A Medal for Montebello
Bob Dylan, Robert Caro, Clint Eastwood, Milton Glaser, Theodore Sorenson, Maya Lin and Metropolitan Museum of Art director emeritus Philippe de Montebello were among the twenty recipients of 2009 national medals of arts and humanities, bestowed by President Obama at the White House yesterday. Montebello was praised for revitalizing the museum. I hate to rain […]
What’s So Funny About Art, Knowledge and Understanding?
“Tapestry Tom” Campbell, latest director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has just announced the latest fruits of its antiquities loan agreement with the government of Italy — a display of twenty silver objects found near Pompeii. “The presentation of these splendid works in New York, where they will be viewed by millions of visitors […]
Moguls in Lust, Wintour in Spring
Molly Fisher at the New York Observer’s Daily Transom has uncovered the new subtitle and a bit about the new jacket that’s going on Rogues’ Gallery for its paperback edition, out in May. She writes, “Rogues’ Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money that Made the Metropolitan Museum has been recast as […]
Me (and my big mouth)
Blogger Father Tony from Queer New York was at my talk at Books & Books in Bal Harbour last week, and just posted the video above, introducing it this way: “In the video snippet… he is talking about a lady of mysterious pedigree [Jane Mannheimer, the future Jane Engelhard] but listen through to the end […]
A note of explanation
Janet M. Schrock, Ph.D., a docent at the John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, wrote to say her docents’ book club had read Rogues’ Gallery, and were concerned about a passage on page 54, that describes Ringling’s purchase of antiquities of questionable authenticity from the Luigi Palma di Cesnola collection at […]
Un-trust-worthy, perhaps (but refreshingly honest , too)
“The secret to a long and happy run on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s board of trustees is MYOB,” — mind your own business — Staten Island’s outgoing borough representative on the cultural giant’s board, Allan Weissglass, told the Staten Island Advance last week in an astonishing but revealing burst of candor. “We try hard […]
Snow Days
Gripebox will be back next week. Bon blizzard.
Shiny Happy People
Shannon Donnelly, social columnist of The Palm Beach Daily News, aka the famous Shiny Sheet, heralded the Rogues’ Gallery tour’s coming circuit of south Florida in yesterday’s paper. “Certain PB folks with bones rattling in their closets are feeling skittish since hearing author Michael Gross is visiting,” she writes, before assuring them I’m not coming […]
You’ve got to get up early…
… to be director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Thomas P. Campbell, the latest man in that job, tells the Wall Street Journal today, explaining that his toughest challenge has been starting work at 8 AM daily and not stopping until evening. Phew. The museum’s uphill PR campaign to make Campbell a compelling public […]