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Archive for the ‘Art’ Category

Moonwalking at the Piccolomini Library, Siena

In honor of World Book Day- a ThrowBack Tuesday to Moonwalking at the Piccolomini Library, Siena Photography and text © 2013 Leticia Marie Sanchez Cultural Cocktail Hour® is a registered trademark Scruffy tennis shoes tread on crescents more than five centuries old. Half-moons fade under the weight of so many soles. Has no one thought of plexiglass? The 16th century ceramic crescents on which tourists so casually trample represent the emblem of a powerful Sienese family, the Piccolomini. The Piccolomini Library honors 15th century humanist and scholar, Enea Silvio Piccolomini, also known as Pope Pius II. The ceiling and walls, with their luscious scarlets and blues, remain vibrant as ever, shockingly, when one discovers that they have neither been cleaned nor retouched. Bernardino di Betto, more commonly known as Pinturicchio, created the glorious frescoes depicting the life of Pope Pius II. If you walk closely

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Our hearts are with the people of Paris

Editor’s Note: Leticia Marie Sanchez Devastated to read about the fire at Notre Dame Remembering a peaceful morning stroll this summer with my son from Notre Dame to the bird market. CNN’s latest report is that ”The entire wooden interior of Notre Dame Cathedral has been lost.” https://www.cnn.com/…/nortre-dame-fire-oak…/index.html What a terrible artistic loss. Our hearts are with the people of Paris.    

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Badabing Badaboom: Stolen Van Gogh paintings found in Mafia den

Badabing Badaboom  Two Stolen Van Gogh paintings found in home of Naples Mafia boss In honor of Van Gogh’s birthday this week (Happy Birthday, Vincent Van Gogh!) a Flashback to a news story from 3 years ago, 2016, when 2 Pilfered Van Gogh Paintings were found! by Leticia Marie Sanchez Two Vincent Van Gogh paintings that were stolen from a museum in Amsterdam fourteen years ago have been recovered in the house of a mafia lord at Castellammare di Stabia, near Naples. The two paintings, Seafront at Scheveningen and Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen, were stolen from the Van Gogh museum in 2002 by thieves who climbed to the roof of the museum using a ladder and then absconded by means of a rope. One of the agile art thieves earned the alias “The Monkey,” and the FBI Art Crime Team

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Review: Oscar Rejlander and Reenactment in Contemporary Photography at the Getty Center

Oscar Rejlander: Artist Photographer Encore: Reenactment in Contemporary Photography On View March 12-June 9, 2019 By Leticia Marie Sanchez With the advent of I-phones, Instagram, and social media, photography is the artistic medium most often at people’s fingertips. Aided by the use of filters, users attempt to curate frothy artistic images out of everyday items like cups of Espresso or Pumpkin Chai. But photography was not always viewed as an artistic medium on par with Fine Arts like painting and sculpture. The Getty Center’s new exhibit Oscar Rejlander: Artist Photographer sheds light on an artist who became known as “the father of art photography.” The exhibition, curated by Lori Pauli, curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Canada, and Karen Hellman, assistant curator of photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum, is comprised of 150 photographs and includes images

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Art and Nature

“Great art picks up where nature ends”- Marc Chagall. On a post-rain walk at the Huntington where clouds combine with Alexander Calder’s sculpture “Jerusalem Stabile“ Photography  © 2019 Leticia Marie Sanchez

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CCH Interviews the Getty’s “Miraculous Encounters” curator Davide Gasparotto, about a Pontormo art mystery!!

Cultural Cocktail Hour is a registered trademark    Giorgio Vasari is pretty much the world’s first famous art historian. He was in the circle of Michelangelo, Pontormo,  Andrea del Sarto, and other world-class artists. Vasari book Lives of the Artists, first published in 1550, lays the foundation for art historical writing. Yet despite writing extensively about Pontormo, Vasari never once mentioned Pontormo’s resplendent painting, The Visitation. Why not? Once having viewed this mesmerizing painting, it would be impossible to forget it. Yet Vasari ignored it completely. Some have speculated that since Pontormo painted it during a historic siege, there may have been political reasons for the mysterious omission. At the time Vasari’s patron, the Medici Duke was an adversary of Bartolommeo Pinadori, the patron for Pontormo’s “Visitation.” Cultural Cocktail Hour’s Editor-In-Chief Leticia Marie Sanchez asks Davide Gasparatto, Senior Curator at the

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“Pontormo: Miraculous Encounters”- A MUST SEE exhibit at the Getty Center

“Pontormo: Miraculous Encounters” A MUST SEE Exhibit at the Getty Center By Leticia Marie Sanchez Organized by the Getty Museum in conjunction with the Gallerie degli Uffizi in Florence and the Morgan Library and Museum in New York, “Pontormo: Miraculous Encounters” is curated by Getty Museum Senior Curator of Paintings, Davide Gasparotto and Bruce Edelstein, coordinator of graduate programs and advanced research at NYU Florence. The paintings and drawings presented in the exhibition were created by Jacopo Pontormo between 1528 and 1530, during an intense historical period. Battles between Florentine Republican forces and the Medici family in 1527 resulted in a siege. Incredibly, all three Pontormo paintings in the exhibit were painted during this tumultuous time, when Mannerist painter Jacopo Pontormo bravely remained in Florence to guard his home. The opportunity to see the Visitation is somewhat of a miracle, not only because it’s

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In the news: Selfies and artistic collateral damage

Selfies: Artistic Collateral Damage? by  Leticia Marie Sanchez This article first appeared in Cultural Cocktail Hour in 2016  One cannot enter a gallery, museum, or even concert venue without encountering a selfie taker, some more subtle and thoughtful than others. Taking a selfie as a souvenir of an artistic experience is one thing. But what happens when I-phones become Weapons of Mass Destruction? Unfortunately, at the 14th Factory, a pop-up gallery in Los Angeles,  a clumsy student taking a selfie apparently caused more than $200,000 worth of damage to a series of crowned pedestals by Hong Kong based multimedia artist Simon Birch. Birch decided not to press charges against the individual because 1) she was a student and 2) it was an accident. In a statement released by Birch, the artist reveals: “Each sculpture was painstakingly designed and built from all kinds of

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This week in LA: Christie’s Preview of Old Masters Sale

Christie’s Preview of Old Masters sale including Masterworks from The Estate of Lila and Herman Shickman and an Important Private Collection Christie’s Los Angeles 336 N. Camden Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210 VIEWING January 10–16 Weekdays: 10am – 6pm Saturday: 12pm – 4pm Sunday: Closed Angelenos have a chance to preview works from the estate of Lila and Herman Shickman, in advance of an Old Master sale in New York in May. A prominent art dealer of the 20th century, Herman Shickman fled Nazi Germany and moved to New York where he dealt Old Master works on paper and still life paintings. Until he retired in 2003, Shickman ran his eponymous gallery on New York’s Upper East Side. Juan van der Hamen y León’s Still Life with Flowers and Fruit is expected become the most expensive Spanish still life ever auctioned. For more information, please

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Review: Family Day at the Norton Simon “Artful Weaving”

Review: Family Day at the Norton Simon “Artful Weaving” by Leticia Marie Sanchez Family Days at the Norton Simon are always a treat for parents and children, due to a wonderfully engaging formula that packs a two-fold punch: 1) A kid-friendly tour of the latest exhibition 2) A children’s craft project  inspired by the latest exhibition Educator Gorman Bentley is a natural with children, with an ebullient personality and insights about art history. He patiently explained the concept of a loom and taught my four year-old to complete his own tapestry. With his friendly spirit, Mr. Bentley welcomed all the children sitting at the tables, making each of them feel included and welcome.   Following the craft project, Educator Fabrizio Flores took us on a child-friendly the visually arresting new exhibit, “Once Upon a Tapestry: Woven Tales of Helen and

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