Merry Christman and Happy Holidays

ART EXHIBITIIONS:
    At the KIMBELL MUSEUM in Fort Worth is a very fine exhibition entitled FROM THE PRIVATE COLLECTIONS OF TEXAS: EUROPEAN ART, ANCIENT TO MODERN. Many of the paintings and art pieces are on loan from heirs or museums around the country that received them from deceased collectors. I confess that I was not expecting the quality or the scope of this show. The 453 page catalog gives a comprehensive history of private collecting in Texas beginning in the mid nineteenth century. The art (mostly paintings) in these collections date from 700 B.C. through the 1940s. Interesting photographs of many of the homes in which these important paintings exist, or did exist in the past, is the bonus both in the exhibition and in the catalog.
     Also in Fort Worth at the MODERN MUSEUM through Jan. 3: Don't miss paintings by SUSAN ROTHENBERG, an important contemporary painter. The Modern is just across the street from the Kimbell.

A  MOVIE
     There will be some good new ones in theaters during the month, but the best movie I have seen in a long time is AN EDUCATION.  Set in England in the sixties, the movie stars Cary Milligan as prep school Jenny. She is brilliant. However her father is a caricature. It's a coming of age movie and viewing it with my daughter, who now has a nine year old daughter, was ideal. Her comment was, "Times have changed!" and our conversation went on from there. Emma Thompson in a cameo part as the head mistress confirmed the movie as an important one. Two thumbs up. 

BOOKS
     BLANTON MUSEUM fans, do you want to know even more about Italian painter Paolo Veronese and his companions? The catalog/book edited by Princeton prof. FREDERICK ILEHMAN, is TITIAN, TINTORETTO, VERONESE, 304 pages, $65.00. The theme is the competition among these three Venetian giants. ("Anything you can do I can do better" quote Irving Berlin). The book accompanies an exhibition that you have missed at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. However you can catch it in the Louvre. Christmas in Paris? Not a bad idea.
     If Modern Art is more your style, ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONIAM AND THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: A REEVALUATION by IRVING SANDLER is a suggestion. These New York artists are arguably our nation's most important contribution to art history. "These painters were painting as if painting never existed before". (Barnet Newman)
  SANDLER also srote THE TRIUPPH OF AMERICAN PAINTING: A HISTORY OF ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM IN 1970. Both of these books are available at Amazon.com.

    
    

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