When posh Parisians in the mid-18th century greeted the day, their morning ritual wasn’t anything like our hasty shower, breakfast, and dash out the door. Their toilette, or ritual of rising and dressing, was an hours-long activity of luxurious pampering,… More»
A “fashion revolution” in the Middle Ages? Yes, says art historian Roger Wieck, curator of Illuminating Fashion: Dress in the Art of Medieval France and the Netherlands at the Morgan Library. Just as art was changing with the dawn of… More»
Peering up at a giant sculpture, I often wonder: How do artists construct such massive creations? Here’s a peek at the journey, from artist’s conception to the Getty Center’s doorstep, of the larger-than-life Boy with Frog, which was installed yesterday… More»
Many researchers are looking forward to delving in to the Robert Mapplethorpe archive we acquired in February. However, there is an important complementary collection of equal interest available right now: the Samuel Wagstaff papers. Wagstaff was a formidable curator and… More»
Initially designating himself an “ignorant American,” photographer Alex Harris went to Cuba in 1998, camera in tow, without preconceived notions. He simply wondered what photography could tell him about this neighboring country that he, along with so many other Americans,… More»
Nikolaus Pevsner (1902–1983) was one of the 20th century’s foremost historians of British architecture. Even today, tourists wander through the historic squares of England aided by Pevsner’s The Buildings of England guidebooks, which remain in print with Yale University Press… More»
What drew them to Cuba? We asked photographers Alex Harris, Virginia Beahan, and Alexey Titarenko, whose work is featured in the exhibition A Revolutionary Project: Cuba from Walker Evans to Now, to talk about what took them to the island,… More»
Julio César Pérez Hernández, architect and author of Inside Cuba, visits the Getty Center this Thursday to talk about Cuban architecture in conjunction with the exhibition A Revolutionary Project: Cuba from Walker Evans to Now. Evans’s photographs of Cuba from… More»
It’s a lot of pressure, day after day, holding the same pose. I’ve been standing up, staring at the underside of a ringing bell for years now. I love hanging out with my pal Saint Anthony, but how can I… More»
Medieval methods of entertainment included sad dances and alienation parties.
Tights are not pants, circa 1400something.