Art and Museums
Net Curtaining, Upholstery Fabric and Parachute Silk During WWII: Wedding Dresses 1775-2014
The V&A’s exhibition traces the development of the fashionable white wedding dress and its interpretation by leading couturiers and designers over the last two centuries. The exhibition features some of the earliest examples of wedding fashion including a silk satin court dress (1775) and a 'polonaise' style brocade gown with straw bergère hat (1780. The preference for white in the 19th century will be demonstrated by a white muslin wedding dress decorated with flowers, leaves and berries (1807) recently acquired by the museum. more »
Ferida Wolff's Backyard: Garden as Concept & A Golden Time of Year
Garden as Concept: Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens is not about botanical nature but more the nature of the spirit. It was created by mosaic mural artist Isaiah Zagar ... A Golden Time of Year: Amid the sporadic raindrops, despite the temperature shifts from cold to warm to cool to hot, even with the uncertainty about the future climate, this time of year is golden. It is filled with promise and hope. And goldfinches to remind us to appreciate nature. more »
'Small French Collection', Intimate Impressionism in San Francisco
The exhibit at the Legion of Honor featuring the work of 19th century avant-garde painters such as Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Vincent van Gogh. The exhibition includes nearly 70 paintings from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and features a selection of intimately scaled impressionist and post-impressionist still lifes, portraits and landscapes, whose charm and fluency invite close scrutiny.heir intimate effect also extends to the paintings’ themes — many are studies of the artists' favorite places and depictions of people familiar to them, and the works often became gifts shared among friends. more »
Forget Your Twitter Following; Nuclear Weapons Materials Gone Missing: What Does History Teach?
Ever since President Obama made securing nuclear weapons assets a top priority for his global arms control agenda, guarding and disposing of these holdings have become an international security preoccupation. Yet, in all of this, the urgent task of securing and disposing of known nuclear weapons assets has all but sidelined what to do about nuclear weapons-usable plutonium and highly enriched uranium that we have lost track of. This is understandable. It also is worrisome. more »