I've been in the mood for these lately! It started with a visit last fall to the Sammlung Scharf Gerstenberg, a collection of surrealist art close to our Berlin apartment. In the bookshop there I found Desmond Morris's The Lives of the Surrealists. Morris, a painter (and zoologist!) himself, is one of the last surviving... Continue Reading →
Art History Detective Story Uncovers Snapshots from the Life of Dora Maar, the “Weeping Woman”
Finding Dora Maar, by Brigitte Benkemoun, translated from French by Jody Gladding (Amazon / Book Depository) Author Brigitte Benkemoun's husband lost his Hermes agenda so she bought him a vintage replacement on eBay. When it arrived, she noticed that its old pages were intact. They dated back to 1951, an address book filled with a... Continue Reading →
A Tour Through the Crimes and Criminals of Belle Époque Paris
Book review: The Crimes of Paris, by Dorothy & Thomas Hoobler (Amazon / Book Depository) The disappearance of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre stunned Parisians, who had long dismissed any impossible task with the remark that doing so 'would be like trying to steal the Mona Lisa.' The central defining event in The Crimes of... Continue Reading →