Photographer Lynn Goldsmith’s 1981 black and white photo of Prince was made just as the talented young singer-songwriter-musician was on his way to super stardom. Goldsmith’s portrait captured a moment in time with the genre-defying musician. She caught the soulfulness of the man on film. On May 18, 2023 the Supreme Court issued a momentous smackdown to the ghost of…
Funding is one activity that has sustained the acts of vandalism carried out against art museums by the UK group Just Stop Oil. That faction has received financial backing from the Climate Emergency Fund, a global network of “climate activists” headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. This was verified on Aug. 10, 2022 when the New York Times reported that the…
On May 24, 2023, the US District Court for the District of Columbia issued a Grand Jury indictment against two members of the American eco-extremist group “Declare Emergency.” Timothy Martin and Joanna Smith, both 53, were charged with “willfully” committing “an offense against the United States,” by injuring an object of art and an exhibit “within the National Gallery of…
Years ago I visited the Trevi Fountain in Rome, Italy. Built in the mid-1700s and located in the Piazza di Trevi square, it is a breathtaking structure bursting with history and glorious art. Like most tourists, I tossed a coin into the fountain pool… legend says those who do so will visit Rome again. I’m infuriated to get the news…
This essay will broach the subject of The Last Supper, a controversial artwork by photographer Elisabeth Ohlson. Deemed blasphemous by many, it was exhibited at the European Union Parliament in Brussels, Belgium in May of 2023. I will contrast Ohlson’s irreverent photo with a brief overview of how visual artists in the West have portrayed The Last Supper—the final meal…
In the continuing war on art, members of the eco-extremist group Declare Emergency, entered the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC on April 27, 2023, and attacked the famous sculpture by French artist Edgar Degas, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. Two scalawags, a man and woman dressed in black, entered Gallery 3, the room that exhibits Little Dancer. The black…
What new works has the eminent world renown artist Hunter Biden been working on lately? As reported by the New York Post, he has just finished “an intricately patterned painting of an Aztec god.” When it comes to Aztec deities Hunter But didn’t pick just any old god, he went right for “the big guy.” I instantly recognized the deity…
In the late 1700s the Spanish artist Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) created a series of eighty etchings he titled Los Caprichos (The Caprices). An irrational thought or action can be a “caprice,” and Spanish society at the time provided Goya with myriad examples of ferocious caprices. For instance, Goya created paintings and prints that wryly scrutinized the Spanish…
