All tagged Great Britain

Episode #105: Bits of "Breaking Barriers": Levina Teerlinc (Season 12, Episode 6)

Today: Finding a signed, confirmed work by Levina Teerlinc isn’t an easy task, as we know of no surviving works with her signature. But we do know that Levina Teerlinc was almost single-handedly responsible for the popularization of the miniature portrait, and obviously she was good at it: Queen Elizabeth I commissioned her portrait from Teerlinc no less than eight times. From Breaking Barriers: Women of Renaissance Europe, please enjoy “Levina Teerlinc: Tiny Tudor Treasures.”

BONUS EPISODE: Banksy's Exit Through the Gift Shop LIVE Q&A at the Alamo Drafthouse

BANKSY! Love him or loathe him, he’s a contemporary art dynamo, an icon of street art success. He’s also an enigma, a playful mystery. Last week-- on April 30, 2019-- I was asked to participate in a special screening of the 2010 Banksy documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop at the Alamo Drafthouse in Raleigh, North Carolina. Exit was part of Alamo’s Film Club series, curated by Jackson Cooper, and after the film I sat down with Jackson to record a special conversation/Q&A about the film, Banksy, and the legacy of street art. Enjoy— and we’ll be back next week with an all-new episode of ArtCurious.

Episode #23: Combat Artists of WWII (Season 2, Episode 3)

In the winter of 1945, a World War II infantryman for the United States would be supplied with gear that was to be carried and trekked from location to location, regardless of weather, ailment, or occurrence. All of this gear alone could easily weigh a good 50 to 60 pounds. Add on a rifle or pistol, bullets and any appropriate add-ons needed to maintain, clean, and restock a weapon, and you are talking a serious load to haul around. To a handful of these men, however, it wasn’t their guns, their helmets, or their first aid kits that were the most significant pieces of equipment that they transported to the battlefield. No- there was a more specialized tool of utter importance. As one soldier, Edward Reep, noted, quote, “I fought the war more furiously perhaps with my paintbrush than with my weapons.”

Today, we're discussing a group of dedicated and talented artists who threw themselves in the middle of war in order to capture the experience and create art about it.

Episode #14: Samuel F. B. Morse's Gallery of the Louvre (Season 1, Episode 14)

How many know that the inventor of the telegraph and co-creator of Morse code--Samuel F. B. Morse-- was a successful artist, too? And crazily enough, one of his paintings in particular, foreshadowed his interest in communication tools, providing the impetus for revolutionizing communication--and, indeed, the world as we know it. Listen in for details on Morse's masterpiece, Gallery of the Louvre.

Episode #6: Was Walter Sickert Actually Jack the Ripper? PART ONE

Much was made of crime in Victorian London. The Victorians were terrified of the lower-classes, particularly down-and-out men living in the crowded outskirts of the city who, they thought, were lurking in the shadows, just waiting for the opportunity to arise for a well-timed theft, brawl, or even worse. Life, for most, was hard. But in 1888, Londoners clamoring for a bit of excitement to spice up the drudgery of their lives got far more than they bargained for. They got weeks of abject terror surrounding a madman who slaughtered women in London's East End... who was never identified or caught. And more than 100 years later, we are still no closer to really identifying one of the most terrible killers of all time.

Or are we?

In this first half of our special two-part Halloween episode, we are going to delve into a theory that identifies Jack the Ripper as the English painter Walter Sickert. And come back next week to hear the second half of our show and see images of Sickert's work.