Giovanna Garzoni’s tablescape was a map of the world, and she wanted to chart every detail.
Author Archives: Karen Chernick
Karen Chernick is a writer based in Philadelphia, by way of Tel Aviv. Her work has also appeared on Artsy, The Forward, Curbed Philadelphia, Eater, PhillyVoice, and Time Out Philadelphia.
Posted inBooks
An Ebay Purchase That Revealed the Everyday Lives of French Surrealists
Reading between the lines of contact information for friends, graphologists, psychoanalysts, and plumbers, Brigitte Benkemoun’s Finding Dora Maar reveals a map of a bygone France.
Posted inArt
A Mouthwatering Museum Tour for Vegans
Museumgoers of the vegan variety don’t heap ham, cheese, and eggs onto their plates — and some don’t want to see the stuff when they’re strolling through the Prado Museum, either.
Posted inArt
A Rare Look at a Little-Known, Intrepid Woman Painter of Open Air Landscapes
Sarazin de Belmont was a rare talent: a self-funded artist and a woman who broke the courtly codes to travel unchaperoned for several years as she created open-air landscapes on the Italian peninsula and the French Pyrenees.
Posted inBooks
A Tantalizing, If Flawed Reinterpretation of Picasso’s “Demoiselles d’Avignon”
In her new book, Suzanne Preston Blier seduces the reader with a reinterpretation of the painting, based on sources she claims no Picasso scholars have addressed before.
Posted inArt
The Story of Charles Ethan Porter, an African American Still-Life Painter
Porter’s struggle, and the ensuing invisibility of his work, are as much a part of his story as his masterful paintings that dignify humble everyday objects.
Posted inArt
A Map of Alexander Calder’s New York
Today, on the anniversary of the artist’s death, we chart a few New York spots that were meaningful to Calder — from Greenwich Village to the Upper East Side, and some zip codes in between.
Posted inArt
How Women Artists Flourished in Northern Italy During the Renaissance
Bologna boomed with professional women artists, primarily painters. Of the 300 active painters in the city during the 1600s, around 25 were women — more than in any other Italian city.
Posted inFilm
The Restoration of a 1446 Painting Revisits Florence’s History of Infanticide
A documentary dives into the history of the Institute of the Innocents, which housed unwanted babies, and the first painting it ever commissioned.
Posted inArt
The Lives of Female Art Historical Figures Will Now Be Transcribed and Available Online
A crowdsourced transcription project hopes to make the lives of women artists, art historians, art dealers, and gallery owners easier to keyword search and read.
Posted inArt
The Untold Story of Alma Mahler and Her Relationship to the Bauhaus
Nearly 100 years ago Walter Gropius divorced from Alma Mahler, the Viennese musician married to the academy’s famed founder during the planning stages of the Bauhaus.
Posted inBooks
A Journalist’s Year of Sunday Interviews with Diego Rivera
Alfredo Cardona Peña’s conversations with the loquacious 63-year-old artist are available for the first time in English.