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To-dos @ the Morgan Library

by Gabriella Radujko on September 10th, 2011

Philip Evergood, list of contacts, ca. 1947.

It is hard to believe that the 1913 New York Armory Show took place less than 100 years ago.  The seminal show drew laughs for its paintings and denunciations for their degeneracy, while the  medium of photography, facilitated by Alfred Stieglitz, was inaugurated as a new art form, acceptable only as measured by proximity to the extreme paintings and sculptures on exhibit.

It is Picasso’s list of suggested artists for inclusion in the show, dated 1912, that makes a case for the subtleties that make this Morgan sleeper,  “To-dos, Illustrated Inventories, Collected Thoughts, and Other Artists’ Enumerations from the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art”, a must-see for anyone interested in art history or contemporary art or both.  Through curatorial acumen, its 80 lists simultaneously remind us how different yet familiar at the same time the world is today from the one reflected in the exhibit. Continue Reading More »

Postcard from Abe’s Penny

by Helen Homan Wu on September 30th, 2010

Four weeks ago I received an anonymous postcard in the mail with a mysterious little poem in the back that goes:

And I would share something,
Something beautiful with you.

I gaze at you distantly.
And should I?
Should I approach?

For I would share something,
Something beautiful and true. Continue Reading More »