The American Museum in Britain

Queen Kapi’olani’s Fan Quilt, early twentieth century, Hawaii.

The American Museum in Britain: The only museum of Americana outside the United States, the museum was founded to bring American history and cultures to the people of Britain and Europe. I've never been there, have you? I love that eye-dazzling red and white Hawaiian quilt. 

Picasso and Lump

Picasso and his beloved Dachshund named Lump.
Photo ©David Douglas Duncan

Lump by Picasso

Picasso loved animals and his work is rich with depictions of them. In contrast to his usual beautifully complex style, Picasso’s animal drawings are loved for their simplicity and minimalism. There is even a book devoted to the artist and his best friend – Picasso and Lump: A Dachshund’s Odyssey, the little-known story of Pablo Picasso and his lovable dog Lump, who is immortalized in many of Picasso's acclaimed works of art. Isn't it wonderful that a dog named Lump became an icon in modern art? via

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum - Boston, MA

The Gardner Museum's website is wonderful. Give it a few seconds to load and you will then be able to click around the background and explore the art, architecture, antiques, rooms and courtyard pictured above.
Start Exploring GardnerMuseum.org

650 Red and White Quilts at Park Ave Armory NYC

Free to the public. On display March 25-30, 2011

Park Avenue Armory, New York City

“Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts”

On loan from American Folk Art Museum

This special exhibit has a very short run which is such a shame. Five days is not long enough!!! When will you ever get another chance to see so many red and white quilts in one place so beautifully displayed? It's free too. Are you going? Read a great article about these quilts in the online edition of the Wall Street Journal.

You can download the FREE App for your iPhone, iPad, or iPod showing all the quilts in the exhibit in case you can't attend in person. How cool is that?

Rijksmuseum ~ Amsterdam, Netherlands

The Rijksmuseum Research Library in Amsterdam has the largest art history library in the Netherlands. It has maintained a constant, high-standard acquisition policy since 1885 and contains approximately 250,000 volumes. The Rijksmuseum also plays an important international role in making Dutch art history available and disseminating it. via

Rossetti Oil painting: 'The Day Dream' in The Victoria and Albert Museum

The Day Dream painted in 1880 by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painter, artist and poet. The sitter for this painting was Jane Morris, the wife of William Morris, who often posed for Rossetti. At the time this was painted Rossetti was involved in an illicit love affair with Jane. He shows her sitting in the branches of a sycamore tree and holding a sprig of honeysuckle. This sweet-smelling climbing plant symbolized the bonds of love for the Victorians, and Rossetti may have included it here as a subtle reference to the relationship between artist and model. Rossetti was also a poet, and the title relates to his poem of the same name which ends:

She dreams; till now on her forgotten book  

Drops the forgotten blossom from her hand.

 This painting is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. 

The Changing Face of William Shakespeare

"Artist unknown, The Cobbe Portrait of William Shakespeare, ca. 1610, oil on panel. Collection of Archbishop Charles Cobbe (1686–1765); Cobbe Collection, Hatchlands Park."

In 2009, when the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon unveiled a previously unknown portrait painting with strong claims to be the only surviving life-time portrait of William Shakespeare, it created an international sensation. The Jacobean painting had hung unrecognized for centuries in an Irish country house belonging to the Cobbe family. Click on the following link to read more about this portrait and current exhibit at The Morgan Library/Museum - The Changing Face of William Shakespeare 

American Silver Nutmeg Grater

I've never seen an antique American Silver nutmeg grater in this classical urn form. From the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Details here. 

Google Takes Street View Into Art Museums

Google Takes Street View Into Art Museums - NYTimes.com
"Now that Google has conquered a majority of the earth’s major streets with its Google Street View project, the company is starting to move inside. It’s creating the Google Art Project, a virtual equivalent of 17 major art museums, including the the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Britain and the National Gallery in London, and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, among many others."

Christmas Classics Sung by Old Crooners [Video]

Can you hear the Christmas music playing in this beautiful room?

Here's hoping you enjoy this trip down Memory Lane. I know I did. Close your eyes and listen; you'll think you're a kid again.



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Matisse Exhibit at MoMA

Jill Krementz Photo Journal - Matisse at MoMA | New York Social Diary
Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917
July 18-October 11, 2010
The Museum of Modern Art

For lovers of Matisse, there's a large-scale show of this great artist's work at MoMA. Comprising nearly 110 of the artist's works -- paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints -- this show sheds light on Matisse's evolution as an artist and explores his working process and the revolutionary experimentation of what Matisse called his “methods of modern construction.”

Click on the link above and take a tour via The New York Social Diary with author and photographer Jill Krementz. The next time you're invited to an "event" and feel that you don't have anything to wear, you'll especially enjoy the "outfits" the patrons wore to the opening. Anything goes, so just close your eyes and pick anything out of your closet. Nobody really cares what you are wearing. Footwear noted includes flip flops, clogs, and L.L.Bean Duck Boots worn by Bill Cunningham from The New York Times.

Keep scrolling and you will get to the part of the article that features numerous photos of the Matisse art on exhibit at MoMA. It's almost like being there. Enjoy!




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The Authentic Tudors | National Portrait Gallery

Mary Nevill, Lady Dacre and her son, Gregory, Baron Dacre. Lady Dacre's life reads like an historical novel with a twist - a common tale of murder, plague, hanging and multiple marriages with this formidable lady bullying Henry VIII into doing what she wanted. Rare for a woman, Mary is placed on the left side of the pairing, a position traditionally reserved for male authority. The position may reflect her strength of character and power in the family and contemporary accounts indicate that Gregory was dominated both by his mother and later by his wife Anne Sackville. Oil on panel 1559, by Hans Eworth (1540-1573) the most talented painter working in England following the death of Hans Holbein. National Portrait Gallery, London. Please enlarge the powerful image to fully examine the Elizabethan period costumes worn by Mary 36 and Gregory 21.

I tried my best to get really interested in The Tudors on Showtime but just couldn't. I thought the actor playing King Henry VIII was just too slight of build to be believable. The Tudors in this double portrait have some meat on their bones.




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Picnic on the Creek |July 4, 1883 | Thomas Eakins

This looks like a pleasant spot for a family picnic on July 4th long ago. I'm glad they took the dog along for some quality creek swimming. Enjoy the holiday, Rosemary.
July 4, 1883 | Thomas Eakins




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Coney Island | Weegee, 1940

Standing Room only on the beach at Coney Island in 1940! I wonder if this vintage photo was taken on July 4th? I hope you are able to find a less crowded spot to enjoy this long holiday weekend commemorating America's Independence Day.
Coney Island | Weegee, 1940
Weegee, American Photographer, born Hungary, 1899-1968




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Albert Einstein | Illustrated Quote

"Intellectuals solve problems,
geniuses prevent them."
Albert Einstein

Photographer: Johan Hagemeyer
(American, born Netherlands, 1884-1962)
Title: Albert Einstein
Date: 1931
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York




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Abraham Lincoln | Photograph | 1860

"Whatever you are, be a good one. "

Abraham Lincoln

Photograph | Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Sarah Jessica Parker: Audio Guide at The Met

Sarah Jessica Parker becomes audio guide at The Met:
Those who visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art during its exhibition titled "American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity" will be greeted by a familiar voice. Sex and the City star and self-confessed fashionista Sarah Jessica Parker has taken on the role of audio guide for the Costume Institute's annual fashion exhibition at the museum. The exhibition runs through Aug. 15, 2010.

Visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Web site to hear a sample of SJP’s audio narrative--go to the bottom of the page.




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Emily Dickinson's Garden Recreated @ NY Botanical Gardens

Emily Dickinson's Garden:

"If Emily Dickinson's neighbors saw her gardening at her Amherst, Massachusetts home in the moonlight, they might have thought her eccentric. She was that. But the poet was also troubled by very sensitive eyes, and the sunlight hurt them.

She did love her gardens, and the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx celebrates the poet and gardener with a newly-opened exhibition that continues until June 13." Read more @ http://nybg.org/



This looks wonderful, doesn't it? I'd like to go. Will you drive?

I know Emily and I would have been friends. I'm often out in the moonlight pulling weeds. Not because of my sensitive eyes, but because there aren't enough hours in a day to get everything done.




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English Mansion With Sundial

Dudmaston Hall in Shopshire, England
Late 17th Century mansion with art collection, lakeside garden and one of Britain's most important collection of contemporary art in a country estate house setting. Maintained by The National Trust for ever, for everyone.




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George Washington by Gilbert Stuart

The finest and best and most reproduced portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart. Read the interesting history behind it.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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