Museums

He died August 14th at the age of 78. The cause was cancer of the liver. The Corcoran Gallery in Washington DC recently ran the first major retrospective of Rivers work, covering five decades of his output (it ends August 19th). Rivers has been called the father of Pop Art, and is considered one of the most important artists in the figurative tradition. He was part of a loosely knit association of poets and painters who were young, poor and ambitious in New York in the 50's.

The Corcoran Gallery in Washington DC is currently running the first major retrospective of Rivers' work. It's on display through August 19, 2002 and covers five decades of output. He's been called the father of Pop Art, and is considered one of the most important artists in the figurative tradition. Rivers was part of a loosely knit association of poets and painters who were young, poor and ambitious in New York in the 1950's.

Since September 11th, Joel Meyerowitz has taken over 7000 photographs of Ground Zero. He gained unlimited access to the site and did so in conjunction with the Museum of the City of New York. A selection of those pictures can been seen in the May 20th issue of The New Yorker.

In honor of the six-month anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, Meyerowitz talks about his World Trade Center Archive Project, a traveling State Department-sponsored exhibition of Ground Zero photographs. Meyerowitz originally spoke about his World Trade Center photos when he was a guest on Fresh Air on October 23, 2001.

He is the cartoon editor of the New Yorker magazine. His new book is The Naked Cartoonist: A New Way to Enhance Creativity. It's a how-to of cartooning and a collection of New Yorker cartoons, including many of Mankoff’s own.

Photographer Doug Niven. Hes curated a new show (with companion coffee table book published by National Geographic Press) called Another Vietnam: Pictures of the War from the Other Side. Its an exhibition of photos from the Vietnam War, as seen through the lens of North Vietnamese photographers. It runs until March 17th 2002 at the International Center of Photography in Manhattan (www.icp.org). Its the first time these photos have been publicly shown. They were locked away in government archives or secretly stored by the photographers.

Photographer Joel Meyerowitz has spent the past month taking photographs of Ground Zero for the Museum of City of the New York archives. He had also been shooting pictures of the Manhattan skyline and the World Trade Center Towers since 1981. The last photo he took of the skyline was shot four days before the September 11 attacks. Several of these photos were recently featured in the New Yorker magazine. They'll also be on exhibit at the Ariel Meyerowitz Gallery in Manhattan beginning November 1st.

Classical Music Critic Lloyd Schwartz has some thoughts after seeing an exhibit of Dutch painter Piet Mondrains Transatlantic Paintings at Harvard.

We remember jazz bassist Milt Hinton. He died yesterday at the age of 90. Hinton was one of the great jazz bass players, having played with musicians like Cab Calloway, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday. Throughout his career, Hinton photographed the musicians he worked with, and the surroundings he moved through. His books of photographs are "Bass Line: The Stories and Photographs of Milt Hinton" (Temple University Press), and "Overtime: The Jazz Photographs of Milt Hinton"

Abstract painter Frank Stella. The 64 year old artist was first well known in the late 1950s for his Black Paintings series - striped monochrome works that helped touch off the minimalism movement. Over the years his work evolved from the canvas to colorful geometrical configurations of sculpture and architectural dimension. Some of his recent work is being shown at the Lock Gallery in Philadelphia, through November 25th.

Cartoonist Ben Katchor, creator of the weekly comic strip, Julius Knipl (ka-NIP-le), Real Estate Photographer. Through his comic strips, Katchor has been an astute and witty commentator on New York in particular and urban life in general. His new book, “Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer: the Beauty Supply District” (Pantheon), is a novel that incorporates some of his single-page strips from the last few years. Katchor has been syndicated in alternative newspapers and magazines since 1988.

Associate curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, Russell Ferguson He curated the exhibit “In Memory of My Feelings: Frank O’Hara and American Art,” (there’s also a companion book). Frank O’Hara was part of a small group of poets in New York City in the 1950s and 60s, influenced by the Abstract Expressionist painters of that time, including Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. O’Hara died in 1966 after being struck by a jeep. Also, poet David Lehman (“LEE-man”), author of “the Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets” (Anchor Books)

George Segal died last Friday. In this interview, Segal talks about his work which is being featured through October at The Jewish Museum in New York City. It is his first major exhibition in North America in 20 years. He is best known for his free standing sculptures depicting everyday people in urban settings. (REBROADCAST from 7/23/98)

Painter Jacob Lawrence died on June 9th at the age of 82. For six decades, Lawrence had been widely regarded as one of America's most important black artists. His work depicted the black American experience from the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement. (REBROADCAST from 5/16/88)

Bodybuilders Pudgy and Les Stockton. Pudgy was an early pioneer of women’s body building, and began working out and performing at Santa Monica’s Muscle Beach in 1939, often teaming up with Les who she married in 1941. Pudgy is featured in an exhibit, “Picturing the Modern Amazon” at New York’s New Museum of Contemporary Art (to June 25th). There’s also a companion book of the same title (Rizzoli publications).

Photojournalist James Nachtwey. Ten years of his photographs taken around the world In areas of war, famine, and conflict are collected In the new book, "Inferno." (Phaidon Press). Nachtwey has been awarded the Robert Capa Gold Medal four times. The award is the highest honor among photographers and is given to those for the "best photographic reporting or interpretation from abroad requiring exceptional courage and enterprise," and it entails a deliberate decision to go in harm's way.

Charles Schulz, the creator of the cartoon strip "Peanuts" died Saturday night. He was 77 years old and had recently been diagnosed with colon cancer. He died the night before his final cartoon ran In the Sunday papers. We remember him with an excerpt of our 1990 Interview With him. (REBROADCAST from 12/18/90)

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews two blockbuster exhibits of Egyptian art: The Age of the Pyramids, at the Metropolitan Museum in New York which runs thru Jan 9, and Pharaohs of the Sun at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts thru Feb 6.

A discussion about the exhibition "Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People" with art critic Dave Hickey. He wrote an essay for the exhibition catalogue. Hickey is Associate Professor of Art Criticism and Theory at the University of Nevada. He's also author of the book "The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty." (THIS INTERVIEW CONTINUES AFTER THE :60 FLOATER)