Photos By Gail
French painter Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) was one of the greatest creative figures of the nineteenth century. Coming of age after the fall of Napoleon, he reconnected the present to the past on his own terms. Delacroix produced an extraordinarily vibrant body of work, setting into motion a cascade of innovations that changed the course of art.
Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Eugène Delacroix, Basket of Flowers
All Photos By Gail
The New York Botanical Garden’s annual Orchid Show for ended a couple of weeks ago, but if you weren’t able to make it all the way to the Bronx for the 2018 edition of this landmark event, you can now live through me with a selection of my favorite Orchid photos from the show. Enjoy!
The show takes place each year inside the beautiful Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, the garden’s climate controlled glass treehouse which is based on an Italian Renaissance design. I visited the show on a frigid Sunday in late April and, like these lovely tropical plants, I was very grateful for the warmth!
This years show featured installations by Belgian flora designer Daniel Ost.
Just inside the conservatory, you enter the Palms of the World Gallery, where Ost installed a monumental living sculpture of orchids entwined within a network of transparent tubing — which mimics the jungle vines on which orchids grow in their natural environment.
The show features hundreds of varieties of orchids, and while many of them may look similar, each plant has unique characteristics.
These look like little Ballerinas, don’t they? I think so.
Orchids live mostly in the air, attached to trees, rather than on the ground, rooted in the soil.
Its almost impossible to resist taking one photo after another after another.
Look, how beautiful is this one, which its bright crimson center?
You might this that this bright fuchsia bloom is identical to the ones at the top of this post. But if you go back and compare the two, you will see many differences, aside from the similar color.
I’m sure you can see how moving from room to room, being continously faced with so much breathtaking beauty, can be a bit overwhelming.
Here’s a reminder to look up!
About half way through conservatory, you come to a room with a fountain in the middle of a long reflecting pool , which runs through its center. This is the room where everyone stops to take all kinds selfies and posed photos, so it gets pretty congested. You have to indulge people though, because as you can see it is quite beautiful.
The fountain is draped by a curtain of hanging orchids.
As hard as it is to leave the fountain room, there are many more orchids to discover!
I hope you enjoyed a glimpse of this year’s Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Garden, and that if you live in NYC area you will add a reminder to visit to your calendar for next year!
Photo By Gail
This still life, Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase (1890) is not mentioned in Vincent Van Gogh’s letters and has puzzled scholars as to its place in his artistic production. The subject enjoys a certain rapport with the mixed bouquet of summer flowers he made in Paris; the quasi-abstract floral wallpaper design in Berceuse of Arles , and the white porcelain vase in the Irises of Saint-Remy (both paintings also on exhibit at The Met). However, the palette and style of this painting, especially its distinctive blues and ochers and graphic, brick-shape hatchings, link it firmly with the landscapes made just prior to his death in Auvers on July 29, 1890.
Photographed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.
All Photos By Gail
We saw these gorgeous light fixtures at ICFF and just fell in love with their Rococo look! Not only are they beautiful to look at, but the story behind them is also fantastic! Dutch designer Piet Hein Eek’s work embodies the concepts of transformation and reinvention. Spanning furniture design, architecture and fine art, Eek elevates discarded, quotidian and unorthodox materials into pieces that make a strong case for the Design-as-Art conversation. This is likely why Eek was presented by Paris-based glass lighting manufacturer Veronese with a dream job: to give a second life to their found glass pieces.
The project began when Veronese’s creative director Ruben Jochimek came across a forgotten stockpile of spare glass pieces — all hand blown by skilled Italian artisans of Murano — in the basement of their Parisian showroom. Comprised of over one-thousand pieces, the collection had been building up since 1931. These ornate glass pieces — stored on dusty shelves for nearly a century — included crafted cups, drops, rings and flowers.
Post Continues After The Jump! Continue reading Eye On Design: Piet Hein Eek’s Past and Future Found Glass Chandeliers!
All Photos By Gail
Annie Evelyn is a furniture maker who creates alternatively upholstered chairs. Joy, laughter and the unexpected are at the heart of her work. Using furniture’s inherent interactive qualities and relationships to the human body, Evelyn sets out to invent new tactile experiences. Continue reading Eye On Design: Oshibana Flower Chair by Annie Evelyn