Museum of Fine Arts

For the third year the New England School of Art & Design is hosting the annual exhibition of winners and finalists of the Stephen D. Paine Awards named in memory of a prominent Boston collector and supporter of emerging artists. The Paine Awards are organized by the Boston Art Dealers Association (BADA)

Philippe de Montbello joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art while still a graduate student in 1963. Except for a hiatus of four years as Director of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston he spent his entire career at the Met and has been its director since 1977. This week he announced plans to retire.

Another rainy day in Venice as we visited the Peggy Guggenheim Museum, the Gallery of the Palazzo Cini and Santa Maria della Salute.

First Night Boston's 32nd year as an arts festival celebrating the New Year presents a parade, ice sculpture, outdoor installations as well as concerts, dance, poetry and visual arts venues.

For the past three summer seasons Roger Rees and the Williamstown Theatre Festival have collaborated with the Clark Art Institute. Last night Rees read a selection of letters by Claude Monet.

Alice Neel, a great 20th century painter of raw, psychological portraits is the subject of a new genre of personal documentary by children and relatives of the artist.

A recent article and editorial in the Berkshire Eagle take Tanglewood to task for falling attendance. Dave Mathews and Bright Eyes to the rescue?

The actor/ collector Steve Martin narrates a thirty minute video produced by the National Gallery and distributed by Microcinema International to accompany a touring exhibition currently at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

The dance marathon filmed by Phil Collins with many interruptions and difficulties brought together Palestinian teenagers. At the MFA visiting teens dance to the disco beat.

There is considerable risk taking as Museum of Fine Arts curator, Cheryl Brutvan, takes on the hot topic of artist responses to war and its atrocities. The exhibit combines classic works in the MFA collection by Goya, Manet and Picasso with a selection of contemporary masters.

The touring Edward Hopper show is on view at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston through August before continuing at the National Gallery and concluding at the Art Institute of Chicago.

From thousands of slides and negatives created in decades of covering the arts a selection of 130 digital prints are installed in the current exhibition. The artist discusses the work.

With as many as four panels held simultaneously and numerous related events it is possible only to provide glimpses of and speculations about the impact of the seminal weekend long conference. The depth and range of information and resources is overwhelming.

When Charles Eliot Norton started teaching art history at Harvard University and then hired the artist Charles Herbert Moore to assist by teaching gentlemen to draw they were following the mandates of their good friend the great British art historian and watercolorist John Ruskin. This exhibition and publication explores that rich legacy.

Originally when it was founded in 1903 the Busch Reisinger Museum used plaster casts of Gothic art and architecture, photographs and documents to teach Germanic culture to Harvard students. By the 1930s and 1940s it started to acquire original works. Today the museum represents one of the great collections of this Northern and Eastern European material.

There was a lively opening of the new season at the recently refurnished Gallery of the Eclipse Mill in North Adams. Among the guests was Michael Conforti director of the nearby Clark Art Institute.

Mixing art and antiques in a super sized space brings new life to retail in North Adams. A shot in the arm for Main Street traffic.

Rachel Perry Welty was one of four finalists for the biannual Foster Prize awarded by the Institute of Contemporary Art. The competition entailed one woman installations during the widely covered launch of the new ICA. Over a beer we discussed the hectic pace of the past several months and what comes next.

According to the curator and Danforth Museum director for six months during the 1940s and two years after that Hyman Bloom was the most important artist, first in the world, and then in America.

More response to the collection of essays "Critical Mess: Art critics and the state of their practice." And a reply to a Peter Plagens piece on critical writing in the February, 2007 issue of Art in America.

In a collection of essays by leading art critics the eroding influence of their work is discussed. While the arguments and issues are urgent they also seem quite ancient.

How Raymond Liddell was given an "offer he could not refuse" while in graduate school for Classical studies to become director of the Museum of Broadcasting in New York before moving on to the Brooklyn Museum. Today he is among other things a Contributing Editor for Art New England.

In a week of record January temperatures it seemed that Spring had sprung during a lively night of openings in the SOWA, or Boston's South End Gallery District.

Overcome by ennui at the prospect of coming up with that annual best and worst list.

Beer and Burger with photographer, writer, and director of the Boston University graduate program in arts adminstration. For many years we were colleagues and columnists for Art New England.