1941- The Lost Year of Calder

There was a fascinating article in the New York Times today about great sculptor/artist Alexander Calder and the year of his career that is least known to scholars of his work.

A series of photographs taken by his friend Hearbert Matter show Calder in his Roxburry, Connecticut warehouse studio surrounded by mountains of metal and walls of glass. The photgraphs, taken in 1941 showcase many works that have rarely been seen since they went into private collections.

The year 1941 would be the last year Calder would have access to all the aluminum sheet-metal he could wish for-Pearl Harbor and the beginning of WWII would see to that. After that year Calder began working in wood and bronze. Much like his attitude to his own work, he never looked back- giant aluminum and steel monstrositys were well...behind him.

New York Times writer Randy Kennedy speaks about a particular structure called "Tree," that almost dissapeared for good when it failed to sell and Calder took it apart and gave the base to a iron worker friend. Fortunately, for Calder fans, it was rescued. Many years ago, the presdient of the Calder Foundation, Mr. Alexander Rower (Calder's Grandson) found the hanging portion of the sculpture packaged neatly in a shoebox. Reunited at last, the piece glimmers with red shards of car tail-lights and stands tall with its base that looks like a cross between a resting bird and a graceful childs drawing of a dinosaur.

I was shocked to read that during the 1930s and 40s-even as his acclaim was growing, his works were not highly sought after. A ledger in the foundation's files shows that only a few pieces in the 1941 show were sold-one in particular to Solomon R. Guggenheim for just $233.34 (around $3500 in today's money). It's worth noting that The Museum of Modern Art bought its first Calder in 1934 for just $60 after talking Calder down from $100.

If you happen to be in New York this weekend, you can see several pieces from this important period of his career at Pace Gallery's uptown branch.

Fisherman's Daughter by Breton Goes Home

After 90 years, master painter Jules Breton's painting titled "Fisherman's Daughter" has finally gotten home-and a chapter in the history of art theft can finally be closed.

Stolen from the Douai Beaux Art Museum in North France by German troops during the First World War, the story of "Fisherman's Daughter" has long been one of the greatest mysteries in the art world.

In 2011 there was a break in the case which had long been cold. Interpol was alerted that the painting had been imported into New York by an art dealer. But was it the real painting? Or just a masterful fake? Valued at over $150K in todays market, celebrations on its recovery had to be withheld until the experts could establish its pedigree.

Art experts, curators and historians from France and the United States were called in to examine the painting and investigate its long and clandestine history. After a close examination of records and documentation, both in the United States and in France, and visits to museums and key witnesses, the story of the painting emerged.

But where had it been? What had happened to it for nearly a century? Investigators discovered that during the German occupation of the northern part of the country. German troops confiscated artwork from the Douai Beaux Art Museum and sent the artwork to Mons, Belgium, and then to Brussels.

In 1919, the Belgian government organized the return of the French collection to France, but the painting was not part of the cache. It's believed that before the Belgan government could repatriate the pieces that Breton's painting was stolen once again.

There's where the case goes cold. No one knows what happened to the painting, other than the fact that the painting was professionally restored since it was stolen from Douai Beaux Art Museum. The painting was apparently in private hands recently, then turned up being imported to an art dealer in New York last year.

Today, U.S. officials returned the masterpiece to the French people at a ceremony in Washington attended by the French ambassador, ending the nearly century-long art mystery.

Shift to the Left

No gigantic cause for alarm- yet - but Big Ben is leaning to the left!

The 315-foot (96-meter) tower is leaning in the northwest direction at an angle of 0.26 degrees, according to a report from 2009 that was recently obtained by the Sunday Telegraph through a Freedom of Information request.


The clock tower — colloquially known as Big Ben after its massive bell — has been slightly off center since it was erected in the mid-19th century. Like many old buildings, its position has been shifting imperceptibly for years due to environmental factors such as seasonal temperature and moisture level changes.

The level of movement northward has been less than 1 millimeter a year since experts began measuring it in the 1970s, Burland said. In the 1990s, the construction of a London Underground line affected the clock tower's foundations and added a small amount of movement to that natural shift, he said.

According to Parliament's website, foundations for the clock tower were first laid in 1843 and the project was completed in 1859, several years behind schedule.

How Has It Been So Long?

It's like I found a twenty dollar bill underneath my bed, or crammed into a pants pocket. It's been EIGHT months since I posted a new blog posting to this blog. I have no idea if anyone out there reads this, but if you do-I'm sorry to have been gone away so long. I will get back to writing-right away.

I'm off to find something worth commenting on that's not the Occupy Wall Street movement. There's quite enough about that on the web without my 2 cents.

Must Have Been Some Good Drugs

In the "did ya know" category, here's one for coctail banter. Did you know that there are two bullet holes in Andy Warhol's 1972 screenprint of Chairmain Mao?

There are-and it didn’t deter a collector from buying it for $302,500 — 10 times the high presale estimate of $30,000 — at Christie’s in New York last month.

The reason the piece was coveted has to do with the shooter as much as it has to do with the artist and subject matter. During a wild night in the 1970s, Dennis Hopper got spooked by the picture and shot it twice. Warhol loved the results and annotated the holes with circles and the words “warning shot” and “bullet hole,” which made the work an unplanned collaboration.

Must have been some good drugs Dennis.

The Best "Clear Out" of All Time

A British mother and son were having a "clear out" or what I affectionately call "a feng shui fit" (definition: when I can't stand the clutter in my house any longer and start sorting through things for Goodwill) recently when they stumbled upon a vase on a shelf. I probably would have given the vase to Goodwill or Age Concern out of complete ignorance. This wise pair took their "what is this" to Bainbridges in London.

Smart move.

Today the Chinese vase sold for $68 million dollars.

That's one hell of a knick-nack.


The elaborately decorated 16 inch (40 cm) ceramic vase, which dates from the mid-18th century Qianlong period, was bought by a private buyer from mainland China on Thursday in Bainbridges, a small west London-based auction house.

After the addition of the 20 percent fees on its hammer price the final bill for the buyer was £53,105,000 ($85,176,578).

According to CNN souces, it is thought to be the highest price ever paid for any Chinese artwork say Bainbridges, who auctioned the vase on behalf of a mother and son.

The pair, who want to remain anonymous, were clearing out a house in Pinner, a leafy suburb of north-west London, when they came across the dusty vase on a shelf.

They had no idea what it was says Helen Porter, a researcher at Bainbridges.


Luan Grocholski, a Bainbridges' valuer and specialist in oriental antiquities, told CNN: "When I saw it for the first time I thought it was a wonderful piece, I wasn't sure if it was real. But, after some research and examination we decided that it was real.

"It is indeed a world record in ceramics, definitely the most expensive piece of oriental art sold at auction", he added

Porter said: "They were hopeful but they didn't dare believe until the hammer went down. When it did, the sister had to go out of the room and have a breath of fresh air."

The vase was believed to have been acquired by an English family during the 1930s although how it came to reside on a shelf in Pinner is not known says Porter.

The vase was made in the mid to late-18th century during the reign of the fourth emperor in the Qing dynasty, Qianlong. It would have resided in the Chinese Royal Palace and was almost certainly fired in the imperial kilns, say Bainbridges.


The vase is reticulated and double-walled -- there is an inner vase that can be viewed through the perforations of the main body.

Peter Bainbridge, the owner Bainbridges, said "It helps balance the books rather more easily but it also means jolly good bonuses for the staff".

Pardon me, I'm off to check out my knick-nacks.

Art That Survived Hate

In 1937 the Nazi's launched two major shows that toured cities across Hitler's Germany- one was called the "Degenerative Art" Show and featured dozens of sculptures, pictures and bronzes that the party deemed innaprorpriate. The point of the show was to illustrate to people what and why these pieces stood against all that was truly German and good.

Part of the collection, thought to be completely destroyed by bombing and fire during the war, have been excavated in Berlin by a group digging to build a new rail line. These pieces have not seen the light of day, much less the light in the eyes of onlookers in over 70 years. They now stand again-but proudly- as cornerstones of classical modernism.

There was a wonderful article on cnn today about the find that showcases several of the works.

How moving that this should come out on Veterans Day, and how amazing that these lost works have been found again. It goes to show that art can survive hate.

Farewell Leo- What Will Happen to the New Yorker

I have a love/hate relationship with my weekly issue of the New Yorker. I love it because it is full of wonderful articles, it has all the museum and theater information that I could need about a city that I don't live in. The last part of that sentence is also the part of the New Yorker that causes the hate part of the relationship. If I had a dollar for every time I rushed to the Internet to find a cheap flight to make it to some wonderful showing or event in New York City that I'd read about in the New Yorker I'd never have to worry about paying for another subscription.

Part of the wonderfulness of the New Yorker has been the little cartoons that sprinkle through it. I love the last page that asks you to create the tagline to an image. Turns out I have a nice man from New Jersey to thank. Sadly, he passed away this week. I'm not sure how my New Yorker will manage to move on.

One of my "bucket list" items of life accomplishments is to have my obituary in the New York Times. It's obituaries like this one to Leo Cullum that make that a wish that I hope someday (a long time from now) comes true.

Leo Cullum, a cartoonist whose blustering businessmen, clueless doctors, venal lawyers and all-too-human dogs and cats amused readers of The New Yorker for the past 33 years, died on Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 68 and lived in Malibu, Calif.

The cause was cancer, said his brother, Thomas.

Mr. Cullum, a TWA pilot for more than 30 years, was a classic gag cartoonist whose visual absurdities were underlined, in most cases, by a caption reeled in from deep left field. “I love the convenience, but the roaming charges are killing me,” a buffalo says, holding a cellphone up to its ear. “Your red and white blood cells are normal,” a doctor tells his patient. “I’m worried about your rosé cells.”

Mr. Cullum seemed to have a particular affinity for the animal kingdom. His comic sympathies extended well beyond dogs, cats and mice to embrace birds — “When I first met your mother, she was bathed in moonlight,” a father owl tells his children — and even extended to the humbler representatives of the fish family. “Some will love you, son, and some will hate you,” an anchovy tells his child. “It’s always been that way with anchovies.”

“There are many ways for a cartoon to be great, not the least of which is to be funny, and Leo was one of the most consistently funny cartoonists we ever had,” said Robert Mankoff, the cartoon editor of The New Yorker. “He was certainly one of the most popular — some of his cartoons were reprinted thousands of times.”

In all, Mr. Cullum published 819 cartoons in The New Yorker, the most recent in the issue for Oct. 25. Many of them were gathered in the collections “Scotch & Toilet Water?,” a book of dog cartoons; “Cockatiels for Two” (cats); “Tequila Mockingbird” (various species) and “Suture Self” (doctors).

Leo Aloysius Cullum was born on Jan. 11, 1942, in Newark and grew up in North Bergen, N.J. He attended the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., where he earned a degree in English in 1963. On graduating, he entered the Marine Corps as a second lieutenant and underwent flight training in Pensacola, Fla.

In 1966 he was sent to Vietnam, where he flew 200 missions, most in support of ground-troop operations, but at one point he flew secret bombing runs over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. “Who these were secret from I’m still not sure,” Mr. Cullum told Holy Cross magazine in 2006. “The North Vietnamese certainly knew it wasn’t the Swiss bombing them.”


He went straight from Vietnam to employment with TWA, flying international and domestic flights. He retired at 60 from American Airlines, which merged with TWA in 2001.

During layovers he rekindled a childhood interest in drawing and decided to become a cartoonist. “It looked like something I could do,” he told Holy Cross magazine. “I bought some instructional books which explained the format, and I began studying the work of various cartoonists.”

Inevitably, he set his sights on The New Yorker. The magazine rejected his early submissions but bought some of his ideas, turning them over to Charles Addams to illustrate. The first one resulted in a captionless Addams cartoon from 1975 of an elderly couple canoeing on a peaceful lake. Their reflection in the water, depicting the husband’s actual state of mind, shows him, in a homicidal rage, attacking his wife with his paddle.

After Mr. Addams encouraged him to strike out on his own, Mr. Cullum sold his first magazine cartoon to Air Line Pilot Magazine and soon placed his work with True, Argosy, Saturday Review and Sports Afield.

Before long he cracked The New Yorker. On Jan. 3, 1977, the magazine published his first cartoon, which showed a bathrobed businessman drinking coffee at his desk, surrounded by chickens and speaking into a telephone. The caption read: “No, you’re not disturbing me, Herb. I’m up with the chickens this morning.”

Mr. Cullum quickly became a regular. By the 1980s he was one of the magazine’s most prolific and beloved contributors. “Starting around the mid-1990s, no one was published in The New Yorker more than Leo,” Mr. Mankoff said. He also contributed regularly to The Harvard Business Review and Barron’s.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Mr. Cullum managed the delicate feat of finding humor when the prevailing national mood was black. The issue of The New Yorker that came out immediately after the attacks carried no cartoons, but Mr. Cullum’s was the first cartoon that the magazine’s readers saw the following week, on Page 6 under the list of contributors. A woman, turning to the man next to her at a bar, says: “I thought I’d never laugh again. Then I saw your jacket.”



His most popular cartoon, from 1998, showed a man addressing the family cat, which is sitting next to the litterbox. “Never, ever, think outside the box,” he says.

He is survived by his wife, Kathy; a brother, Thomas, of Reston, Va.; and two daughters, the former child actresses Kimberly Berry and Kaitlin Cullum, both of Los Angeles.

In 2006 Mr. Cullum’s work appeared in “The Rejection Collection,” a book of cartoons rejected by The New Yorker. Asked to complete the sentence “When I’m not cartooning, I ...,” he wrote, “am wrestling, then showering, with my demons.”


Farewell Leo- you will be greatly missed.