An English painter and teacher “for whom imagination linked the philosopher’s view with the painter’s.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
To This We’ve Come: TV Guide Sold for $1
“How much is TV Guide magazine worth in a morphing media business and molten credit markets? Try $1. […] The cover price, by way of comparison, is $2.99.”
Historical Fiction Author Peter Vansittart, 88
“Peter Vansittart, the English writer who breathed new life into the historical novel by mingling myth with modernity, and by injecting 20th-century preoccupations into historical settings as various as Roman Britain, medieval France and 16th-century Germany, died on Oct. 4, in Ipswich, Suffolk.”
Kenneth Branagh Steps Down from Jude Law Hamlet
“Kenneth Branagh will no longer direct Jude Law in his West End production of Hamlet next year, the Donmar Warehouse has announced.”
The Spaghetti Western Orchestra
Yes, that’s what it’s called. Five musicians and 100 instruments (including nail clippers and corn flakes) in music from Ennio Morricone’s scores to the likes of A Fistful of Dollars and Once Upon a Time in the West. The band plays Toronto this weekend and then begins a tour of the US.
The World’s Most Expensive Artists
The Guardian reveals the five top-selling living artists of 2007 (that’s last year, which is why Damien Hirst is not no. 1), with additional lists for dead artists and women artists.
Yet More Opera Australia Drama, This Time With Lawyers
“The turmoil within Opera Australia has deepened with revelations that most of a A$1.75 million bequest has been squandered in a long-running legal action. At last count, the legal bill was an alleged A$1.3 million and rising.”
Former Network Exec Shakes Up Public TV Flagship
Neal Shapiro, the new CEO of New York’s WNET, has launched a three-hour Sunday arts show, revamped Saturday night movie programming, and begun an original evening broadcast of international news. Is he bringing in energy and innovation, or rushing ahead without regard for consequences?
Shreveport Symphony Cancels Season Opener
The Louisiana orchestra has canceled this Saturday’s opening night concert “due to what the board is calling an ‘illegal strike’ by the musicians.” The walkout, which began Oct. 2, is over the change of the orchestra’s 24 full-time musicians to freelance pay-per-service status.
Contemporary Korean Art Emerges From China’s Long Shadow
Observers suggest that, while Korean artists cover a wide range of themes, styles and media, there’s not much of a common underlying identity (such as post-Cultural Revolution China or the influence of anime in Japan). But with prices for Chinese art rising, collectors are finally noticing Korean work.