WRIGHT LUDINGTON

When I visit my parents' apartment and stay overnight I sleep in the maid's room in which my mother keeps her collection of Architectural Digest magazines. I love it--it's so cozy and, of course, I could spend hours looking at the AD's which date back to 1971. My old bedroom is now my father's and my brother's old bedroom is now my father's office. The master bedroom is my mother's domain. Browsing through some of those early 1970s Architectural Digests I came across a feature on the Montecito, California, home of Wright Ludington in the January/February 1973 issue. Ludington is described as an "internationally known collector and arbiter of taste." I probably first became aware of Ludington and his collection when I visited, many years ago, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, to which he bequeathed many magnificent works of modern and ancient art. Those works of art are shown in the photographs of Ludington's villa, including paintings by Picasso, Braque, Redon, Roualt, ancient Roman, Mexican and Egyptian sculpture and 18th century European furniture. Ludington collaborated on the design of the house with architect Lutah Riggs and interior designer Leonard Stanley. I aspire to Ludington's level of connoisseurship.

HUNTINGTON LIBRARY, GALLERIES, GARDENS

I had not been to "the Huntington" in San Marino, California, since my first trip to Los Angeles, quite a while ago. I finally got back there on my recent trip. A renovation of the galleries was completed recently and it really shows, in a good way. The installations are stunningly subtle (an oxymoron, yes), refined, exalted. The elements--art, architecture, furniture, decorative arts-are European (magnificence) but the effect is American (unencumbered). The gardens--Japanese, Chinese, Desert, Australian, etc--are splendid individuallly and viewed consecutively acheive an effect of additive awe. Definitely devote a day.

House:

Chinese garden

Japanese house

Japanese garden

Bonsai collection:

Desert garden

Mausoleum:

LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART

Some of the reinstalled galleries at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art are now open and some are still in progress. The groovy (literally) installation of the art of ancient America will probably need to be redesigned within a decade. The new galleries for German Expressionist art are smooth, dark and lovely (might make it past the decade mark). I'm praying to god (the board of directors) that the old master galleries will incorporate furniture and decorative arts. Installation in progress looks hopeful (my photos below).

COLONIAL KITCHEN, SAN MARINO, LOS ANGELES

Before going to the Huntington Gardens in San Marino we had lunch at the Colonial Kitchen where I spotted this cute painting. The painting is actually a very "continental" note in a restaurant which is otherwise a timewarp of Americana circa 1960, the decor, the food and the patrons.  You can see pictures of the menu and food at Biggest Menu.  In a private dining room there was a large group of white- and blue-haired ladies playing cards. We loved it. 

REGENCY ARTS PRESS BOOK SWAP

I went to the fun Art Book Swap organized by Regency Arts Press last week and held at the Museum of Modern Art. This is the third book swap that the organization, directed by Lauren Wittels, has produced. Here's how it worked: you bring any art books that you don't want or need anymore, hardcover or paperback (but no magazines or how-to books), present them at the check-in table where you get a receipt indicating the number of books you have donated, and then browse the tables full of books donated by other swappers and by publishers and dealers . There were more books filling the tables all day long as swappers arrived and donated. At the end of the day all remaining books are donated to prison libraries through local organizations: in New York the Prisoners' Reading Encouragement Project, and in Los Angeles the Bunche Center Prison Outreach Program. I walked out with some amazing books!

ART FROM 1st CENTURY BC INDIA

I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Friday to see the new exhibition "Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage" which was fascinating but not quite as exciting as I thought it would be. The collages on view were all examples made for intimate viewing in a private album rather than the tours de force made for public display. Nevertheless I highly recommend checking it out. While at the museum I took a stroll through the Indian art galleries and discovered some incredible things. The first gallery displays the art of 1st century BC India and includes the remarkable pair of earrings and the relief sculpture shown below. The gold earrings are described as "the largest, finest and best preserved examples of early Indian jewelry." The plaque illustrates a royal family with their dog in incredible detail. Check out those fantastic hairdo's!

CUNEO MUSEUM AND GARDENS

Via the Art Newspaper comes this item about the Cuneo Museum and gardens in Vernon Hills, Illinois:

Loyola University Chicago has received the largest gift in its 140-year history from John Cuneo Jr, his wife Herta, and the Cuneo Foundation. The $50m gift includes the family mansion, which opened to the public as the Cuneo Museum and Gardens in 1991. It brings the museum just $100m shy of its $500m capital campaign goal. The university has a longstanding relationship with the Cuneos, after whom the Stritch School of Medicine’s main building is named, after the couple gave $13m to the university in 2000 to support education.

This gift will be used to support student scholarships, a new academic building on the Lake Shore Campus to be named Cuneo Hall, and for operational support at the mansion and gardens. The mansion is currently used mainly for private events, such as wedding, but plans for future programming include art performances, lectures and classes and artist residencies. According to the family, it was John Cuneo’s Sr’s wish that his home, estate, and collections be used as an educational institution for the public.

The Cuneo Mansion houses the family collection of antiques, paintings, tapestries, sculptures, silver, and porcelain, as well as murals by Czech-born artist John Mallin, who painted the interiors of more than 100 Chicago churches. Constructed in 1918, the coral pink villa was designed in the Venetian style by architect Benjamin Marshall for Samuel Insull, the original founder of General Electric Company. The gardens were designed by landscaped architect, Jens Jensen, who was also responsible for Lincoln Memorial Park.

BOOKSTORE

Please visit my new online bookstore:
http://alanrosenbergsbooks.blogspot.com/ Some of my favorite books are shown below. Full descriptions and prices can be found at the bookstore.

Quant by Quant:

Glow of Candlelight:

La Decoration:

The Fountains of Rome:

Inside Design:

Charas: the Improbable Dome Builders:

House &; Garden's Complete Guide to Creative Entertaining:

Bureaux et Bibliotheques:

The Beautiful People:

My Years and Seasons:

FRIEND'S DESIGN 1 - NINA BOVASSO

My friend Nina Bovasso is an artist and one of her watercolors is now a rug. Nina shows at BravinLee Programs and had an exhibition of her beautiful, demented, touching floral watercolors there back in March: http://bravinlee.com/artists/bovasso2/bovasso_elephant.html
Her 60 x 40 inch watercolor has been translated by Himalayan craftspeople into a 9 x 6 foot 100% wool rug in an edition of 15. The original painting, the rug in progress and the finished rug are shown below. I have known Nina since we were both about 16, growing up in 1980s Manhattan and in the downtown bars and nightclubs like the Holiday Cocktail Lounge, the Peppermint Lounge and Danceteria. She now lives and works in New York and Amsterdam where she also runs a small gallery. More on Nina Bovasso at http://www.ninabovasso.com. And on her gallery at http://www.1kprojectspace.com.

THE BRICK HOUSE

Aesthete's Lament recently had a fascinating post about , Mrs Paul Mellon's extraordinary garden library at Oak Spring, Upperville, Virginia:
http://aestheteslament.blogspot.com/2009/08/dream-house-mrs-mellons-garden-library.html

More about the library at its own website:
http://www.oakspring.org/

The library is one of several structures on the Mellon's extensive property. I had the opportunity to visit the Mellon's estate about 20 years ago. Although I did not visit the library I had the great privilege to spend an afternoon at the Brick House, a large house on the property that the Mellons used as a gallery for their collection of British sporting art and their large group of Degas waxes. The guests that day were myself, my brother Charles and our friend Kristin Leachman who is a neighbor of the Mellon's. There was no "tour guide" and in fact we had the house completely to ourselves. We were simply visiting as neighbors and art lovers (I am told, though, that the requests to visit submitted by many eminent art historians over the years were declined). The décor was reminiscent of an English country house with walls carefully painted with oil glaze over pale ground in a delicate striated effect. There were very large rooms (a large gallery with several sporting paintings by George Stubbs) and very small ones (a cozy den or reading room with little ivory ornaments displayed on the lamp table). The Degas gallery was pale pink and green with the waxes, including the Little Dancer, displayed on open pedestals (no plexi covers). Degas' fingerprints were easy to discern on the wax. After Mr. Mellon died in 1999 the collections were dispersed with the sporting art going to the Virginia Museum of Fine Art and the Yale Center for British Art and the Degas sculptures going to the National Gallery of Art. After the dispersal of the collection a little booklet was sent out as a reminiscence of the Brick House, to those who had enjoyed its pleasures (see scan of cover below). The booklet tells some of the history of the house:

The Brick House at Oak Spring, Upperville, Virginia was completed in 1941 as the residence of Paul and Mary Mellon. The architect, William Adams Delano of New York, had been persuaded by the Mellons to copy the principal exterior features of the Hammond-Harwood House in Annapolis Maryland . . . the house was occupied by the family until the death of Mary Mellon in October of 1946. . . . Paul Mellon and Bunny Lambert Lloyd were married in 1948 . . . they decided to turn the Brick House into a library and gallery . . .

The black-and-white photo below is from the Gottscho-Schleisner archive where there are many photos of the Brick House, however they were taken soon after the house was built and before it was remodeled by architect Page Cross in 1961. Nevertheless there are great pictures to be seen in the archive at the Library of Congress:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/gottscho/index.html

THE DEATH OF JAMES LEE BYARS

The magnficent Death of James Lee Byars (1982--below) is on view at the Guggenheim Museum in a moderately successful show full of great art. The exhibition, “The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860- 1989” includes an exquisite small section of Japonisme in 19th century painting and one sculpture (Augustus Saint Gaudens' Adams Memorial), some wiorks by Morris Graves and then right on to abstract expressionism. From there on, the greater part of the show, it really should have been called 'The Zen Buddhist Influence on the Avante Garde." There are wonderful pieces by Agnes Martin, Walter de Maria, Robert Irwin et al., but who really cares about the theme. Zen contemplation is destroyed by the crowds and the noise in the Guggenheim. In any case just go to see work by Byars and the other art, as always.

NEW ORLEANS 2009

I was in New Orleans again, as well as Natchitoches and Baton Rouge Louisiana over the past few weeks. In New Orleans I had the wonderful opportunity to see the Mardi Gras Indians doing one of their occasional practice runs. As you may know the Indians are really Africans (or African-Americans, or African-French, or Afro-Creole or whatever). The men work all year on their hand beaded, sequined and feathered costumes. There was music, dancing in the street, grilled sausages and homemade pralines.

LECTURE IN LITTLE ROCK

I am pleased to announce that I am giving a lecture on American mid-20th Century enamel art/craft/design at the Arkansas Arts Center on March 31st. If you happen to be in Little Rock I hope you will attend. The AAC has an outstanding collection of 20th century crafts. Check out their website and some images from my lecture below:
http://www.arkarts.com/

Edward Winter

Edward Winter
Karl Drerup

Karl Drerup
Karl Drerup
Jean Ames