From the October/November 2016 Issue
Maine’s Moody Vibe
There’s more to this artists’ destination than perfect blue skies and perfect blue seas. Although I grew up in New Jersey, I’ve been going to Maine since I was 10. […]
From the October/November 2016 Issue
Something to Write Home About
The vargueño is the “most Spanish of Spanish furniture.” To call a vargueño a “portable writing desk” deprives it of the admiration it deserves. Even if it originally was designed […]
From the August/September 2016 Issue
Long, Tall and Swedish
Distinctive Swedish case clocks are highly sought-after. The final episodes of the Masterpiece Mystery series Wallander aired recently on PBS. Based on the crime novels by Swedish writer Henning Mankell, […]
From the August/September 2016 Issue
Central Attraction
The Princeton University Art Museum has the intimacy of a small institution but some of the range befitting a much larger one. When Ben Franklin called New Jersey a keg […]
From the June/July 2016 Issue
Always Wash Your Hands
Aquamanilia were created for the purpose. From ancient Rome and Islamic cultures to the Byzantine empire and medieval Europe, ritual hand-washing was done for both symbolic and sanitary reasons (probably […]
From the June/July 2016 Issue
Art (With an Explanation)
A visit to the Paul Robeson Galleries at Rutgers Newark. In an art world that can often seem hermetically sealed off from the rest of society, the Paul Robeson Galleries […]
From the April/May 2016 Issue
A Taste of the Exotic
Lockwood de Forest’s interiors and furnishings brought the exotic east to the Gilded Age. To become a tastemaker you need an artist’s eye, a flair for the dramatic, a head […]
From the April/May 2016 Issue
The Awkward Marriage of Museums & Contemporary Art
The long view vs. the art of the moment. On March 18, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened Met Breuer, its new branch of modern and contemporary art. The new […]
From the February/March 2016 Issue
Eva Cellini, Late-Life Surrealist
An artist taps into the unconscious, explores uncertainty. There’s always been a youthful spirit to surrealism. The embrace of the nonrational, the prankishness, the fascination with the minutiae of one’s […]