Category Archives: art

I found Tracey Emin’s “A Second Life” exhibition at Tate Modern irritating at first because you have to read paragraphs of her handwriting. But the payoffs are huge. “My Future” ends with “That’s the last Dead Thing to Leave my … Continue reading →

For some reason San Francisco Art Fair thinks we’re high roller art buyers (even though we’ve never brought a painting home for more than $500) and offers us “VIP” tickets. (Though this reminds me of the “Las Vegas” episode of … Continue reading →

Tamara de Lempicka is melodramatic swagger, backed up by superb shading of colored areas (chiaroscuro?); it reminds me of Georgia O’Keefe’s landscapes yet the complete opposite. Look at the heart shape in the draping of her lover’s dress, it’s phenomenal. … Continue reading →

Charles Schulz is very much conventional decent middle-America (with a side of deep bitter existential distress underlying his Peanuts cartoons). Yet, as I learned on a return visit to his museum, it turns out “Sparky” was a big supporter of … Continue reading →

I unexpectedly met Richard Serra’s Band again, at LACMA; surely one of his greatest. I was sad at the great man’s[*] death in 2024, but walking around and through its spaces one more time left me collapsed and sobbing. Museum … Continue reading →

John Singer Sargent in Spain is pretty good. Paintings of fishermen and male artists looking at the viewer with smouldering eyes… it’s puzzling that a San Francisco museum didn’t mention the “lifelong bachelor”‘s likely love affair with Albert de Belleroche, … Continue reading →