Art and Museums

Julia Sneden wrote: My grandmothers taught me how to iron. In our multi-generation household, my parents or occasional hired helpers did the physically challenging work like gardening, vacuuming, window washing, carpentry, cooking, and laundry. My grandmothers and great aunt did less active things like polishing silver, ironing, setting the table, dusting, and drying the dishes. Ironing was a joint effort. The two grandmothers took turns, one each washday, while my great aunt read aloud to them. I would hang out nearby, just to hear my Aunt Martha read, usually from The Saturday Evening Post or The Atlantic Monthly. Her voice was light and gentle, and her diction precise without being fussy. more »

Rembrandt’s group portrait of officers and other civic guardsmen of District 2 in Amsterdam under the command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch has been known since the 18th century as simply The Night Watch. It is the artist’s most ambitious painting. One of Amsterdam’s 20 civic guard companies commissioned the painting for its headquarters, the Kloveniersdoelen, and Rembrandt completed it in 1642. It is Rembrandt’s only civic guard piece, and it is famed for the lively and daring composition that portrays the troop in active poses rather than the traditional static ones. more »

It's Okay to Be Smart has videos exploring all manner of curiosities and scientific topics, such as why cereal tends to either clump together or stick to the edges in your cereal bowl, whether it's true that everyone has a doppelganger, and how fire ants became so widespread in the southern US; Hidden Brain "reveals the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, and the biases that shape our choices;" LGBTQ Materials in the New York Public Library is a super-collection, composed of hundreds of documents, photographs, post cards, and more. The Trevor Project, a national organization whose mission is "to end suicide among gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer & questioning young people." more »

Beginning in the late 1970s, Sendak embarked on a second career as a designer for opera and ballet. Drawing the Curtain brings together nearly one hundred and fifty drawings from more than 900 by Sendak in the Morgan’s collection. This is the first museum exhibition dedicated to Sendak’s set and costume designs, offering new insights into the artist’s inspirations and creative process. The exhibit presents a wide selection of works from five of his most important productions: Mozart’s Magic Flute, Janáček's Cunning Little Vixen, Prokofiev’s Love for Three Oranges, Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, and an opera based on Where the Wild Things Are. more »