Marshalling His Friends: Brooke Astor Settlement Revealed
A New York Times reporter has just broken the news of an (as yet undisclosed) settlement in the Brooke Astor estate battle in White Plains. His source? Philip Marshall (pictured), who put the family dispute in the public sphere when he accused his father of mistreating his grandmother, sent a text to the man from […]
The New York Review of Hypocrisy
Regular Gripepad readers will recall that two years ago, in an afterword to the paperback of Rogues’ Gallery, my history-cum-expose of the board and benefactors of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, I speculated on how the vice chairman of that board got her hands on one of the embargoed advance copies of the book. […]
The 800-pound gorilla on Fifth Avenue
What’s the latest cause celebre at 1000 Fifth Avenue, I ask in my latest Crain’s New York Business Column. Is it (right-wing) donor David Koch? Or the Metropolitan Museum’s imperial mind-set?
Hand-fed but lacking in nutrients
Today’s announcement of a new head of contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in its in-house newsletter, er, sorry, the Arts section of the New York Times, was heavy on hand-fed detail but sorely lacking in context. The Met’s relationship to contemporary art has been contentious almost from the day the museum opened, […]
Engine of My Dreams
Today’s Galleycat sent me racing to Fyrefly’s new Book Blogs Search Engine which revealed a review of Rogues’ Gallery I’d never seen before by the blogger Largehearted Boy. Read it here. But if clicking is too much for you, here are the two lines that made me ROLF: “Haven’t heard about this book despite a […]
Putting My Two Cents in on the Met’s New $25 Entry Fee
Last week, the New York press predictably annnounced the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s abrupt 25% bump of its “suggested” admission price to $25 (that’s the old price displayed above) without much historical context or critical commentary. Only Louise Blouin‘s feisty artinfo.com hinted that to some, this might spell heartbreak or outrage. This morning, Judith H. […]
Bye-Bye Met, Hello Happiness
Judith Dobrzynski‘s Real Clear Arts blog breaks the news that chairman of the department of European Art and Sculpture Ian Wardropper, who lost the top spot at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to his own underling, Tom Campbell, is decamping for the Frick Collection, where he, too, will be a museum director. Congratulations!
Museum History Mystery: the Metropolitan and the Whitney
Yesterday’s announcement that the Metropolitan Museum of Art is likely to take over the Marcel Breuer-designed Brutalist building that now houses the Whitney Museum of American Art was expected. What it left out, however, was unexpected. The Soviet-style desire of the Met’s administration (and their friends and toadies in the New York cultural elite) to […]
Wintour’s Springboard is Brodsky’s Board
Anna Wintour (that’s not her above) got her reward for tireless service to Si New — , oops, the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art yesterday when she was promoted from powerless non-voting honorary trustee of the museum to only slightly less powerless “elective” trustee. On the same day, James Houghton, the museum’s […]
It’s a Dirty Job But Someone Has to Do It
This gripepad and pen are familiar with the ins and outs of telling the emperor he’s starkers. But at a certain point, it can get repetitive, so I’ve mostly spared the Metropolitan Museum in recent months. I almost felt bad when Obama-Gets-Osama kept Anna Wintour‘s fashion promo party from dominating the news cycle this week. […]