When a visitor enters the new Harvard Art Museums, there is a feeling of great institutional arrival, a sense of an art historical place and an overall atmosphere of beauty of light and materials envelops the space.
However, with that said, the newly renovated and expanded Harvard Art Museums tries to put too much great art and great educational resources into just a good, not great structure. xxxxxxMore
The following research was inspired by an architectural project with which the firm of William Green Architecture is currently engaged. This project spurred research on historical private clubs in New York City, which then naturally expanded to span from their historical roots to their place in modern society.
The Origin of the Private Club
Private clubs have been a fixture of urban society for nearly two centuries, first in England and later in the United States. The motivation to form clubs derives from basic human desires: sociability; belonging to a larger entity; the comfortable safety net of being judged by a wider pool of friends and associations, rather than only one’s self. They are also arguably practical. Etymologically, “Club” derives from “cleave” – splitting the costs to reap the benefits of privilege [1]. The sensibility increases when clubs form around a common interest, as they are often wont to do. Members pool their resources, from financial to social, and their experiences, to create a hotbed of cultural production and consumption. xxxxxxMore
Art Nouveau is often flowery, organic, and asymmetrical, its flowing forms corresponding visually to musical movement. With all its various forms and translations firmly rooted in the second half of the 19th century, Art Nouveau served as the doorway to our modern age.
Primarily dating from the 1890s, until the outbreak of World War I (1914), Art Nouveau was the refinement of an aesthetic reaction to the excesses of the industrial revolution, with its mirror-twin progeny: technological triumphs and deplorable social conditions. artes fine arts magazineMore
Embodying all that is joyful, beautiful and visually engaging, Judy Kensley McKie’s studio furniture and objects combine the energy, craft and sensations of magical animism and artistic mysticism from her own very personal perspective. Her work makes us inwardly smile.
Her current show at Gallery NAGA in Boston displays her gifts in basic very accessible forms and sensitive details. And yet, her work, like other great art or design goes beyond the physical, the visual and material craft to an ethereal visceral presence. We not only see her pieces but we literally emotionally feel them. Each is always enhanced by some twist of irony or dignified humor in all of her furniture and funtional objects. This adds to their magic, their wonderful spirituality. artes fine arts magazineMore
Following up on the first exhibition (June-July 2012), and based on David Savage’s book, Furniture With Soul, Gallery NAGA is currently presenting a new group of studio artists’ work that focuses upon a younger ensemble of practitioners. Ranging from classically-referenced to organically inspired, this exhibit is made up of strong beautiful elements throughout. Here elegance and materials speak to function and form in a conversation of different voices and varying perspectives.
This studio furniture grouping is comprised mostly of large pieces, demonstrating the stylish and elegant craftmanship of each practitioner. Curated by author/craftsman David Savage, this exhibit is a showcase for emerging stars in the studio furniture international firmament. There is a grace and purpose to these functional sculptural elements. Like the previous show of established masters, the work here again transcends art and design, beauty and purpose. artes fine arts magazineMore
Experiencing the creative work of architectural brothers, Greene & Greene, is like sipping a rare, richly-made wine—offering sensory delights from the firm of two authentic American Arts and Crafts masters. As the brothers Greene—Charles and Henry—worked primarily in California, they created the ‘gold standard’ for the Arts and Crafts design style. Their work, both as entire projects and in the detail found there, serves as an exquisite example of design, presented in clear, concise and elegant terms. artes fine arts magazineMore
On a recent trip to Europe, my plane had an extended layover in Amsterdam. So, on a pre-planned quest, I journeyed by train from the airport to the ancient university city of Utrecht, The Netherlands, to see the austere, sculptural house—the Rietveld-Schroeder Huis, designed and built in 1924, by Gerrit Rietveld (left: photo by Mark Favermann).
A Dutch architect and furniture designer of extraordinary talent, Rietveld (1888-1964) was still an architectural student in 1916, when he started his own furniture factory in his hometown of Utrecht. His father had a joinery business at which he had previously worked. Rietveld then apprenticed in a jeweler’s studio. During his student years, he became familiar with the work and theories of other Dutch artists and designers. Ever experimenting with form, materials and construction methods, he produced a variety of furniture designs, and especially iconic chairs, in a straightforward strategically simplified, yet abstracted way. artes fine arts magazineMore
The Former Soviet Republic of Georgia is unique in every aspect – from its varied landscape ranging from the Caucasus Mountains, the coast of the Black Sea and the deserts on the border with Azerbaijan – to its art.
Georgia’s location makes the country a crossroads of cultures, from the Asiatic influence of the Persian and Ottoman Empires, its occupation under the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union. While geographers are uncertain whether to categorise Georgia as Europe or Asia, the country’s culture is distinctly European. artes fine arts magazineMore
Ubiquitous Winslow Homer images of the surf-battered, rocky Maine coastline and pastoral scenes of American life in a simpler time, are so deeply embedded in our sense of national identity that we hardly ‘see’ them any longer. Too many posters of youths in fields and boats, stalwart, wind-swept women gazing out to sea, and gallant sailors reckoning with nature’s wrath have numbed us to the applied skill and visionary genius of Homer’s oeuvre. After a multi-year conservation/renovation process, the Portland Museum of Art has recently opened Homer’s carefully-restored Prout’s Neck studio, just twelve miles from the museum, itself, in Scarborough. To commemorate this important event, a concurrent exhibit features some of his best-known works—38 major oils, watercolors and etchings created during his tenure at the studio—during the last three decades of his life (1883-1910). Weatherbeaten: Winslow Homer and Maine, is on view through December 30, 2012. The Prout’s Neck Studio is a permanent part of the museums collection and is now available for tours. artes fine arts magazineMore
When we think of the great art nouveau cities of Europe, images of Paris’s Metropolitan and Barcelona’s Gaudi-lined streets come to mind. Even high up in the Baltics, Riga has firmly established itself as one of Europe’s iconic art nouveau cities, with its own particular brand of modernism.
Yet there is one city that is nearly bypassed on each and every list, whose name has only started to be recognised by art nouveau aficionados – Tbilisi.
Above: Narikala Fortress, Tblisi, Georgia. Photo: G. Gaeser, 2011
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