“You don’t have to make things easy for them,” says Red Star about her new exhibition for children at MASS MoCA.
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 inArt
The Under-told Story of Paul Jennings, an Enslaved Man Who Helped Save George Washington’s Portrait
During the War of 1812, British troops intended to ransack the American capital. The First Lady took credit for saving White House valuables, but, as Jennings wrote in his memoir, this was “totally false.”
Posted inArt
The Fascinating Story Behind a Missing Portrait by Arshile Gorky
The portrait is a window into the life and work of the painter and gallerist Anna Walinska, who gave Gorky his first solo exhibition in New York.
Posted inArt
The Baroque Artist Who Captured the World in Her Still Lifes
Giovanna Garzoni’s tablescape was a map of the world, and she wanted to chart every detail.
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.