Michelangelo painted the ceiling frescoes of the Sistine Chapel under papal duress, poor climatic conditions and, at least initially, the assumption that he could learn decades' worth of fresco ... Read More

Mucha, whose name is synonymous with Art Nouveau, is yet another of those "overnight sensation" artists who nearly starved to death for years beforehand. He had come to art ... Read More

And in plenty of time for his 500th birthday party! He looks marvelous, too. As has been reported a dozen other places, the cleaning / restoration of Michelangelo's David (begun, ... Read More

Hey now, this is fun! Lowbrow is an emergent movement that this product of the 60's finds nice and chewy. Thankfully, Lowbrow doesn't necessarily care if The Art World recognizes ... Read More

Before explaining why I'm confused, let me first say that certain qualities of edginess and hip-ness are lacking in me. (OK, I'm not edgy or hip at all.) Sometimes Major ... Read More

Louise Huebner was most insistent that Judith Wood be featured, and I am grateful. What fun! Judith does portraiture that is so custom I haven't seen its like before. She ... Read More

You know, it'd be great if Dan Brown would write a new book about the conspiracies and codes behind Proctor and Gamble's logo or biodynamic farming or even a dang ... Read More

Between recent viruses, worms, system crashes, reformatting, software upgrades and one spectacularly miserably timed power failure, I have lost a good deal of reader emails. Additionally, it seems that ... Read More

Erin Brennan, who is a person everyone should be lucky enough to know, suggested Modigliani for this week's profiled artist. (His name came up as a wild tangent. We were, ... Read More

Some things in life just seem to jump up and smack you in the head. After several emails from peeved 8th-graders (have to assume the age range), asking the locations ... Read More

In case you're just recently back from Mars exploration and haven't heard, the Whitney auction at Sotheby's this past week saw a new benchmark set for the price of a ... Read More

This suggestion, courtesy of Ann Isik, was a lot of fun to pursue. Cecil Collins' paintings and prints have a playful quality - not unlike much of Paul Klee's ... Read More

Mother's Day is just around the corner. (I know this for a fact, as I have been keeping track of the date and dropping none-too-subtle hints around our house.) ... Read More

Jean Daniels suggested that "anyone from the Ashcan School" should be featured, and since only Everett Shinn has gotten a write-up, to date, here he is. Shinn intrigues me. ... Read More