In 1368, at the age of sixty-four, the poet and philosopher Petrarch settled into a…
One Person’s Nude
One pleasant morning, in the late 1980s, I started my work as the Education Curator at the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa. The phone rang; it appeared we had a problem with an upcoming tour of elementary school children who were also scheduled for a studio-art...
Damning Greatness with Faint Attention
The exhibition Wayne Thiebaud 100: Painting, Prints and Drawings, is simply glorious. I saw it at the Brandywine River Museum of Art, the fifth and final venue of a five-museum tour. Wayne Thiebaud is one of my most favorite American artists; he died on Christmas Day...
What We See
A painter I know, Gary Horn, recently reminded me of a traditional issue. “I could never figure out the great divide between artists and historians,” he wrote. “…art education could be greatly improved by historians and artists discussing art...
Christmas Letter 2019
My Dear One, noticing that we had a lot of empty calendar space from the end of October to the beginning of November, suggested that we fly off to somewhere in Europe. France? Italy? It took almost no time to decide on the Veneto. For ten days we nested in the...