Italy, and Germany, 1918–1936" (Oct. 1-Jan. 9) and the Museum of Modern Art hosts "Abstract Expressionist New York" (Oct. 3-Apr. 25). It will be interesting to see which show turns out to be more popular with visitors these days.

Miami Beach and Delray Beach

I returned today from another trip to Florida, spending the first 4 nights in South Florida visiting my old stomping grounds. I spent 2 nights in Miami Beach rooming with my friend NV. I shot the photo you see here from his balcony on the 15th floor. Standing out there, if you look to the left, you get a glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean between other buildings, but this incredible view of Indian Creek and Biscayne Bay from his balcony is simply spectacular. We sauntered up and down Lincoln Road, and while parts of it are striving for cosmopolitan sophistication, by and large Miami Beach has become glamor-less bling. Even the gay scene that once dominated the area has been reduced to a few insignificant bars. NV and I did meet up with my friend CF for lunch on my 2nd day, visiting Coral Gables which, oddly, I don’t think I had ever visited before. Later that night NV and I got together with CB, and the 3 of us headed to Wilton Manors, near Fort Lauderdale, where we used to hang out almost every week some 6 to 7 years ago. We ate at our old standby, the Thai restaurant Galanga, which still has good food, and had drinks at Georgie’s Alibi. Wilton Manors has easily taken over from Miami Beach as the new South Florida gay mecca. There's even a fantastic new place called The Manor Complex, which houses a martini bar, a lounge, a restaurant, a cafe, a Latino dance room, and a 2-story nightclub. We had lots of fun that night.

On the Sunday, I made my way north to Palm Beach County, where I stayed with the AKs. Half of the AKs is Library Director for the Delray Beach Public Library, a beautiful 47,000-square-foot building built 5 years ago in a Key West style with levered shuttered windows and pastel colors. The inside has an impressive loft ceiling on the second floor, a public meeting hall and a café, lifelong learning classes in a computer room, and an adorable children’s section with hand-painted scenes of Floridian nature scenes on the walls. It looks like a great library in which to work. I also went back with the other half of the AKs to visit the main library at Florida Atlantic University, where I previously worked for more than 7 years. After I left, they broke ground on an extension to the main building, and one of the best parts of this project has been the expansion of The Arthur & Mata Jaffe Center for Book Arts. Now incorporating space for lectures and workshops, this area has helped generate an incredible amount of interest in the Jaffe Collection of thousands of artists’ books and related works, many of which are 3D sculptures unto themselves. Jaffe curator John Cutrone and I co-wrote an article about the collection that was published in Art Documentation in 2004. It’s exciting to see how the collection has increased, not to mention the popularity of the numerous public programs and events held there. The rest of my visit to the library itself was fine. It was good to see so many people I had once worked for and with (and those who once worked for me!). But if ever I needed affirmation that I had made the right decision to move on, it was confirmed for me that day, simply because I realized how I personally had evolved into a different phase of my life and that my time there was now officially my past. We came together for a time, but even they have moved into their own future.

The rest of my trip was spent in Pinellas County visiting family, but mostly celebrating the Padre's 79th birthday and helping take care of him with some of his health issues. I did get to see a few old friends (and I made one new friend…you know who you are!). I’ll be back there again in a couple of months, probably for a longer period of time, but for now I’m back home in Brooklyn and looking forward to my next adventure.

Happy 2nd Birthday!

Happy Birthday, bklynbiblio! Would you believe our little blog is going to be 2 years old this coming Sunday, August 29th? My, how fast we've grown! With this blog entry, we've now reached 233 posts. If you browse the subject tags for the posts (all of which can be seen on the bottom of the blog at http://bklynbiblio.blogspot.com), you’ll discover that the top 3 tags have remained the same as last year, but the first and second have changed ranks: "New York" (50); "reviews" (41); and "gay" (34). Once again, this isn't much of a surprise as these things do define bklynbiblio. Interestingly, coming up at #4 is "19th-century art" (28), which makes sense as that is supposed to be my area of specialty. I realize that 2010 has been less blog-productive than last year, but do stay tuned because I've got travel to Montreal and England coming up, plus art exhibitions and other great things to write about in the months ahead. Speaking of travel, I'm posting about the birthday a little early because I'm heading to Florida for about 10 days. First I'll be visiting friends in Miami Beach and Delray Beach (haven't been back there since I left in 2005), then heading to St. Petersburg to visit family. I may put up a post or two while I'm away, so stay tuned.

Fire Island Redux

I didn’t think I would be writing about my Fire Island trip, but I couldn't resist. JM, JB, BS, and I met at the Long Island Rail Road ticket area at Penn Station early Friday morning. After 2 trains ($21 round trip), 1 shuttle van ($5 one way), and 1 ferry ride ($14 round trip), we arrived at Cherry Grove about 12:30pm. My initial thought was that it seemed like a lot of traveling in order to get to Fire Island (don’t forget I had a subway trip too), but in fact we were there in 3 hours, which actually isn’t that bad. However, I have to admit, upon arrival I was a little disappointed. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but Cherry Grove was not it. The place is like a tiny fishing village with what seemed like 1 store, 1 restaurant, and 1 bar. Remote doesn’t even been to describe it. The picture you see here (by Andrew Collins on the About.com's Gay & Lesbian Travel site) makes it seem bigger than it is, but in fact what you see is pretty much what you get. The stroll down Bayview Walk toward the guest house was interesting. The entire area is built on raised wood-plank boardwalks, and you pass one private cottage after another, many surrounded by overgrown wheat stalks and other flora, all of which are typically rented out to seasonal visitors at thousands of dollars per week. And then we got to the Belvedere.

You’ll recall that my initial impressions from their website fluctuated between curious excitement and appalling dismay. All I can say is that the website was 100% more inviting than the place itself. How someone ever could vote it “the best gay male resort in the country” (note they are quoting from an anonymous comment posted on Trip Advisor in 2007) clearly shows one has not traveled much. The entire complex defines ostentatious eccentricity. The original owner, John Eberhardt, had been a set painter, so it should come as no surprise that the entire place looks like a theater set stage. As a result nothing has any value. Everywhere there is faux marble, and the sculpture throughout the place is plaster, staff, and plastic resin. Worse yet, all of it is quite literally falling apart. Even the faux Apollo Belvedere by the pool looks like it’s about to lose its arm and testicles. The fresco work throughout is meant to conjure Italy; instead it looks like paint-by-number cardboard. With all due respect to Mr. Eberhardt, this is queer eccentricity to the Nth degree. It is one man’s dreamworld with nothing to show for it but a poor sense of copywork in appreciating the beauty of Venice and Baroque ornamentation. It’s as if Miss Havisham from Great Expectations should have been living here. The analogy isn't far-fetched: there's even a closet-like chapel with an altar, a crucifix, and a wooden box with the cremated ashes of Eberhardt inside.

Each room has its own style too. Four of us were squeezed into a postage stamp-sized room that had as its theme "Southern plantation porch." One wall was made to look like the outside of a house (including a faux window), another wall was covered with a frighteningly blurry forest scene, and the remaining walls were upholstered in ca. 1982 Laura Ashley rose-patterned fabric, with matching pink and green sheets on the beds to match. There was no air conditioning in the room, and the guest house didn’t even offer you a freakin' cup of coffee! Did I mention they charged us $500 a night for this place?

Now, keep in mind that part of the problem is that there are only 3 hotels in Cherry Grove (I told you this place was deserted), and word has it that the other places were worse, although the 4 of us are in agreement we were robbed. In the Belvedere's defense, the pool and hot tub area are nice, the rooms are actually clean, and the staff seems friendly. The place is on the bay, so we spent time just relaxing in lounge chairs on the water. In the evening, the corridors were dimly lit with chandeliers and sea breezes blew white diaphanous drapes into the air, creating a theatrical sense of Gothic Romanticism that I have to admit charmed me. And lest you think this is an experience open to all, I should point out that this was a gay men’s guest house, clothing is optional and...well, l’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

As our first day progressed (and I drank more vodka-cranberry cocktails), I have to say that Cherry Grove grew on me. We ate breakfasts and lunches at Floyd’s, which had great, if expensive, fresh-tasting food, and we ate dinner one night at Island Breeze, JM and I indulging in a delectable fig-and-gorgonzola salad followed by chicken rollantini with mashed potatoes and broccoli rabe that was delicious. On a beautiful Saturday morning we walked out to the beach, lay in the sand, and frolicked in the Atlantic. That afternoon we took the water taxi over to The Pines, where my friends DC and DG were having their party. They had rented with friends of theirs a large cottage that had a pool and was no more than 50 steps away from the beach. When we arrived in The Pines, I realized suddenly that THIS was what I expected Fire Island would be like, something akin to Provincetown or Key West, but with less of a city feel. Cherry Grove, in contrast, has more of a lesbian crowd, and it’s more secluded as compared to The Pines, which is dominated by hunky gay men and loud dance music.

After all is said and done, I had a fun weekend with my friends. It’s a bit exhausting getting out there with all the traveling involved, but it is actually worth it if you’re looking for a great place to chill out for a while. The trick to enjoying Fire Island is to rent a cottage with good friends, stay for a week, and have a house party or two. In the process do nothing but relax, get some sun, and swim in the water, but don't forget to socialize a bit where the boys are.

Fire Island 2010

Summers for the gay male population in NYC and the surrounding area usually means vacations to either Provincetown or Fire Island. bklynbiblio readers know about my 2008 and 2009 trips to P-town, located at the tip of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. This year I decided to go with JM and his friends to Fire Island, a barrier island off the coast of Long Island. You can see a map of the area here. Apparently we have to take a train, a shuttle, and a ferry to get there, but supposedly we'll be there in less than 3 hours. My friends DC & DG will be there too celebrating DC's 40th birthday with a big party at their rented cottage on Saturday. I'm a Fire Island virgin, so I'm pretty excited about going (just do a Google Image search and you'll quickly see why). I've been so busy the past few weeks though, I haven't even asked until the other day where we were staying, and only now just looked it up on the Web: the Belvedere Guest House for Men. I don't know if I was more startled by the Venetian-style villa and its Baroque ornamentation, the faux Apollo Belvedere, or the accompanying soundtrack from one of my favorite pieces of music, the opening segment to "Bittersweet Symphony" by The Verve. Now I understand why it seemed so darn expensive! We're only going for 2 nights, so it will be a quick trip, but it should be lots of fun. Don't expect much of a report back, though; assume it's going to be a weekend of hedonistic bliss.

Random Musings 2

A few weeks ago, news broke in Brooklyn that over 400 Canada geese had been captured in Prospect Park and gassed by the federal Wildlife Services agency. They claimed the birds were a threat to airplanes. Needless to say, this was a bit of a shock. Hunting itself is bad enough, but for a government agency to authorize a "goosicide" (as the act has been dubbed) seems nothing short of barbarism. But it gets worse. In New York Magazine's latest issue they note that the federal government has been performing animal control since 1931, first going after predatory animals, but now killing animal species that pose a threat to ranchers, farmers, and apparently now airline pilots. In 2008 Wildlife Services killed, for instance, 14,041 Canada geese. They also killed 898,704 blackbirds because they were crop eaters, 528 river otters because they ate fish that fishermen wanted to capture, and 5,284 squirrels simply because they can be a problem for personal property. Am I wrong in thinking there has to be a better way of controlling animal overpopulation that doesn't require slaughter? Can't we spay and neuter some of these creatures in much the same way we do for stray dogs and cats? OK, so a vegetarian might now argue with me that the slaughtering of cows for me to eat is no different. And I do have to admit that I am glad the government controls, say, the rat population in the NYC subway system. So maybe the issue is the degree to which any of these creatures spread disease or does not serve for human consumption? I'm not sure what the answer is, but there seems like there has to be a better solution to animal control than to gas 400 geese in a park simply because they fly.

In health news, The New York Times had an article by Gina Kolata this morning that relates to advances in the study of Alzheimer's disease. According to a report to be published in the Archives of Neurology, spinal fluid tests are now able to predict with up to 100% accuracy whether patients suffering from memory loss actually have or will develop Alzheimer's. Up until now, the only way to diagnosis a person with the disease is through a post-mortem examination of the brain, so this is good news. However, it also brings up at least one ethical issue: "Should doctors offer, or patients accept, commercially available spinal tap tests to find a disease that is yet untreatable?" Indeed, I have to admit, is there a point to having the test? Presumably one can help contribute to future studies that may lead to a cure, but who wants to endure a spinal tap, a painful procedure in which they extract fluid from the spine, to do this? Testing spinal fluid was actually available years ago, but not to the level of accuracy they now claim. My mother refused to have it done because of the pain and lack of accuracy. It is good news in terms of advances in the study of the disease, but the medical community is going to have a challenging time encouraging patients to consider getting it.

In art news, I was rather pleased to get an email recently that Sotheby's and the current Duke of Devonshire's family were working together to auction off an incredible array of material stored in the attic of Chatsworth. bklynbiblio readers know of my fascination with the Devonshires (e.g. Georgiana and her son William). This particular auction is bringing together approximately 20,000 objects in a 3-day sale starting October 5, with estimated prices ranging from £20 to £200,000. While it's fascinating to think there will be salvaged architectural pieces from Devonshire House (their London estate, torn down in 1925), Chatsworth, and their other estates, there are also long-forgotten personal items owned by the Devonshires, from tea sets to a Russian sleigh. The official press release from Sotheby's has full-color images and more information. Sadly, I won't be in England until after the sale is over, but maybe I'll bid online for Georgiana's snuff box.

And, finally, good news for the sci-fi geek in us: Torchwood is coming back! Yes, Capt. Jack and Gwen Cooper will apparently be back for a new version that (if I'm understanding the premise correctly) shifts focus to the US and not the UK (hence the reworked title Torchwood: The New World). Presumably there will be everything we've come to expect from the show: alien encounters, fast-paced action, and a heavy dose of sexual tension along with a shag or two. But why is it going to be on the Starz network? I don't even know what that channel is. They will definitely need to come up with a work-around for subscribing to a new cable network if they want to get their fans back. Still, it's tempting. The show is going to premiere in 2011. I'll close here with hottie couple Ianto and Jack from Day 4 of Torchwood: Children of Earth, although if you've seen the miniseries, you know how sad this photo actually turns out to be.

The Way We Live Now

A couple of weeks ago, I started reading the novel The Way We Live Now (1875), which had been recommended to me by a few friends, most notably LC, who wrote his dissertation on Anthony Trollope, the author of this and numerous other books. This particular novel is considered to be one of his best. Trollope (1815-1882) was truly one of the most popular and prolific novelists of the Victorian era. He practically invented the "series" in which characters would return from one novel to the next. Unlike his contemporaries Charles Dickens and George Eliot, whose long novels are noted for, respectively, their melodrama or morality, Trollope specialized in social commentary. In that sense he may have shared more with his contemporary William Makepeace Thackeray, whose Vanity Fair (1848) is another witty and devious Victorian novel.

Victorian novels put people off because they're frequently so long. I'm about 200 pages into the book, and I have another 600 to go, so it is going to take me a while to read it. But I'm actually glad. I love this book! The plot (so far) runs something like this: characters from the upper classes and fringes of nobility become enamored of the despicable Augustus Melmotte and his family. Their questionable background and poor sense of social niceties repulses everyone, but their enormous fortune also thrills them, and while everyone despises the Melmottes and talks about them behind their backs, everyone is also willing to entertain them--even marry them--in order to have a taste of their fortune. What makes the book so palatable is that even though it takes place in 1870s England, the actions of the characters are very 2010. The pyramid-like investment scheme that Melmotte oversees reeks of Bernie Madoff and the investment disasters we've witnessed over the past few years.

But it's the wit of the book that makes it most enjoyable. Everywhere there is double-talk, double entendre, and plot twists that you can sense are coming but are still completely startling in the way they create ironic twists in the storyline. With characters' names like Dolly Longestaffe and Lord Damask Monogram, how could you not help but grin? And with passages like the following involving the manipulative-but-maternally devoted Lady Matilda Carbury, I find myself laughing out loud at the brilliance of the writing.

Lady Carbury at dinner was all smiles and pleasantness. ... She sat between the bishop and her cousin, and was skilful enough to talk to each without neglecting the other. She had known the bishop before, and had on one occasion spoken to him of her soul. The first tone of the good man's reply had convinced her of her error, and she never repeated it. To Mr. Alf she commonly talked of her mind; to Mr. Broune of her heart; to Mr. Booker of her body--and its wants. She was quite ready to talk of her soul on a proper occasion, but she was much too wise to thrust the subject even on a bishop. (p.135)

Perhaps reading this passage out of context and not understanding Lady Carbury's personality it may be less funny. But you have to admit to the wit: of all the people one should be able to speak about their soul, it should be a bishop, no? And a Victorian lady thinking about her body's desires while she's talking to the bishop over dinner? It's scandalous, and delicious. These three named men are editors of newspapers whom she solicits for favorable reviews of her own writing. Can you see the double meaning in the text? Trollope is a novelist who has endured positive and negative reviews, who's writing about a woman who manipulates men in order to gain favorable opinion in their reviews of her books. It's clever, to say the least. I'm sure when I'm done with the book I'll write a review (for which no one tried to flatter me). I am convinced there is at least one character who is a "confirmed bachelor" (i.e. homosexual), and there is apparently a great BBC adaptation of the novel to watch too. Stay tuned for more.