at Staley-Wise Gallery

BERT STERN: ORIGINAL MAD MAN

included: Bert Stern: Marilyn Monroe 'The Last Sitting'

Allegra Kent, circa 1960

Twiggy, Paris Collections, Vogue,1967

Sophia Loren, VOGUE, 1962

"In this exhibition of photographs by Bert Stern, the full sweep of his remarkable career is revealed; from the work that signaled his meteoric rise in the advertising world of the 1950's through the 1960's and 70's when he became the prototype of the fashion photographer as the embodiment of glamour: a legend himself. Bert Stern began his career as a mailroom boy at Look Magazine. The launch of his career and the golden age of advertising would coincide with his iconic and legendary campaign for Smirnoff Vodka in 1955. With the brilliance of that work he became a star in the world of advertising. Editorial work followed, and working for Vogue put Bert Stern at the pinnacle of his career. Sought after by Madison Avenue, Hollywood, and the international fashion scene, he was at the heart of the world of photography. Groundbreaking images of the great personalities of the world, from Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Marilyn Monroe and Twiggy to Louis Armstrong and Frank Lloyd Wright, made Bert Stern a celebrity in his own right. He became the center of an exciting studio where the world of fashion, celebrity and advertising revolved around him, all attracted by his energy, charm and exceptional talent. Stern lived on the edge and when his commercial empire crumbled in the 1970's he dropped out of sight. Since the 1980's he has rebuilt his career and his work has undergone the reevaluation and appreciation that is evident in this exhibition. The release of the documentary Bert Stern: Original Mad Man will coincide with the Staley-Wise exhibition. The film is a particularly American and totally honest story of self-creation, a fall from grace, and reinvention."

And just like that....

the years come flooding back.

A Reunion

On Monday, I bumped into an old friend in front of my building. I have not seen Bobby since 1976, and he told me I look "incredible." I'll take it! He is a real gem, they don't come any nicer! We are having a reunion lunch next week.
The memories of those great times in David's apartment surfaced and came flooding back...

Pieces from BEAT ATLAS

9 Lupine Road, Lowell MA

birthplace of Jack Kerouac

34 Beaulieu Street, Lowell MA

home where the Kerouac family lived in 1925

ongoing... to be continued in a process

MUNCH | WARHOL and the Multiple Image

at Scandinavia House

"The exhibition closely examines four graphic images produced by Munch at the turn of the century – The Scream, Madonna, The Brooch. Eva Mudocci, Self-Portrait – and later revisited by Andy Warhol in a little-known but extraordinary series of prints from 1984. Comprising over 30 original works from private and museum collections – some of which will be seen for the first time – the exhibition reveals remarkable affinities between the two artists: a preoccupation with themes of anxiety and alienation, ideal beauty, sex and mortality, and an ability to skillfully mine the iconic power of the image to craft their own mythic identities in self-portraits and in life."

On the way there today, I passed the landmark building at 23 Park Avenue:

I approached my destination: 

Scandinavia House has a beautiful restaurant:

And the viewing of an extraordinary exhibit began:

Picture for a Saturday Afternoon

at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Photography and the American Civil War

 "More than two hundred of the finest and most poignant photographs of the American Civil War have been brought together for this landmark exhibition. Through examples drawn from the Metropolitan's celebrated holdings of this material, complemented by important loans from public and private collections, the exhibition will examine the evolving role of the camera during the nation's bloodiest war. The "War between the States" was the great test of the young Republic's commitment to its founding precepts; it was also a watershed in photographic history. The camera recorded from beginning to end the heartbreaking narrative of the epic four-year war (1861–1865) in which 750,000 lives were lost. This traveling exhibition will explore, through photography, the full pathos of the brutal conflict that, after 150 years, still looms large in the American public's imagination."

Studying the Art of War, Fairfax Court-House, [Virginia]
Alexander Gardner (American, Glasgow, Scotland 1821–1882 Washington, D.C.)

 June 1863           

What Do I Want, John Henry? 

 1862 (November) 

 Alexander Gardner 1821-1882 

 Albumen silver print 6 13/16 x 8 13/16 in. 

The Art Institute of Chicago 

Gone Vistas on Gone Days

Valley Stream!

I grew up in Valley Stream!

"They call this place Valley Stream. What a joke. One little jail after another with 10 feet of grass between them. Valley Stream, I hate it here. If we get enough money we can go... some place far away from here. Someplace nice, not Valley Stream."

And... here is a great story. I now live in Chelsea, in NYC. Shirley Stoler (Martha Beck in that scene) lived around the corner from me, on 8th Avenue. I used to bump into her all the time. I had a nice conversation with her one day in a store. She was a lovely woman. Sadly, she passed away in 1999.

Museum of the Moving Image

SCREENING and LIVE EVENT, West Side Story

 Bert Michaels ("Snowboy"), Harvey Evans ("Mouthpiece"), Eddie Verso ("Juano"), and David Bean ("Tiger") will be at the Museum of the Moving Image on Sunday 4/28 to participate in a book signing of: Our Story: Jets and Sharks Then and Now.

Harvey Evans and Bert Michaels

the twitter tooth challenge!

Paris, Artists Were Here

Camille Pissarro, Boulevard de Rochechouart

Touques

Rouen

The Frick Museum

Today I went here:

The Impressionist Line from Degas to Toulouse-Lautrec: Drawings and Prints from the Clark

"This exhibition presents a selection of nineteenth-century French drawings and prints from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Sheets by Millet, Courbet, Degas, Manet, Pissarro, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, and other masters are on view." 

 

Center for Jewish History

Today I went here:


Passages through the Fire: Jews and the Civil War

"Passages through the Fire: Jews and the Civil War tells a story that might surprise even history buffs: The Civil War was a crucible for American Jews, laying the groundwork for their integration and Americanization on a large scale. It enabled the full participation of Jews in American life – militarily, politically, economically and socially – and set the stage for massive Jewish immigration decades later."

Brothers Edward Jonas (Union Soldier) and Charles H. Jonas (Confederate Soldier)

Beer, Art and Revolution: Jewish Life in Munich, 1806 - the Present 

"Before the Nazi regime, however, Jews were instrumental in shaping the traditions and character of Germany’s third largest city, from Löwenbräu beer to the top purveyor of Lederhosen and Dirndl to the city’s champion soccer club. Like Jews across Germany, they considered themselves as much Germans as Jews, but they could add a third identity to their hyphenated existence - Bavarian."

Hyde Park on Hudson

visit the home of Franklin D Roosevelt

Words so Exquiste

The Divine Comedy Entry 2: The Inferno, Canto 1: Dante enters Hell. 

The following canto is from Clive James’s new translation of The Divine Comedy,

At the mid-point of the path through life, I found

Myself lost in a wood so dark, the way
Ahead was blotted out. The keening sound
I still make shows how hard it is to say
How harsh and bitter that place felt to me—
Merely to think of it renews the fear—
So bad that death by only a degree
Could possibly be worse. As you shall hear,
It led to good things too, eventually,
But there and then I saw no sign of those,
And can’t say even now how I had come
To be there, stunned and following my nose
Away from the straight path. And then, still numb
From pressure on the heart, still in a daze,
I stumbled on the threshold of a hill
Where trees no longer grew. Lifting my gaze,
I saw its shoulders edged with overspill
From our sure guide, the sun, whose soothing rays
At least a little melted what that night
Of dread had done to harden my heart’s lake—
And like someone who crawls, half dead with fright,
Out of the sea, and breathes, and turns to take
A long look at the water, so my soul,
Still thinking of escape from the dark wood
I had escaped, looked back to see it whole,
The force field no one ever has withstood
And stayed alive.

pieces of Jack Kerouac

Dave Moore's website

in the NYDailyNews

Best Hair Height Ever

Oh, what I would give for hair with glorious height like this. And Ellnet finishes off the look!

Maggie Cassidy

and the "real" Maggie:

“Let me sing the beauty of my Maggie. Legs:--the knees attached to the thighs, knees shiny, thighs like milk. Arms:--the levers of my content, the serpents of my joy. Back:--the sight of that in a strange street of dreams in the middle of Heaven would make me fall sitting from glad recognition. Ribs?--she had some melted and round like a well formed apple, from her thigh bones to waist I saw the earth roll. In her neck I hid myself like a lost snow goose of Australia, seeking the perfume of her breast. . . . She didn't let me, she was a good girl. The poor big alley cat, though almost a year younger, had black ideas about her legs that he hid from himself, also in his prayers didn't mention . . . the dog. Across the big world darkness I've come, in boat, in bus, in airplane, in train standing my shadow immense traversing the fields and the redness of engine boilers behind me making me omnipotent upon the earth of the night, like God--but I have never made love with a little finger that has won me since. I gnawed her face with my eyes; she loved that; and that was bastardly I didn't know she loved me--I didn't understand.” 

- Jack Kerouac, Maggie Cassidy