Rembrandt van Rijn

Latest Articles

Art in the air conditioning

Local museums keep you cool — and the art's pretty good, too
From Picasso to William "Shrek" Steig's cartoons, and surfer photos to a Twilight Zone toy store, New England offers art worth traveling to this summer. Here we round up the best in the region, no matter the weather or your artistic inclinations.
By GREG COOK | June 16, 2010

Lighting history

The Gardner Museum takes a chance on the new
On January 1, 1903, Isabella Stewart Gardner invited 300 guests to a private concert by members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra to celebrate the opening of her new museum on the Fenway. After performances of Bach, Mozart, and Schumann, the mirrored doors of the first-floor concert room rolled open to reveal an extraordinary vision.
By GREG COOK | February 03, 2010

Half-century

Highlights of Colby's collection
The big 50th-anniversary exhibition at the Colby College Museum of Art has only about a month left of its eight-month run, so it seems like a good time to revisit this sprawling and worthwhile show.
By KEN GREENLEAF | January 27, 2010

2009: The year in art

Saints, sinners, paint
The year started off with a kick in the teeth when, in January, Brandeis University announced plans to shutter its Rose Art Museum and sell off its masterpieces.
By GREG COOK | December 30, 2009

Play by play: September 4, 2009

Plays from A to Z
Boston's weekly theater guide
By JEFFREY GANTZ | September 02, 2009

More than a feeling

Music inspires art at the MFA, Panopticon, and the Gardner
The centerpiece of the Museum of Fine Arts' "Contemporary Outlook: Seeing Songs" is Candice Breitz's 2005 Queen (A Portrait of Madonna), a wall of 30 televisions, each showing a different Madonna fan singing a cappella to her 1990 greatest-hits compilation, The Immaculate Collection. They wear headphones, bob their heads, sing aloud to music we can't hear.
By GREG COOK | July 21, 2009

States of the art

New England museums worth traveling for
In New England, where you can't swing a sack of cranberries without hitting a venerable cultural institution, anyone with access to a car (or even a subway pass) can scope out these topnotch art museums.
By SHAULA CLARK | June 09, 2009

Maritime after time

Dutch seascapes at the Peabody Essex
There's no question about the Peabody Essex Museum's unwavering love of all things nautical. How many other museums employ a curator of maritime art and history (in this case, Daniel Finamore)?
By EVAN J. GARZA | June 03, 2009

Whodunit?

Art thief Myles Connor talks
Myles Connor: Mayflower descendant, Mensa member, master of disguise, black belt in karate, self-styled "President of Rock 'n' Roll." And probably the most notorious art thief in the history of the United States.
By MIKE MILIARD | March 18, 2009

Arresting Shepard Fairey

It's about small minds, revenge, and embarrassing the mayor
A cynic might argue that anything that publicizes art is a good thing. Art, after all, challenges how you think — provokes thoughts, insights, emotions that otherwise might not be stirred. It also can amuse and entertain.
By EDITORIAL | February 12, 2009

Robert Crumb at MassArt

In Crumb's world, everything appears tantalizingly available, all options are on the table, all bets are off.
R. Crumb's Underground at MassArt
By GREG COOK | February 06, 2009

Luckey in Amsterdam

Paralyzing hopelessness at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam
Simply, there’s no more prestigious place for a documentary to debut than IDFA, rightly regarded as the very best documentary festival in the world.
By GERALD PEARY | January 23, 2009

Letter from London

The foggy joys of Europe’s most international city
How could you not fall in love with this city?
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | September 05, 2008

(Probably) high society

'After Hours' at the Gardner Museum
The warm bodies and conversational hum provide séance juice for the ghostly presence of the mansion’s namesake.
By MATT PARISH | August 05, 2008

Visions of isolation

Edward Hopper's master works at the MFA
In Edward Hopper’s world, everyone is lost in an unending rut of office overtime, rattling El trains, cheap fluorescent diners, and bad dates.
By GREG COOK | May 02, 2007

Time pieces

The Hermitage Dwellers , Terry Gilliam
What a place in St. Petersburg: 1000 palatial rooms and 3,000,000 art objects, paradise on earth.
By GERALD PEARY | September 06, 2006

War in art heaven

Sterling and Stephen duke it out at the Clark Institute
Belying its placid title, “The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings” is the record of a collecting war whose energy all but obliterates the show’s eye-popping art. Slideshow: Paintings from The Clark Brothers Collection
By JEFFREY GANTZ | July 28, 2006