Museum of Fine Arts

When the Boston Expressionist Hyman Bloom (March 29, 1913 to August 26, 2009) passed away none of his works were on view in the major New England museums. Bloom, his partner Jack Levine, and Karl Zerbe were the leaders of what is regarded as the most significant and influential movement of artists in Boston during the 20th century. Their neglect has been a scandal for Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. We are informed that a work by Bloom will be hung in the new wing of the MFA which opens in November. It remains to be seen how the museum will treat Levine and Zerbe. The MFA owns a minor work by the still living Levine which it acquired through the WPA.

The American Repertory Theatre opens the musical The Blue Flower by Jim and Ruth Bauer at the Loeb Drama Center in Harvard Square, Cambriidge. Under the direction of Will Pomerantz it brings to life the German artists of the end of World War I that emerged from devastation and chaos to form the movements of Expressionism and Dada that morphed into Surrealism. The production opens on December 1 with previews and runs through January 8.

A career as an art critic started in Boston at The Phoenix. Some years ago David Bonetti departed for San Francisco where he wrote for The Chronicle and the Examiner. When they merged he moved on to the St. Louis Post Dispatch from which he has retired and returned to Boston. He reports on an extended visit to Buenos Aires with particular attention to its eclectic museum collections. We welcome him as a friend and colleague who will occasionally be writing from Boston.

Boston correspondent Barbara Brilliant offers a selection of highlights of arts and entertainment for October. We are moving into high season with many options for audiences.

The Harvard Art Museums present their line-up of fall programs, including gallery talks about Perisan art, American landscape painting, British art, conservation, contemporary sculpture, ancient Greek mythology, and Italian Renaissance art. The In-Sight lecture series returns with evenings dedicated to Alfred Stieglitz, the recently acquired “Barberini Faun” sculpture, the Statue of Meleager, and Max Beckmann. The popular Stories series returns this Octoberâ€"dedicated to the epicâ€"with separate sessions designed for family and adult audiences.

After 6500 miles and 33 days, we returned home ! We had traveled through more than ten states, visited many museums and other cultural sites. We saw America's natural wonders, spent lovely days with old friends and met many interesting people along the way. Please follow us through our journey via photos and entries in my diary.

Picasso Looks at Degas is among the best exhibitions currently on view in American museums. It remains at the Clark Art Institute until September 12. This is its only American venue before it travels to Barcelona.

Black and white has never looked so self-sufficient, so complete, so influential or so lovely, in print after luscious large-scale print in a show sponsored by the nascent Richard Avedon Foundation, just beginning to carry out its mandate to present the artist's work, maintain an archive and support and inspire young photographers since his passing in 2005.

This show of recent acquisitions from the last 6 years of collecting by the Museum of Fine Arts is full of small gems, and one big one. Does it hint of more substantial works to come in the East Wing this fall?

From June 17 to September 19, 2010, in the Contemporary Art Square on Level S2 of the Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts will present Drive End, a remarkable photographic project by Martin Beauregard. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition in a museum.

The Longwood Symphony Orchestra which is made up of medical professionals will perform at Ozawa Hall in Lenox for the first time. The Boston Jewish Film Festival ENCORES AND MORE will be staged at the Museum of Fine Arts through June 27. Don't miss The Great American Trailer Park Musical at Speakeasy Stage.

When Bitches Brew was released, changing and updating jazz, I was a music critic for the daily Boston Herald Traveler. As such I got to hang with Miles starting with a memorable late night interview after a set at Lennie's on the Turnpike. Jay Leno was a frequent warmup act at Lennies. There is an exhibition devoted to Miles at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts through the end of August.

Petah Coyne's baroque works, delicately combining tinted, waxed flowers and taxidermy, will rise up from the floor, and hanging sculptures will descend from the ceiling, taking full advantage of the multiple vantage points of MASS MoCA's vast gallery spaces. The exhibition titled Everything That Rises Must Converge (after a short story by Flannery O'Connor) will open at Mass MoCA on Saturday, May 29, with an opening reception from 5-7 PM.

During his years in Boston the exhibitions of the Mario Diacono gallery were legendary. The Italian born poet, curator and critic generally displayed a single work. The projects which entailed renowned international artists were accompanied by detailed and complex critical essays. Some 30 of these essays have now been published by his Italian patron.

The group exhibition Natural Selections opens on Friday, April 23 at Greylock Arts in Adams, Mass and remains on view through June 5. The project includes Christian Cerrito, Charles Giuliano, Alex Kauffmann, Henry Klein, David Lachman, Michelle Vitale Loughlin, Jeremy Rotsztain, Martha Denmead Rose, Gregory Scheckler. It has been curated by the artists Marianne Petit and Matt Belanger. The exhibition explores aspects of responses to nature by a range of contemporary artists.

It was a busy weekend of vernissages in the Berkshires. On Friday night the Eclipse Mill Gallery presented sculpture by Len Poliandro, and paintings by Dawn Nelson. On Saturday Jeff Hudson opened a show of his landscapes at Hudson's an antiques store and gallery in Williamstown. On Friday, save the date, Greylock Arts in Adams will open a new exhibition.

Following up on its museum level 2008 exhibition, Zero NY, the Sperone Westwater Gallery in Chelsea is featuring one of the founders of group Zero, Otto Piene. The focus is on seminal work including paintings, works on paper and light sculptures from 1957-1967. Piene has shown at documenta, the Venice Biennale, and the Munich Olympics. He is Professor Emeritus at MIT where he was director of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS).

Dr. Barnes hired the best Philadelphia Lawyers he could to protect his collection in Merion, PA from the Philadelphia Main Line toffs and phonies. Yet, somehow the estimated $25 billion collection of Modern and Post-Impressionist masterpieces has been appropriated through politics, power, wealth and subterfuge. This well-crafted documentary by Don Argott shows what, how and where it happened.

It started as a series of dinners in the homes of the artist, Jane Lund, and curator/ appraiser, E. Linda Poras. The annual gathering initially moved to the Lord Jeffrey Inn in Amherst. For the past two years it has been convened at the Deerfield Inn. Recently we joined some 60 others in the Pioneer Valley arts community of Western Mass. We also got to explore the fascinating history of the village and its Colonial era architecture.

The Neue Galerie in New York organized the first American retrospective of the German artist Otto Dix (1891-1969). The exhibition traveled to the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal. While the New York installation was widely viewed as a mess the exhibition had a profound impact. Many critics and publications list the Dix survey as among the best exhibitions of 2010.

The low key, scaled back, modest and manageable Whitney Biennial 2010 curated by Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari has been dubbed the Obama Biennial. He is even on the cover. The Whitney has used this occasion to reflect on its history and critical reception since the series started in 1932. It begs questions about its mandate, the status of American art, and its relationship to a former partner, the Museum of Modern Art.

Winter finally moves into Spring, Daylight Savings Time and NCAA Basketball March Madness are now being joined by a museum madness in Boston. News keeps coming about new museums promised, contracted and postponed in the Hub of the Universe. It is the Great Recession, resources are limited and apparently so are a lot of folks involved in the pursuit of the creation of new museums with or without actual buildings, collections or financial support. Does ego trump resources?

Gallery NAGA is presenting a spectacular benefit exhibition, for the North Bennet Street School to celebrate its 125th anniversary. Founded in 1885 in Boston's North End to teach crafts – bookbinding, locksmithing, cabinetry, the making of musical instruments to immigrants, it has a long and distinguished history of training skilled craftsman. Twenty-seven studio furniture artists from throughout the country, including many of the most storied names in the field of studio furniture, are in the show. Generously, the artists and the gallery are donating 50% of the works' selling prices to the school.

Our neighbors to the North, the Province of Quebec, have a tradition of culture and regional cultural awareness. Their filmmakers are a strong and vibrant creative voice internationally. Currently, being presented at the Boston Museum of fine Arts is a series of fascinating and provocative films from Quebec. The festival began with "It's not me, I swear." This is a brilliantly made and acted film about a young boy seemingly from Hell.But is he really? It is an unexpected treat.

Sacred and Profane: Eye of the Beholder, at the Portsmouth Museum of Fine Art in Portsmouth, NH remains on view through April 24, 2010. The exhibition features the work of 35 artists and explores concepts of the sacrilegious and sacrosanct in a broad context.