(An Appropriate Distance)

 

FROM THE MAYOR'S DOORSTEP

The Morgan Library and Museum has at least two shows this summer of interest to the art world. The largest, worthy one is “Henry James and American Painting” (through September 10). The smallest, fun one is “Noah’s Beasts: Sculpted Animals from Ancient Mesopotamia” (through August 27).  Read More 

I feel horribly guilty about being so slow to review this winter’s mammoth, handsome, moving and now appallingly timely exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Entitled “World War I and American Art,” it opened at the beginning of November 2016, and I attended its media preview. In fact, I took so long examining it that I was the last critic to leave.

Now it will only be at PAFA  Read More 

Summer is a grand time to visit The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Despite the crowds it draws it never gets all filled up (except in the cafeteria at lunchtime), and the temperature is so divinely cool. But don’t be deceived by those aristocratic high ceilings and genteel atmosphere of unconcern: the museum is nevertheless packing them in. Read More 

The Brooklyn Museum is also doing things by threes this summer. The talk of the town are the assemblages of El Anatsui. Connoisseurs of historic art are very taken by the watercolors of John Singer Sargent, but silly me! My favorite show at this museum right now is the photography of LaToya Ruby Frazier—not that the other two shows don’t have a good deal to recommend them, too. Read More