If I Was A Rich Girl..Monet's Le Basin Aux Nympheas

Oh, to have money to burn. I wouldn’t burn it. No. I would buy art.

Lots of art-and I’d be nice and share it with everyone.

I would loan it to museums and go stand in awe of it next to the esthete’s and the flip-flop wearers and the screaming three year olds. I promise.

If there is a genie in a bottle somewhere or a bank robber or major corporation looking to divest themselves of a few hundred million dollars, I promise I’ll treat your funds with kindness and conscience.

For example, this week I’d have been front-row-center this week when “Le basin aux nympheas” by Claude Monet went on the block in Europe. The most important work from his Waterlilies series to be auctioned in Europe, it sold for 41 million Euro, a record price for the artists work.

The painting, produced in 1919 is unlike most of Monet’s other work which remained unfinished in the studio when he died in 1879 of lung cancer in 1926. Of the three other large-scale water-lily works, one is in the collection of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, one is in a private collection, and the third was cut in two before the Second World War.

Damien Hirst and his Golden Calf

Damien Hirst is famous for his audacity. Since the launch of his daring career in the late 90’s, he has dominated the modern art scene throughout the world. Now he’s really pushing the envelope and possibly slaughtering his own golden calf to boot…literally.

This September Hirst will do something that simply isn’t done..he’s taking his new collection straight to the auction block and circumventing the galleries. Needless to say, Sotheby’s is delighted. This audacious move is a first in history for a living artist. Sure, lots of art is sold through the fine auction houses of the world, but usually the artist is long dead. Hirst feels this will give the artist more control and provide a wider audience with the opportunity to purchase his work. Art experts predict the auction could mark a turning point in the way artists sell their work. Look out Christies, bet Banksy will be knockin at your door any day now.

The highlight of the collection is a typically outrageous piece of Hirstian creation called “The Golden Calf” which is of course, a gigantic calf suspended in formaldehyde. The 2.15 metre bull sculpture is crowned by a solid gold disc, while its hooves and horns are cast in 18-carat gold. The piece sits on a gigantic marble base and is encased in a gold-plated box. It’s expected to fetch at least 12 million Euro. The sale will also feature new paintings and sculpture of some of Hirst’s favorite subjects, butterflies, cancer cells and pills. Four of the pieces from the collection will be sold for charity.

Cheyenne Westphal, the chairman of Sotheby's contemporary art in Europe, said: "We are hoping museums and private collectors who make their artworks available to the public on a regular basis will be present."

She added that the latest creations took Hirst's large-scale sculptures to a "new level". "What's new here is the monumental scale and the use of gold," she said.

Check out the Christie’s site for a closer view of some of the other works that will be up on the block. I know I will!

The Quintessential Dancer Has Left the Stage - Cyd Charisse

When I was a little girl I loved Sunday afternoons. They meant old movies and musicals on TV. I gobbled up all the Fred and Ginger that Chanel 47 could put out. I saw Easter Parade, Royal Wedding, Top Hat, and Singin’ In the Rain so many times my parents begged told me they’d rather hear me learning to play the oboe than have to hear the songs again (which trust me sounded like I was slowly strangling a soprano goose with a bagpipe).

After the 3 o’clock flick was over I’d be pushed outside to play and would spend hours hanging upside in a tree, or running around the backyard pretending to be dancing with Fred or Gene. I loved the costumes and the sets. I loved the romance and the songs. I was probably the only kid on my block that could sing most of Cole Porter’s songs by heart by the age of nine.

There was one dancer who absolutely enchanted me. She was all legs- slinky, smooth and seductive. She seemed to turn the men she danced with into shadows. When she was on the screen nobody else existed. Cyd Charisse. Even my father, who rarely made comments about women other than my mother’s good looks, would stop and watch. She had something special. I didn’t get exactly what she had, but boy did she have it in spades.

Yesterday part of history passed when Ms. Charisse was taken from us by a sudden heart attack. She hasn’t appeared on film in decades-1958 to be exact. But she remains trapped like a magical spectre in those knockout numbers like “Dancing in the Dark” in Band Wagon and “Girl Hunt Ballet” where Fred Astaire dances with two stunning women-one blonde and one brunette-both danced by Charisse.

There was a fantastic comment in the New York Times this morning that I can’t help but quote. “The number, “Broadway Melody Ballet,” occurs in a film within a film that takes flight with Gene Kelly as an eager hoofer looking for his Broadway break, singing “Gotta Dance!” He slides on his knees toward the camera, abruptly stopping before his hat, which has somehow become perched on a foot attached to a long, long leg. He gapes (as do we) as that leg then rises straight in the air with phallic suggestiveness, a prelude to a carnal encounter that was as close to on-screen sex as was possible in the 1950s and wholly sublime.”

She was sex before I knew what sex was. She was beautiful and sublimely talented. And she will be greatly missed.

Picasso's "Sylvette" Breaks Auction Records in Australia

If you are a follower of Picasso you know that the women that graced his bed also grace his pictures. You could always tell when Picasso had taken a new lover (and sadly so could the women in his life) as his painting style would start to morph and new faces, new styles and even new colors would begin to push their way out of his canvases and creations. Not that his discarded ladies got much slack. As he was tiring of them they would begin to morph on the canvas as well. For example-Olga Koklova, his first wife became a face of pointed teeth and gaping mouth as Picasso dealt with her nagging and anger. Dora Marr who began as large yes and bright colors became a hardened, bitter woman who Picasso portrayed as the “weeping woman”.

There is one model that (wisely) never made the jump from model to lover. Sylvette David, who sat for the famous “Sylvette” painting at the age of just 17, kept her relationship with Picasso a platonic one. It’s even said that Brigette Bardot got her signature long, blonde ponytail from David.

Picasso met Sylvette when she was living in the south of France with her English-born mother and her mother’s boyfriend Toby Jelinek, a maker of avant-garde metal chairs. Picasso took a fancy to Jelinek’s style and ordered two chairs for his nearby studio. When Jelinek delivered the works he had Sylvette in tow. Several days later, Picasso appeared with a picture of her, drawn from memory and asked her to pose for him. In the months that she sat for him he produced over forty pictures of her.

Yesterday, in Sydney, Australia one of the most famous of those portraits entitled “Sylvette” was auctioned off for $6.9 million (6.1 million American dollars) smashing the record for the most paid for a work of art in that country. The painting was formerly part of the collection of the director of the gallery and famous art collector, Rodney Menzies.

Firewater- A Beautiful Mashup of Cultures

You might think I've been carried off by flying monkeys and completely forsaken this blog, but you'd be wrong. I am still and will always remain the bookishredhead. I've just been exceedingly busy of late.

I am positively impelled talk about a show I was fortunate enough to see this weekend. If you don't know about Firewater then get ready for a nearly religious experience. If you've ever felt the need to whirl like a Dervish and not look stupid in a crowd-this is the band for you. I've seen Gogol Bordello three times and Firewater would kick their ass and not apologize for it. Getting the point?

Anybody notice that some damn remarkable music is coming out of Brooklyn these days? Well-Firewater is originally from Brooklyn, and actually originally a punk band called Cop-Shoot-Cop (which happened to totally rock). But, then George Bush was elected again and the lead singer, the remarkably talented and visionary Tod A proclaimed he'd had enough of monkey boy and hit the road. I'm not 100% on the history-so don't quote me. But, I'm told he travelled from Deli, India to the Afghanistan border recording along the way. The trip produced an amazing amalgam of musical sounds from some of the best musicians of the area.

Saturday night brought Firewater to The Earl in Atlanta (sans a bass guitar which Eric seems to have left in Austin). I don't think the band thought that we were much of an audience when they first got there. A friend of mine spoke to Tod before the show and said he seemed a bit "whatever", but frankly, I would be a total butt if I was going from town to town and playing in hot, sweaty venues. I just wanted to hear the music. And BOY did we get music. The band played for nearly two hours and honestly blew us all away. I don't think any of us hadn't sweat through our clothes by the end of the night.

I can't decide who to compliment the most? It goes unspoken that Tod A was amazing. His dark, brooding lyrics and sarcastic attitude are absolutely wonderful. Did I mention he's a babe to boot? Meanwhile there is this stunning young woman named Avi Leibovitch, I think, who rocks the hell out of a trombone in a way that I didn't know was possible. Most bands travel with one drummer-but not Firewater. They have the excellent drummer, guitarist and bass player who's names I cannot seem to track down online to give them the heaps of praise they greatly deserve. Then there's Johnny Kalsi-the percussionist. All I can say is Good Lord. He absolutely brings people up off the ground. I haven't danced that much at a show in lord knows how long. Even the sullen little punk rockers behind me were dancing at the end of the show.

I have read blogs about the band before, and Tod A seems surprised that anybody bothers to come out to see them. I don't know if this is their shtick or if its real-but Mister-lemme tell you-come back to Atlanta. We'll be waiting for you.

Oh, and after all was said and done - two encores and a fantastic rendition of a personal favorite "Three Legged Dog", I looked around to see Tod A manning the t-shirt booth. Sweating as much as the rest of us were, he was absolutely charming. I even fanned him with my ever-present fan, to which he gave a kind thank you in return.

Firewater-you have a fan for life.