Chains. Pedestals. Balloons. Sea creatures. Those are just some of the props that photographer Herb Ritts employed to set a scene, adorn his models, and capture the viewer. The exhibition Herb Ritts: L.A. Style, on view through August 26, contains… More»
When Herb Ritts created this image, it was touch-and-go whether he would get his crew and model off the El Mirage lake bed before a storm swept through. Mark McKenna, now executive director of the Herb Ritts Foundation, was Ritts’s… More»
Andrea del Sarto, Various studies, c.1520’s
Son of a tailor (sarto). Andrea became one of the best loved artists of Florence. Vasari had good things to say about him.
…Andrea del Sarto, in whose single person Nature and art showed all that painting can achieve by means of drawing, colouring and invention: and indeed if Andrea had possessed a little more boldness and daring of spirit, to match his very profound judgement and talent as a painter, he would, there is no doubt at all, have been without equal.
Browning wrote poems about him:
Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what’s a heaven for?His drawings are natural, graceful and sensitive, an excellent draughtsman.
…and he was very much in love with his wife… (something we don’t often hear about Renaissance artists!)
Our curator Julian Brooks is in Florence now researching del Sarto for an exhibition in 2015.