Little robots of centuries past
Were these the first robots? “Miracles and Machines: A Sixteenth-Century Automaton and Its Legend,” by Elizabeth King and W. David Todd (Getty Publications, 245 pp., $45) by Bondo Wyszpolski The automaton of the subtitle is a walking and gesticulating figure of a friar, referred to, however, as “the monk,” and it dates back to mid-sixteenth-century […]
The elegant photography of Rodney Smith
A man who loved beautiful things Rodney Smith: A Leap of Faith, by Paul Martineau (Getty Publications, 248 pp; $65) by Bondo Wyszpolski This is as much a luxury item as it is a volume of elegant, bewitching photographs, and it complements similarly-related books that Getty curator of photographs Paul Martineau has written for the […]
Artist Samuel Palmer: Entranced by Nature
Rural romantic “A Memoir of Samuel Palmer,” by Samuel Palmer, A.H. Palmer, and F.G. Stephens (Getty Publications, 96 pp., $10.95) by Bondo Wyszpolski In addition to its often meaty and handsome art catalogues, the Getty has since 2018 been releasing a series of low-priced, small-format paperbacks under the general title of “Lives of the Artists.” […]
Dora Maar, we hardly knew you!
Can we take a rain check? Dora Maar, Surrealist painter and photographer Originally I might have titled this piece “No longer a footnote,” but the scheduled exhibition of Dora Maar’s photography, photo-collages, and paintings never made it to the Getty. However, the show, which originated at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, traveled to the Tate […]