Blog

Picasso Painted ‘The Crouching Beggar’ Over A Landscape, But Whose?

Conservators had noticed different-colored paint peeking through cracks, but only recently have non-invasive X-rays allowed them to see what lies beneath. “‘This is where technology allows us to get into the mind of the artist, so we can actually understand the creative process of Picasso and how he actually started producing this work of art,’ said Marc Walton of Northwestern University.”

The Cinematographer Of ‘Mudbound’ (And ‘Black Panther’) Makes Movie History [AUDIO]

Rachel Morrison, the director of photography for Dee Rees’ Mudbound, is the first woman ever nominated for cinematography. That’s embarrassing for a stupidly sexist Hollywood, but no slight to the great Morrison, who was also the first woman to shoot a comic book movie: She’s been walking the walk for two decades. “Now I’m seeing many more women getting calls to do bigger films,” she says.

Bernadette Peters Re-Conquers Broadway In A Classic Role

Generations of Broadway legends have played the role of Dolly, and Peters is (more than) up for it now: “When I took on the role, though, I just — I started from scratch. I read the script, I read The Matchmaker — the play that Mike Stewart wrote [Hello, Dolly!] from — and I found this person, this woman. I found the woman that I would play in it, the Dolly I would play.”

The Organs That Power Broadway

These two organs are being replaced, for good reason: “‘It is soul-numbing to play that thing,’ Mr. Wachner, the church’s hard-driving director of music and arts, said of the digital instrument in Trinity Church, on Lower Broadway. He also called the Schlicker pipe organ, long resident in St. Paul’s Chapel, Trinity’s historic satellite a few blocks north, ‘tendinitis central.'”

Malls Not Only Aren’t Terrible, But They Saved The Suburbs From Themselves

Look, they were just better than sprawl. Truly. “The mall is for shopping. It sounds idiotic to say, or tautological at least. Of course the mall is for shopping. But more specifically, it gives shopping a specific place. The mall separated commerce into its own, private lair, and it did so just as commercialism was running rampant and out of control in the progress-fueled mid-century.”

André Harvey, Who Sculpted The Natural World, Has Died At 76

After working in other careers and getting inspired by sculptures he saw through a window in Paris, “Mr. Harvey became a masterly sculptor of intricately detailed, realistic bronze figures whose works were exhibited by Tiffany & Company in its Fifth Avenue flagship store, have been collected by museums, and were purchased by Henry Fonda, Jamie Wyeth, Barry Manilow and Danielle Steel.”