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Category / Art & Design Awesomeness

A Photographer’s Forgotten Muse on the French Riviera

There was definitely something about Renée. When the legendary French photographer Jacques-Henri Lartigue met her while strolling the streets of Paris in 1930, he fell in love instantly. Tall, chic and hiding coquettishly under a wide elegant hat, he nicknamed her the ‘parasol’. Together they embarked on what Lartigue remembers as an “eternal vacation”, a dreamlike two-year holiday in the…

The “Other” Lost Generation of Black American Artists in Paris

Originally, this was supposed to be a pretty straight-forward piece on an American ex-pat artist whose enchanting paintings of 1930s Paris I’d recently had the fortune of stumbling across via the internet. She was a young woman who had moved to France before the war, where her painting career began to flourish. I was going…

Chronicles of an Affair with his Secretary, Found in an Abandoned Suitcase

The briefcase was found three decades after the affair took place, abandoned in a German apartment and later sold at auction. The contents of the suitcase, an extraordinary collection of materials that chronicled the adulterous relationship between a businessman and his secretary in the late 1960s and 70s. Exposed to our own voyeurism, a recent…

Japan’s Ancient Attitude to Sex was Way Freakier than you’d Imagine

At a glance, the picture looks perfectly innocent: a 19th century, posh portrait of woman sipping tea. Upon closer examination, we learn she’s made up of entangled copulating bodies. Welcome to the fascinating world of ye olde Japanese erotica. Known as “shunga” (春画), the genre flourished in the Edo period (1600s-1800s), and the artworks didn’t…

He Painted the Feverish Nights of the Harlem Renaissance

You can almost feel the rhythm of the music through his paintbrush. Archibald Motley was one of the only artists of his time willing to vividly and positively depict African Americans in their vibrant urban culture, rather than in impoverished and rustic circumstances. Skin tone is celebrated as something diverse and inclusive in his work.…

The Strange, Unspoken Glorification of Sexual Assault in Art History

There’s something not quite right about that painting, wouldn’t you say? The many depictions of Leda and the Swan are hanging on the walls of some of the most prestigious museums and galleries across the world, and yet, there’s a conversation we’re not having. The Greek myth in which the Spartan queen Leda is seduced…

The Mysterious Art of the Falling Panties

Apparently, women’s underwear in the 1950s was just pants. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist). I stumbled upon the work of a Chicago-born artist, Art Frahm, who was best-known for his pin-up paintings between the 1940s-60s, in particular, his “ladies in distress” series, depicting doll-like damsels whose panties would perilously fall to the ground in the most public of predicaments. Since 1996, American…

Today I Stumbled upon a Secret Kingdom of Lost Toys

What is it that makes someone start a collection which alters the course of their entire life? For Mel Birnkrant, it was an iron Mickey bank he saw at the Paris flea market in 1958. His hotel room rent was $30 a month and the toy was $10. It was in that moment, at the iconic Marché aux Puces,…

Twisted Love Affairs of the “Lost Generation” of English Eccentrics

We’ve all heard of Hemingway and his band of literati’s and artistes that shook up Parisian society throughout the 1920’s, whom we nostalgically call the “Lost Generation”. Lesser-known to us however, is the “Bloomsbury Group”, a collection of talented bohemians across the channel who were pioneers of their time in British art and literature and openly rejected…

Life Inside a Genie’s Lamp, in Brooklyn

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who furnish, and those who decorate. “My apartment is something that has evolved over time,” says New York City interior decorator Sean McNanney, “Ultimately my main inspiration is an Upper East Side classic six transported to Wes Anderson’s take on Old Constantinople – if that…

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