BEARING WITNESS TO TRAGEDY Elayne Clift I was born a Jew on March 20, 1943. One week after 3,000 people just like me Perished in Cracow, I began to live. I began to live one month before How many Jewish lives ended in Warsaw? In Budapest? In Bergen Belsen? But for an ocean, and other gifts of fate, I might have been among them. I wrote those lines after seeing the film “Schindler’s List” some years ago. I thought about them recently when I visited the powerful exhibition “Memory Unearthed: The Lodz Ghetto Photographs of Henryk Ross,” on display for the first time in America at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. My poem might well have asked how many Jewish lives ended in Lodz. The answer is unbearable. Of the more than 160,000 people rounded up by the Nazis and sealed off from the world by barbed wire in the Lodz Ghetto of 1940 to 1945, only 877 survived. Henryk Ross … [Read more...] about HENRYK ROSS AT THE MFA
Current Issue
MATISSE IN THE STUDIO
THE ARTIST’S EYE DRAWS US IN Suzanne Volmer “Matisse in the Studio,” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston through July 9, is the MFA’s spring/summer blockbuster. The show, jointly organized by the MFA and the Royal Academy of Arts, London in partnership with the Musée Matisse, Nice, includes “rare pairings of Matisse’s masterpieces with objects of inspiration.” MFA director Matthew Teitelbaum explained that “Matisse in the Studio” is an opportunity to consider “the connections across borders, sensibilities and functions that an artist’s eye can help us to see.” MFA curator Helen Burnham, Ann Dumas of the Royal Academy of Arts and Ellen McBreen, an associate professor at Wheaton College, co-curated “Matisse in the Studio” as an examination of Matisse’s artistic growth in relation to objects in his collection that inspired the trajectory of his innovation. The show … [Read more...] about MATISSE IN THE STUDIO
FRANK STELLA AT ADDISON
A RETROSPECTIVE ODE TO FEARLESSNESS Flavia Cigliano The current retrospective of prints by Frank Stella at the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy is stunning, spectacularly revealing the evolution of the artist’s printmaking over three decades, from the minimalistic geometric “Black Series 1” (1967) to the visually cacophonous “Near East Monoprints” (1999-2001). Organized to celebrate the publication of the revised and updated catalogue raisonné of Stella’s prints, the exhibit is a testament to the artist’s inexhaustible curiosity, technical daring and creative exploration. Richard H. Axsom, senior curator at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in Wisconsin, is both the author of the catalogue, “Frank Stella Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné,” and the curator of the retrospective. The 100 editioned prints on display are generously on loan from the … [Read more...] about FRANK STELLA AT ADDISON
Welcome
Welcome Brian Goslow Welcome to our May/June 2017 issue — one that we hope will serve as the blueprint to the start of your New England summer art wanderlust. We had already planned to cover the opening of the Frank Stella “Prints” retrospective at the Addison Gallery of American Art, but when the offer came for a chance to interview one of the world’s most beloved artists, Flavia Cigliano had no problem rearranging her schedule. Her extensive report on the show leads nicely into Suzanne Volmer’s review of “Matisse in the Studio” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; not only is it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see many of Matisse’s works, but also some of his own favorites from his personal collection. Similarly, Elayne Clift brought a powerful personal view as she shares her experiences of traveling to Boston from Vermont to see “Memory Unearthed: The Lodz Ghetto … [Read more...] about Welcome
March/April 2017
Article Excerpts: Welcome | Cornered: Mohamad Hafez| An Exodus Frozen in Time | Exploring the Space Within | Coding as a Design Tool at Tufts | Weapons Unloaded in Maine | It's a Wonderful Life | Multisensory Surprise at Phillips Exeter | COSO's Winter Members Show | Shacking Up in Ptown | An Exuberance of 3-D Line| Locally Sourced Creativity | Curating Classic To Contemporary | Generations of Wyeths and More | An Antidote To Winter | From New Bedford To Portugal: Tips for Implementing Plan B | A Colorful Road Trip Through India | Go Figure! | Prints of Peace | Imagination Meets Memory | Projecting Light on Social Issues | A Gallery of Energized Content | Printmaking Reimagined | Mosaic of Art and Science | Taking History to Heart | … [Read more...] about March/April 2017
March/April 2017 Centerfold
Artscope 67, March/April 2017 art: Golden Abstract artist: Wilda Squires medium: photography theme: Artficial Intelligence My entrance into the world of abstract photography began serendipitously ten years ago. Unable to sleep very early one morning, I watched the shadows that the rising sun created within the folds of the bedroom window curtains. The longer I looked, the more I became aware of patterns that resembled things like mountains and faces. I was witnessing a new type of creation coming forth from the natural beauty of fabric so I instinctively grabbed my camera and began taking one photograph after the other, following the path of the sun as it traversed across the curtain material. I then explored the subsequent images in search of other surprises hidden within all of the shadows and fabric folds. It was at this point that I … [Read more...] about March/April 2017 Centerfold