Light and Dark: Maxfield Parrish and James Nachtwey

james nachtwey photography“There has always been war,” says James Nachtwey, a multi-award winning photojournalist. “War is raging throughout the world at the present moment. And there is little reason to believe that war will cease to exist in the future. As man has become increasingly civilized, his means of destroying his fellow man have become ever more efficient, cruel and devastating.”

He continues: “Is it possible to put an end to a form of human behavior which has existed throughout history by means of photography? The proportions of that notion seem ridiculously out of balance. Yet, that very idea has motivated me.” 

James Nachtwey, born in 1948, has spent a lifetime documenting historical events around the world through photography, as seen in the exhibit, “Witness to History: James Nachtwey—Afghanistan, Ground Zero, Iraq“, currently on display at the Currier Gallery of Art in New Hampshire. Read more

“All Things Living & Green”: Van Gogh & Frida Kahlo

Coco Chanel quotes“Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street. Fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.” –Coco Chanel

“What is Happening” in New York City this summer season are two “fashionable” exhibits that are worth checking out: Van Gogh Irises and Roses at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Frida Kahlo: Art, Garden, Life at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx.

Van Gogh Irises and Roses

Van Gogh irises and roses art exhibitThe Van Gogh exhibit at the Met brings together for the first time a quartet of paintings that Van Gogh (1853-1890) did during his stay at the asylum at St. Remy in 1889 before his death in 1890. The exhibition of the four paintings, two of irises and two of roses, was timed to coincide with the blooming of the flowers in the Spring, a period of time he likened to the “calm after the storm.” Calling painting the “lightening conductor for my illness,” Van Gogh’s art became “the first example of a truly personal art, art as a deeply lived means of spiritual deliverance or transformation of the self…” Read more