Books and Art

Rikee Chatterjee with architecture in “Blurred Lines” for Harper’s Bazaar India, December 2016. Photograph by Hashim Badani.

“It began as candid photography and the need to be invisible in the image, but I have started doing fashion photography more often lately. I use the city as a backdrop quite a bit because I enjoy the blurring of lines, the serendipity you find between a partially controlled and real life setting.” – Hashim Badani

Ballerina. Moses Soyer (American, born Russia, 1899-1974). Oil on canvas. Crocker Art Museum.

Influenced by Robert Henri, George Bellows, and other Urban Realists, Soyer frequently painted simple, moving portraits of the lives of the passive proletariat. After the Depression, he turned to ballet subjects reminiscent of the work of Impressionist Edgar Degas, but with a penchant for conveying introspective, sentimental moods.

The Affair at the Chateau. Mrs Baillie Reynolds. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran and Co. for The Crime Club Inc, (1929). First edition. Original dust jacket. 

“High in the Alps a pretty young English girl finds herself swept into a web of international intrigue. A Balkan King, a diabolical secret agent, and a new use for psychoanalysis - gay evenings in Geneva and terrifying nights in a gloomy, dungeoned chateau - a lovely romance nearly blighted by an unspeakably evil force - these are the ingredients of this swift, smart story.”

Woman Reading (1929). Eugene-Antoine Durenne (French, 1860-1944). Oil on canvas.

Durenne first exhibited in 1894 in Paris at the 8th exhibition of Impressionists and Symbolists at the Galerie Le Barc de Bouteville. In 1898 he showed a self-portrait at the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts.

Simone Damberg Würtz in Kim Brandstrup’s Transfigured Night, Rambert, November 2015. © Foteini Christofilopoulou. 

In the first scene, the scarlet woman (Würtz) repeatedly reaches for her lover (Miguel Altunaga) imploringly. Hers is the urgency in the music, his its angry recalcitrance. Brandstrup has based his imagery on paintings by Egon Schiele of awkward, conflicted couples, eyes glazed with apprehension.

The Music Lesson. Albert Bauré (French, c.1860-1930). Oil on canvas.

A group of well-dressed figures are portrayed at leisure, with the female character holding a lute that she plays. The painting is particularly interesting for its depiction of a Restoration style interior. Significant too are the ornate stained glass windows, the room’s heavy drapery and the highly decorative clothing of the figures, whose garments feature lace detailing set on rich, deeply coloured fabrics.

Quo Warranto: A Story of Psychic Phenomena. Henry Goodacre. New York, London, Montreal: The Abbey Press Publishers, [1901]. First edition. 

Occult novel set in New Zealand among the Maoris; clairvoyance; hypnotism.

Woman in Blue, Reading a Letter. Delphin Enjolras (French, 1857-1945). Pastel.

Enjolras painted mainly landscapes in his early career; later it became evident that his love was for painting women. He changed genres, focusing mainly on the portraiture of elegant young women by either lamplight or black lighting.

Milla Jovovich with books in “Milla” for Vogue Portugal, December 2016. Photograph by Frederico Martins.

“Blusa e calças em cetim de seda com renda, ambos tudo Alberta Ferretti. Brincos reversíveis Skin, em ouro amarelo e diamantes, color reversivel Skin, em ouro amarelo e diamantes anel Grass, em ouro amarelo e anel Wood, em ouro amarelo, tudo Luísa Rosas.”

La Rubica (1954). Francisco Soria Aedo (Spanish, 1898-1965). Oil on canvas. Bibataubín Palace, Granada.

A painting by Soria Aedo always gives a clear impression of colour and mass but this impression, despite its august severity, is always moved by an intense emotional tremor, communicated by the artist’s mastery in the use of light in his pictures.

Dr. Lothar Sommer bookplate (1985). Artist: Hubert Rockenberger.

A woman raises her blindfold to read a book. Other books are on the floor. Behind her stands a skeleton with a dagger and hourglass, representing the passage of time and death.

Interior with an old woman reading (1800). Wybrand Hendriks (Dutch, 1744-1831). Oil on canvas. Teylers Museum.

Hendriks received his artistic training in a workshop that produced decorative wall paintings for the elegant homes of wealthy art lovers. From 1786 until 1819, Hendriks was ‘concierge’ of the Teylers Stichting (now Teylers Museum) and also curator of its art collection.

Freja Beha with Naples architecture in “Swept Away” for WSJ. Magazine, February 2018. Photograph by Christian MacDonald.

“Wanderlust. Stand out from the crowd in elegant eveningwear. Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello dress, $7,900, and Roberto Coin earring, $1,650 for a pair.”

Saint Luke Displaying a Painting of the Virgin (1652-1653). Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Il Guercino (Italian, 1591-1666). Oil on canvas. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

Saint Luke is identified here by an inkwell in the form of his attribute, an ox, set upon a book symbolizing his authorship of one of the Gospels. Luke was also known in popular tradition as an artist. He is credited with painting many images of the Virgin, among them a highly venerated Byzantine icon housed in the Sanctuary of the Madonna of Saint Luke near Bologna.

The Line-Up. Helen Reilly. London: Cassell and Company, (1935). First edition. Original dust jacket. 

Timothy Arden, an oil-rich patriarch who made his fortune in Tulsa before decamping to Manhattan to spend it, dies by apparently natural means. But odd circumstances, including a $10,000 check ostensibly made out by Arden to his personal secretary, lead Inspector Christopher McKee to suspect foul play. An autopsy bears out that hunch: It was chloroform poisoning that caused the tycoon’s dark, ungenerous heart to fail.