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Stopping off at Cardiff city centre to hear how Cardiff Council has made it accessible, and then Techniquest in Cardiff Bay for some hands-on science!
One of these buildings is not like the other. I believe all four of those buildings were once Rudnick's a uniform and clothing store that closed in 2013.
Stopping off at Cardiff city centre to hear how Cardiff Council has made it accessible, and then Techniquest in Cardiff Bay for some hands-on science!
Just HAD to be different ... didn't ya? ;-)
Taken in Holland, MI ... in advance of the Tulip Time festival. I'm figuring the "peak" for the flowers isn't going to be for at least a week or so (it's been cool, and not terribly sunny in Holland this Spring).
Standout stripes. Our seersucker comforter cover and sham offer a unique spin on classic seersucker—bolder and brighter in fresh punchy stripes. Printed on 100% crisp cotton percale, this spirited seersucker duvet cover and sham coordinate perfectly with our Nantucket printed percale bedding. The cheery stripes mix and mingle with the shades of peacock blue and meadow green to create quintessential summer style that lights up your bedroom. Brimming with easy-going chic, our cheery seersucker comforter cover and sham are essential building blocks for spot-on seasonal bedding. The right comforter cover can refresh the ambiance of your whole room. See what a difference carefree seersucker stripes make in the look and feel of your bedroom.
Stopping off at Cardiff city centre to hear how Cardiff Council has made it accessible, and then Techniquest in Cardiff Bay for some hands-on science!
Stopping off at Cardiff city centre to hear how Cardiff Council has made it accessible, and then Techniquest in Cardiff Bay for some hands-on science!
Although all the rooms of the Rone - Empire installation exhibition are amazing for many different reasons, there are two major standouts. The Study is one of them. It features walls of books covered with a portrait of Lily Sullivan, and the entire room is partially submerged in a lake of black water with the occasional red oak leaf floating across its glassy surface.
Melbourne based street artist Rone (Tyrone Wright) used the decaying glory of the 1933 Harry Norris designed Streamline Moderne mansion, Burnham Beeches in the Dandenong Ranges' Sherbrooke, between March the 6th and April 22nd to create an immersive hybrid art space for his latest installation exhibition; "Empire".
"Empire" combined a mixture of many different elements including art, sound, light, scent, found objects, botanic designs, objects from nature and music especially composed for the project by Nick Batterham. The Burnham Beeches project re-imagines and re-interprets the spirit of one of Victoria’s landmark mansions, seldom seen by the public and not accessed since the mid 1980s. According to Rone - Empire website; "viewers are invited to consider what remains - the unseen cultural, social, artistic and spiritual heritage which produces intangible meaning."
Rone was invited by the current owner of Burnham Beeches, restaurateur Shannon Bennett, to exhibit "Empire" during a six week interim period before renovations commence to convert the heritage listed mansion into a select six star hotel.
Rone initially imagined the mansion to be in a state of dereliction, but found instead that it was a stripped back blank canvas for him to create his own version of how he thought it should look. Therefore, almost all the decay is in fact of Rone's creation from grasses in the Games Room which 'grow' next to a rotting billiards table, to the damp patches, water staining and smoke damage on the ceilings. Nests of leaves fill some spaces, whilst tree branches and in one case an entire avenue of boughs sprout from walls and ceilings. Especially designed Art Deco wallpaper created in Rone's studio has been installed on the walls before being distressed and damaged. The rooms have been adorned with furnishings and objects that might once have graced the twelve original rooms of Burnham Beeches: bulbulous club sofas, half round Art Deco tables, tarnished silverware and their canteen, mirrored smoke stands of chrome and Bakelite, glass lamps, English dinner services, a glass drinks trolley, photos of people long forgotten in time, walnut veneer dressing tables reflecting the installation sometimes in triplicate, old wire beadsteads, luggage, shelves of books, an Underwood typewriter, a John Broadwood and Sons of London grand piano and even a Kriesler radiogramme. All these objects were then covered in a thick sheet or light sprinkling of 'dust' made of many different things including coffee grinds and talcum powder, creating a sensation for the senses. Burnham Beeches resonated with a ghostly sense of its former grandeur, with a whiff of bittersweet romance.
Throughout the twelve rooms, magnificent and beautifully haunting floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall portraits of Australian actress Lily Sullivan, star of the Foxtel re-make of Picnic at Hanging Rock, appear. Larger than life, each portrait is created in different colours, helping to create seasonal shifts as you move from room to room.
Although all the rooms are amazing for many different reasons, there are two major standouts. The Study is one. The Dining Room features two long tables covered in a Miss Havisham like feast of a trove of dinner table objects from silverware and glassware to empty oyster shells and vases of grasses and feathers.
The Dining Room installation I found especially confronting. In 1982, I visited Burnham Beeches when it was a smart and select hotel and had Devonshire tea in the dining room at a table alongside the full length windows overlooking the terraces below. I was shocked to see a room I remember appointed with thick carpets and tables covered in gleaming silver and white napery, strewn with dust and leaves, and adorned with Miss Havisham's feast of found dining objects.
I feel very honoured and privileged to be amongst the far too few people fortunate enough to have seen Rone's "Empire", as like the seasons, it is ephemeral, and it will already have been dismantled. Rone's idea is that, like his street art, things he creates don't last forever, and that made the project exciting. I hope that my photographs do justice to, and adequately share as much as is possible of this amazing installation with you.
A Yellow-Headed Blackbird stands out among reeds in Pintail Lake at Allen Severson Memorial Wildlife Area in Show Low, Arizona, U.S.A. (June 1, 2025).
Photo © 2025 Marcie Heacox, all rights reserved. For use by permission only. Contact maheacox [at] gmail.com .
Frankly, I wouldn't mind seeing many MORE cars this colour. Throw in some turquoise, mint green, and canary yellow too. Today's vehicles are just so DULL looking!
Jewels/Theme V - 1985
Eldzier Cortor
Artist, American, 1916 - 2015
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With Passion and Purpose
Gifts from the Collection of Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson
June 7 - October 5, 2025
Locations East Building, Mezzanine — Gallery 214
See standout works by Black artists from the past century, newly gifted to the Nation.
For over four decades, Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson have championed the work of Black artists. They have supported exhibitions and scholarship as they built a remarkable collection that spans 100 years of Black creativity in America.
This exhibition celebrates the recent and promised gifts of 175 works from the Thompsons to the National Gallery—the largest group of objects by Black artists to enter our collection at one time. Explore more than 60 paintings, sculpture, drawings, and prints organized in sections around themes of music and abstraction, figuration and portraiture, civil rights and social politics, as well as landscape and transcultural connections and influences.
Works range from a captivating portrait by Beauford Delaney and lyrical abstractions by Mildred Thompson to a towering allegorical woodcut by Alison Saar and an intricate sculpture of found objects by vanessa german. Enjoy works by renowned artists—Jacob Lawrence, Archibald Motley, and Kara Walker—and discover artists you may not yet know, such as Camille Billops, Vivian Browne, Moe Brooker, and Alonzo Davis.
www.nga.gov/exhibitions/passion-and-purpose
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"In April of this year, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC announced that it received a substantial gift of more than one hundred seventy artworks by Black American artists from art collectors Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson. “The breadth of artistic achievement across media and styles in this transformative gift enriches the story of American art that we can share with our visitors,” Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art, stated in the press release. The National Gallery of Art collection includes one hundred sixty thousand artworks that span the history of Western art from the Middle Ages to the contemporary moment, but although the collection covers a huge period of time, its holdings are not as diverse as the people who live and work in the Western world. The Thompsons’ gift is the largest gift of Black art the museum has ever received, and because Western art is so heavily Eurocentric, the Thompsons’ gift is, indeed, “transformative”—and vital.
The exhibition With Passion and Purpose: Gifts from the Collection of Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson, on view at the museum until October 5, features sixty paintings and sculptures from the collection. The donation spans one hundred years and features works by well-known artists, including Jacob Lawrence and Kara Walker, and more obscure artists like Moe Booker and Alonzo Davis. The collection is diverse in style, subject matter, and genre, featuring representational portraits to abstract paintings.
The four galleries that make up With Passion and Purpose are curated by Kanitra Fletcher, associate curator of African American and Afro-Diasporic Art; Shelley Langdale, curator and head of the department of modern prints and drawings; Claudia Watts, research assistant; and Emily Wehby, curatorial assistant, all of the National Gallery of Art. Vibrant abstract works greet the viewer upon arrival, setting up for a dynamic exhibition of varied artistic styles and subjects. While many artworks express narratives about Black America, not all of them take on such an arduous task; others celebrate beauty and joy. Artworks like Mento, 1968 by Mavis Pusey and Untitled, 1971 by Daniel LaRue Johnson exude the transformative nature of the post-civil rights moment they were created in. Other artworks like Sweeping Beauty, 1997 by Alison Saar and New York Rail, 1993 by Radcliffe Bailey illustrate Black life by expressing narratives that speak to harsh historical realities.
Sweeping Beauty, a woodcut on Okawara Natural Paper, depicts the figure of a pregnant nude woman positioned upside down, rendered in yellow pigment against a red and black background. The play on the classic children’s story Sleeping Beauty is evident, but Saar subverts the stereotypical female figure who is required to be chaste and dainty. The bold colors defy misogynist desires for women to be demure. For Black women, being modest was not always a choice, as from the time African women stepped onto American soil in the 1600s, they were relegated to chattel, and poked, prodded, and examined as such. Saar’s artwork of the nude figure might be also reckoning with the reality that Black women for so long were domestics made to clean and sweep. In these roles, Black women were not respected for their full humanity, and they were often forced to succumb to unwanted advances from their enslavers and bosses. Saar’s artwork is layered: her depiction of a fertility goddess highlights the notion that Black women birthed a workforce, and the figure’s hair sweeping the floor alludes to domestic servitude.
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With Passion and Purpose: Black Collectors Complicate Western Art Culture
on artessay
Shantay Robinson
Alison Saar
Sweeping Beauty,1997
3-color woodcut on Okawara Natural Paper
overall: 193.04 × 83.82 cm (76 × 33 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Promised Gift of Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson
© Alison Saar. Courtesy of L.A. Louver, Venice, CA
In April of this year, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC announced that it received a substantial gift of more than one hundred seventy artworks by Black American artists from art collectors Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson. “The breadth of artistic achievement across media and styles in this transformative gift enriches the story of American art that we can share with our visitors,” Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art, stated in the press release. The National Gallery of Art collection includes one hundred sixty thousand artworks that span the history of Western art from the Middle Ages to the contemporary moment, but although the collection covers a huge period of time, its holdings are not as diverse as the people who live and work in the Western world. The Thompsons’ gift is the largest gift of Black art the museum has ever received, and because Western art is so heavily Eurocentric, the Thompsons’ gift is, indeed, “transformative”—and vital.
The exhibition With Passion and Purpose: Gifts from the Collection of Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson, on view at the museum until October 5, features sixty paintings and sculptures from the collection. The donation spans one hundred years and features works by well-known artists, including Jacob Lawrence and Kara Walker, and more obscure artists like Moe Booker and Alonzo Davis. The collection is diverse in style, subject matter, and genre, featuring representational portraits to abstract paintings.
The four galleries that make up With Passion and Purpose are curated by Kanitra Fletcher, associate curator of African American and Afro-Diasporic Art; Shelley Langdale, curator and head of the department of modern prints and drawings; Claudia Watts, research assistant; and Emily Wehby, curatorial assistant, all of the National Gallery of Art. Vibrant abstract works greet the viewer upon arrival, setting up for a dynamic exhibition of varied artistic styles and subjects. While many artworks express narratives about Black America, not all of them take on such an arduous task; others celebrate beauty and joy. Artworks like Mento, 1968 by Mavis Pusey and Untitled, 1971 by Daniel LaRue Johnson exude the transformative nature of the post-civil rights moment they were created in. Other artworks like Sweeping Beauty, 1997 by Alison Saar and New York Rail, 1993 by Radcliffe Bailey illustrate Black life by expressing narratives that speak to harsh historical realities.
Sweeping Beauty, a woodcut on Okawara Natural Paper, depicts the figure of a pregnant nude woman positioned upside down, rendered in yellow pigment against a red and black background. The play on the classic children’s story Sleeping Beauty is evident, but Saar subverts the stereotypical female figure who is required to be chaste and dainty. The bold colors defy misogynist desires for women to be demure. For Black women, being modest was not always a choice, as from the time African women stepped onto American soil in the 1600s, they were relegated to chattel, and poked, prodded, and examined as such. Saar’s artwork of the nude figure might be also reckoning with the reality that Black women for so long were domestics made to clean and sweep. In these roles, Black women were not respected for their full humanity, and they were often forced to succumb to unwanted advances from their enslavers and bosses. Saar’s artwork is layered: her depiction of a fertility goddess highlights the notion that Black women birthed a workforce, and the figure’s hair sweeping the floor alludes to domestic servitude.
Radcliffe Bailey
NY Rail (Transportation), 1993
cut-and-pasted offset printed paper and painted paper, acrylic paint, and blue crayon on wove paper
sheet: 45.8 x 58.9 cm (18 1/16 x 23 3/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Gift of Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson
2023.145.14
Radcliffe Bailey, who passed away in 2023 and is known for telling Black American narratives through his artwork, is represented here by the six separate paintings that make up his NY Rail. Like Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series, this artwork depicts the migration of Black people from the south and the Caribbean to parts of the United States. For NY Rail (Transportation), Bailey uses an archival photograph of Black people boarding a train, overlayed with a grid of colorful acrylic paint and a depiction of tree limbs with leaves. In NY Rail (Boats Arriving), he paints three and a half row boats, with the word “Mississippi,” “Jamaica,” and “Cuba” written on the sides of them, telling where and how Black people migrated. The background is in coordination with the other paintings in the series, as they incorporate the orange, blue, yellow, and green painted horizontal stripes depicting water and the landscape. In other artworks, NY Rail (Bird of Death) and NY Rail (Death of Infant), the artist illustrates the unfortunate trials faced during the migration. Though optimism drove the migrants, they still faced challenges that led to death in Northern cities, from mob violence to unhealthy environments in ghettos.
Without the stewardship of Black art collectors from the beginning of the early twentieth century when Black art burgeoned due to the New Negro Movement, commonly known as the Harlem Renaissance, the preservation of Black art would not have happened, and the art would be lost. During the early twentieth century, instead of exhibiting in downtown New York museums and galleries, Black artists exhibited their work in libraries, churches, and private homes. In 1921, the 135th Street Branch of the New York Public Library in Harlem held its first exhibition by African American artists. The library became a focal point for the Harlem Renaissance. Today, the library is known as the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, after Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, who was fundamental to the movement and in 1926 contributed his collection of more than four thousand books to the library for $10,000 furnished by the Carnegie Corporation. Black American artists were excluded from the art establishment largely until the mid to late twentieth century when postmodern conceptual art started to become popular. Because of this exclusion, museum collections around the country lack art that represents historical Black narratives. But today, museums are beginning to acquire art that fills the historical gaps in their collections through the generosity of collectors like the Thompsons, University of Georgia emeritus trustees, who have been collecting art since 1980. In 2011, they donated one hundred artworks to the Georgia Museum of Art, and in 2008, they gifted thirty nine artworks to the David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, College Park. Collectors Walter O. and Linda Evans, who hold one of the largest collections of Black art, gifted the Telfair Museums thirty artworks; Seteria and Najee Dorsey, founders of Black Art in America, gifted the Columbus Museum fifteen artworks; and Constance E. Clayton, an educator and civic leader who collected Black art over fifty years, gifted the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art more than seventy artworks.
Without Black art collectors, so much of the artwork by Black artists would be forgotten. With the loss of the physical art, the impalpable sensibilities of Black life throughout varied stages of history would not be preserved. Black collectors have cared for their collections and also contributed to the dissemination of the art and ideas through gifts to institutions that benefit from the inclusion of Black history. These Black collectors who steward Black art are making judgments on what should be preserved in a field that is dominated by western culture’s Eurocentric gaze. And though Black collectors have gifted historically Black institutions, including Clark Atlanta University, Hampton Unviersity, and Howard University, with artworks throughout African American art’s history, it is notable that the Thompsons are Black collectors making a profound contribution to one of the most highly regarded collections in the United States—the National Gallery of Art.
Shantay Robinson, educator and art writer, lives in Northern Virginia. Her work has appeared regularly in ARTnews, Smithsonian Magazine, Black Art in America, and other notable publications where she primarily writes about Black Art. She holds a PhD in Writing and Rhetoric from George Mason University."
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Taking in Glasgow Climbing Centre, two of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games venues - the Emirates Arena and Tollcross International Swimming Pool. Joining us today are Scott Cunningham and his guide dog, Milo.