To Caroline Ashleigh, author of Warman’s Shoes Field Guide, there are three criteria to use when looking for vintage shoes: condition, condition and condition. Beyond that, she advises buy what you love, buy the best you can afford and buy the best example you can afford. Moreover, she says, one of the best places to … Continue reading Author and Collector, Caroline Ashleigh Offers Advice on Acquiring Vintage Shoes
Tag: Metropolitan Museum of Art
1927 Metropolis Insert brings $47,800 at Heritage
Collectors everywhere coveted the striking and extremely rare Insert Movie Poster for Fritz Lang’s groundbreaking 1927 sci-fi classic Metropolis – from the collection of Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett – in the $1.27 million Friday, March 19 Signature Movie Poster Auction at Heritage Auctions. In the end, however, it came down to just two devoted collectors … Continue reading 1927 Metropolis Insert brings $47,800 at Heritage
Last Chance to See
Quite often a temporary exhibition will see two peaks of attendance: one at the opening and one near the close. A few excellent exhibitions in New York region will close in one or two weeks, thus this cold New York weekend, will be the last chance to see them. 1. Met: American Stories: Paintings of … Continue reading Last Chance to See
Mummy Comes Home , Phyfe Delays
"To Live Forever: Art and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt", a traveling show orgnized by the Brooklyn Museum will be exhibited at its home from Feb 2010 to May 2010 before it take the trip again to another five places. Mummy rules! The show, when exhibited at Columbus Museum of Art, brought record-high visitors. Objects … Continue reading Mummy Comes Home , Phyfe Delays
American Furniture and Paintings Around
There seem to be more American Art and Antiques around lately than there has been in some time. I hope this is a good sign—one of renewed interest. Compared with European (and I guess even Asian) art and antiques, they are a good value, at least that’s what Dean Levy of Levy Galleries in Manhattan … Continue reading American Furniture and Paintings Around
Personal Faults and Other Stories of Everyday Life
It’s interesting to me I have now been to enough museums that I can often look at a painting and know where it belongs—or at least where it’s usually hanging. The current exhibit American American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915 gave me a number of opportunities to show off my memory. There’s The Artist … Continue reading Personal Faults and Other Stories of Everyday Life
The Americans: The Photographic Perspective of Robert Frank
Parade—Hoboken, New Jersey, 1955 Walking through the galleries of photographs of America by Swiss-born Robert Frank, Lin looked at me and said “He doesn’t like America.” As an American, looking at the photos, I didn’t get the idea that Frank didn’t like America. I saw America, probably not the way he saw it, or the … Continue reading The Americans: The Photographic Perspective of Robert Frank
On Vermeer’s Milkmaid – 2
What Matters? It is hard to believe that Vermeer was merely a locally famed artist during his life time. For more than a century after his death, he had been mainly forgotten, until Gustav Friedrich Waagen and Thoré Bürger "rediscovered" him in 1866 with 66 attributed works. In the process of demystification of Vermeer's magic, … Continue reading On Vermeer’s Milkmaid – 2
On Vermeer’s Milkmaid – 1
This pushed me back to think of the question I have asked at the beginning: Few painters can achieve such a universal claim through less than three dozens pictures. Such an aura, however, has one-dimensionlized a painter who was evolving and developing through his career. We ooh and aah the fascinating light, the ideal womanhood and symbolism, but under the Vermeerian spell, we hardly challenge our mind and surrender ourselves into the label readers, audio-tour listeners and simply one of those heads in front of THE picture. [Read More..]
The Chinese Art of Carved Lacquer
I’ve been cautioned on more than one occasion that the problem with buying Chinese lacquer is that you can’t easily date it. Carved lacquer objects have been produced in China since the Song Dynasty (960-1269). Before then lacquer was used for coating other materials. While most lacquer objects are red, that’s because red (cinnabar), along … Continue reading The Chinese Art of Carved Lacquer
Urban Art & Antiques 