Boston Globe

Drawing from the collection of the late Leslie and Johanna Garfield, this exhibition focuses on the work of six artists: Ada Gilmore Chaffee, Maud Hunt Squire, Ethel Mars, Mildred McMillen, Juliette Nichols, and B. J. O. Nordfeldt—the first pioneering group that came together in Provincetown to practice color woodblock printing.

MASS MoCA has promoted veteran curator Denise Markonish to become its new Chief Curator, the first in MASS MoCA’s nearly 25-year history. Markonish joined MASS MoCA in 2007.

In response to these difficult times, artist Justin Freed, former owner and programmer of the Coolidge Corner Theatre, has created An Evening of Jazz and Healing with live music, photography, drawings, projection and film.

The ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance unveiled its live, in-person performances celebrating diverse and challenging theatre, music, and dance programming for the Williams College community and beyond.

On opening day, August 12, we went on one of our Berkshire country drives to South County to celebrate Beth Galston and her installation, 'Ice Forest.'

The Board of Trustees of Hancock Shaker Village announced today that director Jennifer Trainer Thompson will step down in July. Thompson has been widely credited for her transformational leadership of the museum and is recognized as an innovator in the museum community. Since her appointment in September 2016, Hancock Shaker Village has grown in size and stature and has been infused, as The Boston Globe noted last summer, “with great gusts of contemporary vitality”.

“Spring at Hancock Shaker Village is a joyous time,” said Director Jennifer Trainer Thompson. “Our farm literally ‘springs’ to life and there may be nothing cuter than a baby animal. When you add to that 20 historic buildings, and a lot of creative programming --- from farm talks to concerts to the spiritual richness of brooms --- you find a union with content that creates an unparalleled experience. Welcome back, and welcome to our 2022 season!”

Since its 1897 founding, the Boston Marathon has regularly transformed in its appearance, its demographics, and its meaning.  As its 126th running on April 18 nears, The Lotvin Family Gallery examines how the marathon’s changes have been reflected in the pages of another Boston institution, The Boston Globe, now celebrating its 150th year of publication.

Folk and Baroque—Performed Live at Historic Saint James Place in Downtown Great Barrington, MA, February 26, 2021 at 6 PM  

After a critically acclaimed run, the Lyric Stage Company of Boston announces that streaming of the World Premiere production of Mr. Parent by Melinda Lopez with Maurice Emmanuel Parent* and co-conceived and directed by Megan Sandberg-Zakian° will begin on February 7 and be available through February 20.

Festival 2022, which will feature 10 weeks of on-site programming, opens June 22, and runs through August 28, attracting dance audiences from across the globe to the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts. The season-opening Gala will be held on June 18. The recipient of the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award and the gala program will be announced on March 15.

The author of several biographies, plays and opera librettos, Terry Teachout had an expansive interest in the arts. Few of his generation were more prolific. In an age of decline in arts journalism he was the only major critic who regularly covered regional theatre. We saw him several times each season in the Berkshires.

Arnie Reisman, a Martha Vineyard resident died suddenly. He was 79. Starting as editor of the Brandeis University Justice he was later editor of the weekly Boston After Dark/ Phoenix. He was a prolific documentary filmmaker and playwright as well as publisher of several books of poetry. With his wife Paula Lyons, he was also a panelist on NPR’s Says You!, the long-running comedy quiz show. His documentary The Powder and the Glory was the basis of the Broadway show War Paint.

Marjorie Kaye is a painter and sculptor residing and working North of Boston. Her work is an exploration of Sacred Geometry, organic forms, the relationships of color, and are kinetic and energetic. Her exhibition, Energy Fields and Artifacts, opens at Galatea Fine Art on October 1.

A native of Newton and Boston University graduate the career of jazz entrepreneur, George Wein, started with the club Storyville in Copley Square. With the Lorrilards as backers he founded the Newport Jazz Festival and later the Newport Folk Festival. He went on to the the world's foremost jazz promoter. He died today at 95 in New York.

Does listener friendliness in music depend on melody?  John Adams, on whatever musical journey he takes, is haunted by melody, sometimes explicitly and at others, finds it in minimalist repetition where a base line beats and also sings. 

Groupmuse, the community-building startup that aims to adapt the concert experience, announced their plan to become a musician-owned cooperative. They have assembled a Founding Council made up of ten diverse young musician activists. ranging from international prize-winners, to artists who have played over 150 concerts through Groupmuse, to social justice activists fighting to bring about a more equitable and inclusive concert music ecosystem.

Familiar Trees is a new gallery at 411 North Street, Pittsfield. There wiil be a reception for Franklin Einspruch on Saturday, October 17, 2020, 1-4 PM. The exhibition Half Step Half Fall runs through November 21. His Cloud on a Mountain is a book of comics poetry conceived during artist residencies in 2015 and 2018 at Bascom Lodge, at the summit of Mount Greylock in Berkshire County. Familiar Trees specialized in high-quality used books with an emphasis on art, poetry, and literature.

George Crossan Seybolt (1915-1993) was president and chairman of the William Underwood Company, best known for its canned Deviled Ham. He was recruited to the board of trustees by the director, Perry T. Rathbone. When be became president of the board there was constant conflict. Seybolt mico managed the museum and ousted Rathbone over the Raphael incident. His personal appointment for director, Merrill Rueppel, proved to be a disaster. He was fired after a Globe exposé. Seybolt went on to be a museum lobbyist and visionary. It's what we discussed in 1977.

When John Walsh left for the Getty Museum, and with a hiatus in the contemporary department, Theodore E. Stebbins, chaired three departments. He seized the opportunity to acquire American and European modern and contemporary art. There were huge gaps to fill when works that now command millions were relatively affordable.

When I interviewed Alan Shestack in 1992 he had been MFA director for five years. It was a time of economic downturn and the museum faced an annual deficit of $3 million. We discussed ways in which the museum might meet this challenge including a relationship with a museum in Nagoya, Japan which it helped to launch and program. He spoke adamantly that selling works to cover costs violated the mission and covenant of museums and their donors.

In 1983 the Museum of FIne Art organized a traveling exhibition A New World: Masterpieces of American Painting: 1760-1910. It toured the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Grand Palais in Paris, as well as being shown at the MFA. Artists and members of Boston's African American community protested that the exhibition did not include artists of color. In this 1984 interview former MFA director, Jan Fontein, discussed negotiatons to include the 19th century artist Henry Osawa Tanner. We also covered gaps in 20th century European and American art.

For decades artist, curator, installer James Manning has covered Boston's emerging artists and alternative galleries. Other than when Bill Arning was at MIT List nobody has made a greater effort to interact with emerging artists and their galleries. He had his own gallery Art Vigor in East Boston and was director of Gallery FX, a pioneer of the SOWA art district. This activity was rarely covered by the mainstream media. This is an attempt to document a vibrant era . From 2008 until his death in 2018 Manning worked with curator Joe Ketner at Emerson College.

From 1987 to 1993 Alan Shestack was director of the Museum of Fine Arts. He followed Jan Fontein who was director from 1975 to 1987.

A native of Toronto, Matthew Teitelbaum, departed Boston in 1993 to take a curatorial position at the Art Gallery of Ontario. In this interview he was acting director of the Institute of Contemporary Art. Then 37, it provides insights of his curatorial vision and process. He went on to be director of the AGO. In 2015 he returned to Boston as director of the Museum of Fine Arts.