Let me answer the question right away:

1. I don't know.
2. Neither does anyone else.

If you're wondering what possessed me to ask this question in the first place, it involved researching a background piece on Christina's World. I saw quite a few mentions online that Christina Olson, the inspiration for Andrew Wyeth's painting, "...had polio." Since so many people (especially students) take their information directly from the Internet and at face value, I'd like to put it out there that Christina Olson might have had polio but never got her degenerative muscular condition diagnosed. No diagnosis means that polio cannot be stated as fact.

Speaking of facts, students, I know that some of you copy and paste your art history papers. I know it, you know it and, most importantly, your instructors know it ... and here's hoping their constantly-upgrading plagiarism software databases catch every suspect passage. My point is this, though: if cheating is your goal, the very least you can do is attempt to rip off accurate material. Don't be irredeemably selfish. Think instead of all the other cheaters who'll be copying your copying. No sense perpetuating a half-truth, now, is there?

In sum, do not write that Christina Olson of Christina's World fame had polio. By the way, I couldn't help but notice that Miss Olson is also often cited as the model for this painting. Another half-truth! Some of you might want to read "A Closer Look at Christina's World."

Image Credit:

Andrew Wyeth (American, 1917-2009)
Christina's World, 1948
Tempera on gessoed panel
32 1/4 x 47 3/4 in. (81.9 x 121.3 cm)
Purchase
Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art, New York
© Andrew Wyeth

I try, I really try, to keep my opinionated mouth shut about most current political news on this here Art History blog and concentrate instead on nice, safe historic political analysis such as, "Savonarola was quite the pious jackass from 1494-98 in Florence, what with burning all of those canvases, books and pretty decorative objects." Five-hundred years after the fact who is actively rooting for Savonarola? Nobody, that's who, hence the word "safe."

So when, over the holiday weekend during the aptly-named journalistic period known as a "news dump," Sarah Palin announced she was resigning as Governor of Alaska less than two-thirds of the way through her first term, I paid it no never-mind. Free country and all of that. If someone decides to take a long walk on a Flat Earth, who am I to stop them? It has nothing to do with art history.

Except.

Except ... now it does, apparently. One of those dirty, liberal, pajama-wearing, basement-dwelling, Cheeto-eating bloggers has crossed a HUGE line in the sand with me by equating Sarah Palin with Post-Modernism. This is utterly too much. First of all, Post-Modernism is dead, while Ms. Palin is very much alive. Secondly, if we had to, most probably at gunpoint, pick an art-historic movement, era or school with which to associate Sarah Palin, my money would be on Rococo. You?

P.S. To clarify: I truly, madly, deeply love Cheetos. Baked to a delicate crunch, not deep fried to a crackly crunch.

Image Credit: December 2, 2008: Alaska Governor Sarah Palin answers questions from the media at the meeting of the National Governor's Association. Photo © William Thomas Cain/Getty Images.

Tell all of your artist friends: the Bravo Network has, at long last, determined a casting call schedule for its upcoming reality television series The Untitled Art Project. According to the press release, they are looking for "emerging or mid-career" artists of the "contemporary" stripe. (Note to readers: Erm, not to split hairs, but any visual artist who is currently [1] breathing and [2] working is, by definition, "contemporary." But I digress.) The schedule is as follows:

• LOS ANGELES
  Saturday, July 11 & Sunday, July 12, 10 AM – 2 PM
  LAXART
  www.laxart.org


• MIAMI
  Tuesday, July 14, 10 AM – 2 PM
  Fredric Snitzer Gallery
  www.Snitzer.com


• CHICAGO
  Thursday, July 16, 10 AM – 2 PM
  School of the Art Institute of Chicago
  Sullivan Galleries, 33 S. State Street
  www.saic.edu


• NEW YORK
  Saturday, July 18 & Sunday, July 19, 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM
  White Columns
  www.whitecolumns.org

You should also know that there is a full boatload of application papers, portfolio requirements and passport prerequisites Bravo expects hopefuls to bring with them. Take the time to read the fine print, please.

All that's left to say is "Good luck" and that I, a dedicated shunner of Reality TV, will watch this series. Oh, I'd rather be in Hell with a broken back than to sit through, say, The Real Housewives of _______(insert place I don't care about here), but I would make popcorn and glue myself to the screen to watch a Conceptual artist try to etch a zinc plate. Now that's must-see TV, Fellow Art Geeks.

Love him or loathe what he allegedly became, there's no denying that Michael Jackson touched millions of lives with his music, artistry and iconic cultural status as the "King of Pop." Look here. He even inspired Jeff Koons who is, himself, no slouch in the pop culture sphere.

As for me, I will remember him simply as an integral part of my youth and thank him always for the music; we all have our personal soundtracks in Life. Selective memory, perhaps, but nonetheless valid.

By the way, Bubbles is alive, well and spending his days acting as chimpanzees are meant to at an animal preserve in Sylmar, California.

Image credit:

Jeff Koons (American, b. 1955)
Michael Jackson and Bubbles, 1988
Ceramic
42 x 70 1/2 x 32 1/2 in.
(106.7 x 179.1 x 82.5 cm)
Photo © Douglas M. Parker Studio, Los Angeles
The Broad Art Foundation, Santa Monica / © Jeff Koons

© 2008 Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

(And here we all thought the melting timepieces were a Surrealistic flight of fancy. Ha! Not when the Heat Index is >100°F, Señor Dalí.)

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Every three to six months someone emails instructing me to add Pablo Picasso to my list of Left-Handed Artists. And every three to six months I have to reply with, "Sorry, no can do" because Pablo Picasso was absolutely, positively not left-handed. However, the Internet being what it is, the tale of the Spanish Master's rumored southpawiness persists.

Today, after another email, it occurred to me (at long last!) that, maybe, the Internet could *also* provide proof to dispel this particular myth. While it's dangerous for me to venture into YouTube (think: short attention span and disproportionate love of TV sitcom clips), you, Dear Reader, deserve the truth. So, without further ado, I give you these offerings from YouTube, each of which shows a clearly right-handed Picasso wielding his brush:

• Picasso in His Studio (0:28)
• Picasso is Painting (7:31)
• Pablo Picasso (0:31)

Do you know of any other vintage Picasso footage online?

So, did you hear the one about how Leonardo possibly painted other versions of La Gioconda, and how possibly one or more of the versions was nude from the waist up? If you didn't hear this, we are a party of at least two. Now, though, this apparently old rumor has come to the forefront due to the painting, above, going on display at an exhibition in Vinci, Italy.

The show is called Joconde: From the Mona Lisa to the Nude Gioconda. It opens tomorrow (June 13) and runs until September 30, 2009 at the Museo Ideale. It's divided into two parts: (1) works by Leonardo, his workshop and contemporary followers, and (2) 84,000 (all right, actually under 5K) riffs on the Mona Lisa that happened over the past 500 years. The big draw seems to be this painting, once owned by Napoleon Bonaparte's uncle, Cardinal Joseph Fesch (1763-1839), and formerly attributed to Leonardo. The big *question*--because, I guess, it's a slow news day--seems to be: was this Leonardo's own riff on the Mona Lisa?

Granted, it's hard to pick out much detail from this grainy little image, but my vote is "no." For starters, Leonardo wasn't given to doing female nudes. It may be a copy of something that Leonardo did, because the breasts are similar to the copy of his Leda and the Swan. But the face doesn't look like the sitter from the Mona Lisa to me. It looks a lot more like St. John the Baptist--or Bacchus (St. John in the Wilderness), or even St. Anne.

That's just my inexpert opinion, though. Tell me, what do you think?

(P.S. Pssst. MSNBC, you guys are bona fide journalists, right? So you know the man's name is "Leonardo," not "From Vinci," right? Right?)

A little story here about the (late) consumer electronics retail chain, Circuit City. When it finally bit the dust, some 30K employees lost their jobs as 567 stores were closed and court-appointed liquidation firms were charged with disposing of various asset groups. One of these firms, Liquid Asset Partners, LLC, handled Circuit City's regional distribution centers and corporate offices.

A closet in the Richmond, Virginia office yielded some works of art and, lo and behold! Tucked amongst other framed pieces was a signed, numbered Alexander Calder lithograph. The casual eye might have moved on quickly past Wave (pictured above), but it's worth noting that (1) the red swirl is "Calder" red, a distinctive shade that (2) every person in the greater Grand Rapids, Michigan area--home of Liquid Asset Partners, LLC--knows by heart on account of "The Calder" that's been installed downtown since 1969.

So, jackpot! All right ... a modest jackpot. Maybe a $10,000 (US) jackpot on a good day. Here's the thing, though: it's up at auction on eBay until June 11 at 12 p.m. EDT. It's also looking like a bargain at this time, though the undisclosed reserve has not yet been met. Also: it's the genuine item, not one of those bad eBay art "deals" about which I've warned you. Happy bidding, as they say.

Image Credit:

Alexander Calder (American, 1898-1976)
Wave, 1970
Lithograph
44 1/2 x 33 3/4 in. (113 x 85.7 cm)
© Estate of Alexander Calder / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Press image courtesy Liquid Asset Partners, LLC

Photo: © Michel Nguyen

(I have often wondered *what*, exactly, was going on in Gustave Courbet's life when he painted this freaking-out self portrait. Well, I think I know the answer this week: he wasn't getting his tomato plants in the ground quickly enough while swarms of those minuscule black flies slowly drained him of blood. What's that you say? No? Not possibly gardening related? Hmmm. Perhaps I should click on the image and learn more about his life...)

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Sometimes things in this world make no sense whatsoever. We could speak of current events now, wherein a medical doctor was shot and killed in his place of worship for performing legal medical procedures. We could talk about billions of dollars thrown at General Motors to save it from the bankruptcy that will be filed tomorrow morning. We could discuss a US Supreme Court Justice nominee who is being attacked on the grounds her attackers are employing. We'd have to be elsewhere, though, sitting around having coffee and not necessarily engaged in art-historic chat.

So, how about this? Peter Howson, whose work I don't normally mind, had one of his canvases come up at auction yesterday. Private seller through McTear's Auctioneers. The painting depicted Material Girl Madonna and ex-husband Guy Ritchie, both nude, in what they call Happier Times (read: 2005). Putting aside the fact the Madge looks like the Crypt Keeper here, and Guy strongly resembles The Thing from Fantastic Four, as well as the fact that no sane human would want--or, indeed, NEED--a visual reminder of these two we-pray-fictitious creatures lolling naked on a bed together, Howson usually sells well so pre-sale estimates were from £15,000 to £22,000. Unfortunately, no one told the bidders that last part and the lot went the way of the Ritchie marriage. Nominal interest (in the form of a few bids), but nothing ultimately substantial enough to warrant a lasting commitment. Que lastima, queridas y queridos.

We are left with the optimistic thought that, perhaps, sometimes ... not very often, but ... sometimes things in this world make perfect sense.

Image Credit:

Peter Howson (English, b. 1958)
Madonna and Guy, 2005
Oil on canvas
89 x 120 cm (35 x 47 3/16 in.)
Private Collection
Art © Peter Howson
Image courtesy McTear's Auctioneers