William Morris Hunter

William Morris Hunter (1824-1879)
portrait by Helen Mary Knowlton
oil on canvas, 1880
Worcester Art Museum
(source: Facebook page of Bing McGilvray)
no copyright infringement intended

Born in Vermont in one of the most distinguished families of New England, William Morris Hunter was the leading figure in Boston's art world of the mid 19th century. Educated in France, he entered there under the influence of Millet and absorbed the spirit of Barbizon. Back in America, he settled firstly at Newport in Rhode Island (where his brother, the preeminent architect Richard Morris Hunt, was living), then moved to Vermont, then far away in the Azores, and finally to Boston where he established an influential art school.

The above portrait was painted by Helen Mary Knowlton, a disciple of Hunter, and his main biographer.




(The Moderns)

(New England)

(Boston)

(Rhode Island)

Boston

The Boston Skyline, as seen from The Spirit Of Boston
(source: Arthur Polaroid)
no copyright infringement intended

• To Boston, with Love
• Boston at Night
• Boston Old State House
• Royal Hospital Band
• Boston: Quincey Market on July 5th, 2008
• Newbury Street in Boston
• Newbury Street: Walker-Cunningham Gallery
• Axelle Gallery on Newbury Street
• Sloane Merrill Gallery in Boston
• Boston: The Sevens on Charles Street
• Boston - Financial District
• The Boston Subway
• Morning in the Bostonian T
• Guitar Player in South Station, Boston
• Playing Harmonica Under the Hood
• Boston: Neptune Oyster
• July 4th: The DUKW from Boston Museum of Science
• July 4th: Pullman Car in Boston South Station
• Duke, Kitty, Joan, Ted - unknown year
• Edgar Allan Poe
• Edwin Lord Weeks
• Edmund Charles Tarbell
• Robert Frost
• William Morris Hunter

(New England)

Boston at Night

A couple of days ago, my son was doing some shopping, and I was together with him. We entered firstly a Trader Joe's to buy food, and after that went in a Micro Center nearby, where he bought a Blü phone. It looked very neat and I was wondering if I could buy also one for me, to bring it to Romania. I'll see.

Anyway, after that my son suggested to leave the car and walk a little bit on the border of Charles River. It was in the MIT part of Cambridge, near Harvard Bridge (a curious name for a bridge in the MIT section of the town). It was already night and he took a photo of me with his new gadget. On the other side of the river you could see Boston skyline.


(Boston)

Robert Frost

Robert Frost in a photo from 1941
Library of Congress. New York World-Telegram and Sun Collection
(wikimedia)
no copyright infringement intended

• The Road Not Taken, 1916

(A Life in Books)

(Boston)

Edmund Charles Tarbell

Edmund Charles Tarbell
1862-1938
photo taken at Corcoran (c. 1919)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_C._Tarbell#mediaviewer/File:Edmund_C._Tarbell.jpg)
no copyright infringement intended

In many American museums, near the cloakroom there is a living, with some large armchairs to rest a little, and to meditate at the paintings you have seen. A fireplace is there, with an impressive mantel, the way mantels were designed in the past. Some tableaus hang on the walls: images of the past curators of the museum, sited on large armchairs, like the one you are resting on, near the same fireplace.

The photo above was taken when Edmund Charles Tarbell became the principal of the Art School at Corcoran in DC. He didn't stay there for too long, but came back to Boston, to have a position of responsibility at the Museum School. He had had such a position also prior to his Corcoran period. So pervasive was his influence on the generations of Bostonian painters that they would be dubbed The Tarbellites. A true son of New England.

Tarbell was a member of The Ten, and is considered as belonging to the American Impressionism, with a touch of duality though: his formative years in Paris had exposed him to the Old Masters on view at Louvre, as well as to the Impressionists who were at their pick by then. In his late years he became influenced by the works of Vermeer.

• The Golden Screen
• Girl with a Violin
• The Blue Veil

(The Moderns)

(Boston)

(Corcoran)

Axelle Gallery on Newbury Street

Axelle Gallery
91 Newbury Street, Boston MA 02116
ph. 617 450 0700
Mitch Plotkin, director
no copyright infringement intended

• Philippe Charles Jacquet

(Boston)

Sloane Merrill Gallery in Boston

Sloane Merrill Gallery
no copyright infringement intended

Sloane Merrill Gallery on Charles Street in Boston, a gallery that I wish to visit some day. It was founded by Ali Ringenburg, who used to be Director at Principle Gallery in Alexandria, where I have been a regular for many years. Actually Ali came to Principle after I had moved from Northern Virginia, so I haven't had the chance to meet her. Still I continued to keep contact to Principle through eMail, FB and the like, and even I changed some "Internet words" with Ali, so for me a visit to the Sloane Merrill is a must.

Sloane Merrill Gallery
no copyright infringement intended

(Boston)

To Boston, with Love

Karl Zerbe, Park Street, Boston, 1942
encaustic on canvas
The Phillips Collection, Washington DC
(http://blog.phillipscollection.org/2013/04/16/boston-love/)
no copyright infringement intended

Karl Zerbe, a member of the first generation of Boston expressionists, painted this powerful work shortly after moving to the United States from his native Berlin. Zerbe’s piece captures the timeless strength of the city.

(http://blog.phillipscollection.org/2013/04/16/boston-love/)

Boston is tough and sentimental, traditional and forward-looking, working-class and wealthy, parochial and global, warm and reserved, reform-minded and un-reformable, restrained and boisterous, superstitious and free-thinking, very new and very old .... This wondrous bundle of contradictions that happens to be a city is also the home of the marathon and the place where Patriots’ Day is sacred. And always will be.

(E J. Dionne in Washington Post)

Boston area was the first place I saw in America, and it was through the Bostonian universe that I started to understand the American way. Then I moved to NY and I tried to find a job there. That was tough. Then I found work in DC area, and I settled there. I moved after seven years back to Boston area, where my son and his family live. Some years ago my daughter-in-law ran at the marathon there. I am now far away, in Bucharest, while the streets of Boston remain very close to my heart, and I share his life and his ways.


(Boston)

(Phillips Collection)

Duke, Kitty, Joan, Ted - unknown year

Duke, Kitty, Joan, Ted - unknown year
(posted on Facebook by Old Dirty Boston)
no copyright infringement intended

Duke (Michael Dukakis) became in 1975 the governor of Massachusetts, and in 1988 he was the Democrat nominee for US presidency. Kitty (Katharine) is his wife. Joan (Virginia Joan Bennett) was the first wife of Ted (Edward Kennedy).

About Duke: his father, Panos, was a Greek immigrant, and his mother, Euterpe née Boukis, was an Aromanian immigrant.


(Boston)

(Zoon Politikon)

Edwin Lord Weeks

Edwin Lord Weeks (1849-1903)
source: Joseph Uzanne, Figures contemporaines tirées de l’Album Mariani, Librairie Henri Floury, Paris, vol VIII, 1903 (Biblioteque Nationale de France)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edwin_Lord_Weeks.jpg)
no copyright infringement intended

A distinguished painter of oriental scenes, the son of an affluent tea and spice merchant from Newton, Massachusetts, he traveled extensively in the Orient, journeying to Egypt and Persia (1870), Morocco (frequently between 1872 and 1878), and India (1882-83), apart from a first travel in 1869, to Surinam in South America. In 1895 he wrote and illustrated a book of travels, From the Black Sea through Persia and India, a travelogue in diary style: the civil war in Afghanistan and a cholera epidemic forced him to travel through Kurdistan and Persia; special chapters include the author's commentary on Hinduism and Islam in India, and on Indian art. It was published by Harper and Brothers in 1896. Edwin Lord Weeks was a member of the Légion d'Honneur, an officer of the Order of St. Michael, and a member of the Munich Secession (wiki and Google eBooks). A great son of New England!

(http://archive.org/stream/cu31924022898526#page/n7/mode/2up)
no copyright infringement intended

• The Barge of Maharaja of Benares
• An Open-Air Restaurant, Lahore
• Great Mogul And His Court Returning From The Great Mosque At Delhi India 
• Weeks at Walters: Interior of a Mosque at Cordova
• Along the Ghats of Mathura
• A Persian Cafe
• Tangiers
• Feeding the Sacred Pigeons, Jaipur
• Courtyard in Morocco
• Man Leading a Camel

(Boston)

(Old Masters)

The Boston Subway

(http://urbanhabitat.org/node/325)

The T, as it is known the subway network by Bostonians - the nick comes from MBTA, which means something like Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (so the T is not circumscribed to the subway; light rail and buses, the trolleybuses, along with the commuter rail, come under the same umbrella). I remember the voice of the subway conductor, every time I was approaching the end of Red Line at Alewife, thank you for riding the T; don't forget your belongings!

Phil Beach shared with us on Facebook a very cool video, dedicated to the T. The alert rhythm of images calls in my mind the movies of Wong Kar-Wai & Chris Doyle.

(video by timosha21)

There is an average of 628,400 weekday boardings on Boston subway and light rail, explains the author of the video, and he continues, the Orange Line is so named because it used to run down Orange Street (now lower Washington Street), the Green Line because it runs adjacent to parts of the Emerald Necklace, the Blue Line because it runs under Boston Harbor, and the Red Line because its northernmost station used to be at Harvard University, whose school color is crimson. I wonder how many people living now in Boston area know all this stuff. Anyway I learned it first time (and I am also kind of Bostonian, well, only kind of, it's complicated).

The author of the video, timosha21, is a New Yorker who likes trains and trams, says he, they are just cool and creating videos is also fun. And he created a whole youTube channel dedicated to trains and trams, also, says he, the occasional cities, buses, trolleybuses, and airplanes do wander in on this channel from various places visited; most of the train and tram videos are from the US, Russia, Germany, Spain, Sri Lanka, and fresh videos from Singapore!... US Cities include Houston, New York City, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Washington DC, and the state of NJ... just type in a keyword in the search on the channel and you'll find a video suited to your taste (whether it be SEPTA or Russian trams, Sri Lankan trains etc.).


(Boston)

Playing Harmonica Under the Hood

(http://www.geekologie.com/2007/09/trumpet-harmonica-has-got-mons.php)

There is something about the sound of an Harmonica. First off if it is played well. Every player has their own style. Some think they know how to play and just don't get it. Phil Beach plays a little harmonica and there is something about it. Love it or hate it.

(Rev. P. Harmonica)

(video by Rev.P.Harmonica)

Phil Beach lives in Boston, MA. He is passionate about music and plays in subway stations.


(Boston)

Boston: Neptune Oyster

(Erik Jacobs for NY Times)

I know it's cliché, but I can't resist at raw oysters, it's stronger than me. This is Neptune Oyster on Salem Street in Boston. Oh, man, it's calling in mind another place, much more informal, the Fish Market in the Old Town of Alexandria, Virginia: they have fabulous oysters there.

(Erik Jacobs for NY Times)

(Boston)

Boston: The Sevens on Charles Street

I entered here only once, it was long, long time ago, maybe in '97?


(Boston)

Newbury Street: Walker-Cunningham Gallery

Walker-Cunningham Fine Arts: a small and nice gallery specialized in American artists fro 1850-1950, also displaying contemporary paintings. I entered there by chance and I found a very nice and competent manager, Ms. Sarah Cunningham, who talked me with great enthusiasm about each art work there.

I enjoyed the most the industrial landscapes of Dora Atwater Millikin. She is looking for the industrial aspects in the scenery of coastal New England, because these poles, and wires, and cars, offer a universe of colors in nuances and contrasts: between black and white, gray and blue. Thus, this urban-industrial-gritty is for the artist an alphabet used to create words and sentences where the words compete or cooperate, and these words are tones of color.

(Boston)

Newbury Street in Boston

If I were to choose which Bostonian street I am more enthusiastic about, Newbury Street would be the answer. It is full of small cafes, and small art galleries, and small funny stores. It is always full of great young people who give this street with small Londonian houses the air of a Parisian Rive Gauche place.

(Boston)

July 4th: The DUKW from Boston Museum of Science

Don't worry, it's just a duck :) It is now at the Boston Museum of Science (and other DUKWs are through the town, for the joy of tourists and kids). But during WWII this ducks gave the enemy big headaches: just look at this poster.





(Boston)

July 4th: Pullman Car in Boston South Station

For the 4th of July they brought a Pullman car in the Boston South Station






(Boston)

Morning in the Bostonian T

(Boston)

Boston Old State House

I found the building of the Old State House under heavy repairs. The Declaration of Independence was read in Boston from the balcony of the House. It was 1776, July 18.

It is now a busy place, with one of the subway stations in the basement. Cars and buses come in an endless flow, going around a small spot, a sidestreet just in the middle of the road. A huge star is implanted in that sidestreet: the place of the Boston Massacre.

I tried a close up, for a better image of the two animal sculptures: the Lion and the Unicorn.

(Boston)