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LOUISE BOURGEOIS. 2000

 

 

 

after Petrus Christus' Portrait of a Young Girl ii

 Sandra Rauch, "SpaceWomen" after Petrus Christus, 2000 

The artist Sandra Rauch series "SpaceWomen" is conceived from portraits of Renaissance women using a photomechanical style she created. The works are on canvas using painting, photography and printing techniques. Each is a little over 27 inches wide and 3 feet high.

 another Rauch work after Petrus Christus

Sandra Rauch, "SpaceWomen" after Simonetta Vespucci by Piero di Cosimo 

 Sandra Rauch, "Space Women," from the "Portrait of a Young Woman" attributed to the Pollaiuolo brothers

( continued from an earlie post here)

all of these works by Rauch and others from the series are available at  Auctionata here

 

Portrait of a Young Girl i

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As mentioned before, Petrus Christus' Portrait of a Young Girl. (c. 1470), is one of my favorite portraits, & like other great portraits she takes much abuse by would be artists, and commercialism. I'll not add to her debauchery by including any of them here.
She is-perfection, and gratefully there are some perfect homages to her.

I've always felt Picasso-whose paintings of Velasquez's Las Meninas (there are 57) was a true acolyte of the master- in praise of  that painting-a deconstruction of its complexity.

As to a Christus redux-there is no such Picasso- but here- in his 1954 portrait of Sylvette Davis, he's playing with her. The shape of the truncated hennin worn by our Young Girl emphasizes Sylvette's beautiful face and hair & her sloe-eyes seen to imitate Christus's sitter.

In accord with Picasso & his "menina" complex-another celebrated Spaniard Manolo Valdes paints the maids over-and over. Not only Velasquez-but as it turns out Petrus Christus' Young Girl...has been a subject for Valdes. It's no surprise then that Valdes gives our Young Girl all the reverence found in his las meninas. 

Here She is in the June issue of AD, residing over a Steven Gambrel designed Long Island family room.

at AD here

His Menina residing in the late decorator Henri Samuel's office.

 
There is more Christus Petrus and the Young Girl to come-later in the week.

Glory Hallelujah

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For the brave, the frightened-that gave their Lives at their country's persuasion to serve-for freedom from tyranny, for a way of life, for more perfect Union, for the military industrial complex, for profit, for Oil, for Man's Hubris.

For the Men and Women who served with honor and dedication through it all, we remember.

Fay Hancock, RN., North Carolina, US Army Nurse Corps. 

Louise Dahl Wolfe, Harper's Bazaar November 1943.

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Pieter Estersohn's Kentucky Part II

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"O! for a horse with wings!"~Shakespeare, Cymbeline

 Pieter Estersohn photographer.  Courtesy of The Monacelli Press

The beauty of Kentucky is evident in these Pieter Estersohn photographs from his new book Kentucky. Some of the most beautiful in the book to my eye are from the Gainesway Farm. Here, Estersohn's powers
are evident as he captures Gainesway's thoroughbreds, stables, and landscapes.

Graham Beck's Gainesway Farm in Lexington encompasses 1500 acres in the Golden Cresent of the Inner Bluegrass region. Now retired, Beck's son Anthony and his family live on the farm in a house modeled after an 1830's Lexington tobacco farmhouse. A potager and a boxwood herb garden are one of several gardens that Beck and garden designer David Hruska have laid out on the property.

Pieter Estersohn photographer.  Courtesy of The Monacelli Press

Pieter Estersohn photographer.  Courtesy of The Monacelli Press

"When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes." ~Shakespeare,Henry V

Pieter Estersohn photographer.  Courtesy of The Monacelli Press

Men are better when riding, more just and more understanding, and more alert and more at ease and more under-taking, and better knowing of all countries and all passages; in short and long all good customs and manners cometh thereof, and the health of man and of his soul. ~Attributed to Edward Plantagenet

Pieter Estersohn photographer.  Courtesy of The Monacelli Press

"He's of the colour of the nutmeg.  And of the heat of the ginger.... he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient stillness while his rider mounts him; he is indeed a horse, and all other jades you may call beasts." ~Shakespeare, Henry V

 Pieter Estersohn photographer.  Courtesy of The Monacelli Press

...The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them ~Robert Frost, Mending Wall

Pieter Estersohn photographer.  Courtesy of The Monacelli Press

"The wind of heaven is that which blows between a horse's ears."  ~Arabian Proverb

Pieter Estersohn photographer.  Courtesy of The Monacelli Press

I've added quotations for your pleasure in reading-not that one needs such. Estersohn's photographs are pure poetry, rivaling the poets-sometimes that happens, and it is so in Kentucky.

The Monacelli Press has graciously sent the Estersohn book my way. The book is available on May 23rd. Part I of this post is here.

Kentucky Home

A new book Kentucky, Historic Houses and Horse Farms of  Bluegrass Country, is part history- part photographic essay-and something equally potent-the mystical. Photographer Pieter Estersohn captures Kentucky's powers of allurement in this important book documenting the bluegrass lands between Lexington and the sleepy town of Paris.

This is horse country and there is a stretch of road where horses are gods.That road lies between Lexington and Paris. It extends for some 20 miles I guess-with stone walls, white fences and pasture just beyond.  I understand the allure having visited the area years ago. Estersohn steps beyond the road and rock into the pastures of Kentucky's beauty, industry, and passions. Michele Keith fills in what Estersohn's brilliant eye can not record with the text of Kentucky-but Estersohn's camera does most of the work. His photographs documenting the historic homes and horse farms capture something virtually unscathed in this 21st century world we inhabit with vibrancy and reverence. Of the properties he focuses on- Ashland immediately captured my attention. Having been to the house, seeing Estersohn's photographs brought that visit back most vividly.

Henry Clay, "The Great Compromiser"

 Pieter Estersohn photographer.  Courtesy of The Monacelli Press

Henry Clay is Kentucky's most noted statesman, and politician. Because of his service to Kentucky and the nation-Clay was the first politician to lie in state at the Capitol in Washington. His estate-called Ashland, noted for the ash trees on the property, was a sprawling and significant plantation and mansion in Lexington.

Lincoln's "beau ideal of a stateman"

 Henry Clay's headstone reads: "I know no North — no South — no East — no West."

 At the zenith of Clay's Ashland there were as many as 60 slaves on the property. Clay's Will  of 1852, predating the Civil War, freed all the slaves he held. Today Ashland is open to the public as a monument to Clay and to an era lost past, but very much alive within its halls.

Ashland as it appears today...

 Pieter Estersohn photographer.  Courtesy of The Monacelli Press.

 Pieter Estersohn photographer.  Courtesy of The Monacelli Press.

Ashland's Library was recreated after most of the mansion was destroyed in 1811 from the New Madrid earthquake and aftershocks. Clay's son James used as many of the original materials from the house when he began to rebuild. The library's beautiful panelling was designed with black and white walnut.

 Pieter Estersohn photographer.  Courtesy of The Monacelli Press.

"My Old Kentucky Home," where Clay travelled from the capitol to revel in his farm land, cattle and throughbreds-of course. He bred and raced them-using the buff and blue colors of his Whig party for Ashland's racing silks.

Clay's Hatbox
Pieter Estersohn photographer.  Courtesy of The Monacelli Press.

Overview of Ashland's Colonial Revival Garden

 Pieter Estersohn photographer.  Courtesy of The Monacelli Press.

later in the week Part II of Kentucky, Pieter Estersohn's new book.

be still my Beaton heart...

Yes, there's more, and no doubt more to come... but these previously unpublished photographs by Cecil Beaton in the Telegraph will get your heart racing. they did mine.

 Edith Olivier as Queen Elizabeth I, Wilton House, 19 July 1932. by Cecil Beaton

my favorite by far, Edith Olivier as ER I.
Edith is a great inspiration to me. Known to some- primarily as Rex Whistler's other woman-with her grand passion for Rex, Edith became his closest friend and confidante.Along with Cecil Beaton they formed a sort of menage a trois during the heady days of his Ashcombe- before the war brought their idyll to a fatal halt.

For others, she might just be Sir Laurence Olivier's cousin, & for others- Mayor of Wilton.
Still others may know her as author-and it is here she makes a profound impact on me. I find her writing to be-of the period-meaning before the War made such a profound and utter impact on the psyche of Britain. It's quite simply- poetry. I'm currently reading her Four Victorian Ladies of Wiltshire. It includes Mrs. Percy Wyndham, mistress of Clouds, member of the Souls, and mother to the sisters painted in Sargent's elegant portrait of the Wyndam Sisters. More about Mrs. Wyndham via Edith Olivier in another posting. For the moment-it's Beaton and and costume balls and country houses-and my heart, in the Telegraph, Here.

the brilliance of Beaton

The Countess of Pembroke (Claire) in the Double Cube Room, Wilton House, October 1971, Cecil Beaton

a Tree by Beaton, & Tree about Beaton

A perfect confluence of Beaton this week in anticipation of  'Cecil Beaton At Home: Ashcombe and Reddish" opening on the 23rd-and this week's earlier post. Penelope Tree remembers her friend Cecil Beaton, in British Vogue's June issue and talks David Bailey's film Beaton by Bailey. The star of the film other than Beaton is no doubt Penelope Tree. Their chemistry is magical-and after reading Tree's piece in Vogue, their friendship long standing.

 Tree, Datura by Beaton

from their session at Reddish House-as seen in the Bailey Film

Tree caught Beaton's attention at Truman Capote's Black and White Ball, then just 16, wearing a daring black knit dress cut from there to beyond there. According to Tree, Beaton rescued her from the wall -dancing with her and making her not wanting of partners for the rest of the evening.

Enjoy the film-it's a charmer, all 60 minutes of it, and smile when Beaton turns his camera to the enigmatic beauty, Penelope Tree amongst the datura at Reddish House.


follow the Link to see the film HERE.

in praise of a Red Room...&

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A Classic
Grace Dudley's Red Room
New York

Classics are always best.

I'm always intrigued by Trends. It makes a client-say: Is wallpaper Out? Does everyone have a chocolate brown room now? Are the 70's making a comeback?  Mostly -I say No, No NO! I focus on what becomes the client, the space, the things one wants to keep (there is always that), and regardless of what many may think-a budget. I can't be bothered by trends-because I am a designer and my clients are depending on me to give them many things -what they want, tempered with something that will be timeless.

Classics are best, yes colors can change-but if RED is IN at Your house-why not? Looking at the great red room of Grace Dudley, it's obvious the room is there-indefinitely and why shouldn't it be? I think if you get if right the first time-that's the last time. Over the years things will need brushing up-but the core of the room is there, always at its best.

Grace Dudley in Nassau photographed by HORST, 1971

Grace Dudley's good taste in Classics is evident in rooms at Grayclift she decorated more than forty years ago in Nassau. Cool pure white walls are accentuated by dark window moldings-and traditional furniture in the Dudley Drawing Room. Further making this very English room in the tropics a Classic-a pair of 18th century Chinese screens, family portraits, and pillows in paisleys and fur. Brimming baskets of carnations and mums add color to the room-while upholstered pieces are covered in pure white.

Just off the Loggias, Sharp apricot painted walls draw attention to the rough hewn ceiling and classic moldings painted in white.

A cool respite-the enclosed Loggia is filled with comfortable upholstered chairs- Chinese Chippendale chairs dot the room and beyond.  All of the upholstered pieces are covered in Brunschwig's Les Touches Cotton Print- though the Vogue July 71 article doesn't indicate so-I'd recognize it anywhere.

 

Les Touches-still available from the venerable firm of Brunschwig and Fils- 1971 and 40 years young, and so a red room.

Grace Dudley's Living Room from the book New York Rooms by Dominque Nabokov

Grace Dudley's Nassau home from the pages of my Vogue July 1971.

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happy Mother's Day

To my inspirational and lovely-inside and out- Mother, always saying when Beauty was discussed
"Pretty is-as Pretty does.
In her case-this has been True.

Me, my GrandMother, and Mother

c.2000. 

As mentioned in past postings-Bess, my Grandmother lived to be 107. Many of our Mother's Day photographs were taken in the Hospital where she spent the last years of her wonderful Life. 

Her belief was to stay curious-and interested in Life,

 That She Did!

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the MET SET Beyond Fashion

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Cecil Beaton gloriously captured Charles James ball gowns in 1948.

from The Met here

Not to be remiss in a posting on the MET GALA, and the new ANNA WINTOUR COSTUME CENTER...Nothing gets one's twitter feed, facebook, and instagram stalled like the MET event. The naming of the center even gets batted around. The Costume Institute got underway through Diana Vreeland's chutzpah with help from Babe Palely and other swans. She had glamourized these women and helped create the legends that now exist around them-so it was her turn.We can thank them, and well, if Mrs.Vreeland had done the naming She too-would have named it ...THE DIANA VREELAND....

The red carpet rush was full of glamour, glitz- push-along with the ghastly.
But isn't that the way?
As I tried to point out to a raucous twitter person-(She wrote: "the Met Ball has been forever sullied by the pedestrian narcissist Wintour. No style. All ego. Trashy guests.")- the great benefit of the ball is the-thousands+++ thousands+++, and more,that will see Charles James: Beyond Fashion and marvel over his gowns, his construction, and his fine details.

Every last  inch of Charles James will be scrutinized- little secrets exposed- hems will be lifted and Charles James will no doubt be #'ed to death. That is why a MET GALA exists for the likes of Me, and for the MET SET, #EXPOSURE. Celebrities and models flock and an occasional society maven glides in sans red carpet. Anna Wintour has changed the landscape-and the Costume Institute thrives-and without the power of Vogue magazine (to which I no longer subscribe #agedoutof & the website features are great)- it was just survive amongst the sea of galas & benefits.

Zac Posen did three of these ball gowns, seems he has the Charles James touch at the moment, though it's noted that Harvey Weinstein has struck a deal with the James estate to have his wife's Marchesa brand retained as creative consultants-along with all that entails. (read more at Page SIX here). Marchesa does make beautiful dresses- but the Charles James touch wasn't evident from Marchesa last night.

 Bee Shafer in McQueen & Suki Waterhouse in  Burberry (at right) making a Charles James moment at the MET

 Undoubtedly The Dress of the Evening as Homage to Charles James- 

Dita von Teese in, and with, Zac Posen, wearing a very fine manteau.

Italian designers Dolce and Gabbana do know how to make an entrance-
conjuring Winterhalter or Visconti's The Leopard. 

Tabitha Simmons in Dolce Gabanna

Evening Gloves

 There was never a better evening for opera gloves. 

 I love them.

I missed the Charles James era.

Model Fei Fei Sun, Marina Rust and Tory Burch, & below-yes that's Katie Couric

Some people-and not just those at the MET Gala-always look well dressed-polished-turned out perfectly.
  
Last night...

 Mario Testino-with decorations, badges-He is OBE- Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire - here with Stella Tennant-who always looks right.



Benedict Cumberbatch

The Beckhams

Stephanie Seymour

Hailee Steinfeld wearing, and with Prabal Gurung

Lily Aldridge in Michael Kors

...& Always.

Nancy Lee Gregory James, Charles James wife, photographed by Cecil Beaton

 Lauren Santo Domingo wearing Oscar de la Renta and below The Herreras

Stella Tennant, wearing Burbery- in repose at the Met Ball

for me -actress Maggie Q came away as Best Dressed for the evening.

Wearing Zac Posen, 

she looked to be a 21st century Charles James creation poised on the steps with him just before his 1950 collection debuted.

after hearing it all, No, not so-but enough about what Charles James would think, etc. etc....

Undoubtedly the perfectionist himself would have lots to say-about Charles James- because HE- & now- everyone knows -Charles James is Beyond Fashion.