The Modern Art Invasion: An Interview with Elizabeth Lunday

I’ve been looking forward to Elizabeth Lunday’s  The Modern Art Invasion: Picasso, Duchamp and the 1913 Armory Show That Scandalized America for several years now. *  Elizabeth tells the story of a piece of American history that is often forgotten, and just as often misunderstood** in an engaging style.  Because I read Big Fat History…

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History on Display: Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity

Last week, my writing pal Amy Sue Nathan and I headed off to the Art Institute of Chicago to see the hot new exhibit, Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity. * It wasn’t quite what I expected. I was looking for what the museum describes as “a la mode as the harbinger of la modernité“. I wanted…

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The Ballet That Caused a Riot

On May 29, 1913, an excited audience, fashionably dressed according to poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau* in “tails and tulle, diamonds and ospreys,”** waited for the curtain to rise at the Theatre des Champs-Elysées. Serge Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe was premiering a new ballet with choreography by Nijinsky and music by Igor Stravinsky– The Rite of…

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