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Irish Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Joanna Lumley: ‘I love Ireland as much as you can if you're not an Irish person'
There are few surprises more pleasant than Joanna Lumley popping up on Zoom and offering a quick tour of her art collection. 'The Princess of the Circus' she declares, tilting her camera to reveal the 1946 Jack B Yeats watercolour that has pride of place on the wall of her home office. 'Ooh-la-la, I never thought I'd get that. When I did, I danced the Highland fling.' Lumley is great fun – full of joie de vivre whether discussing her passion for Irish art, her disapproval of Dublin's Molly Malone statue (more of which later) or her enthusiasm for Netflix's Wednesday , in which she has a starring role as irreverent Addams family grandmother Hester Frump as the blockbusting show returns for a second season on August 6th. In the case of Wednesday, the former Bond girl and Absolutely Fabulous star was delighted at the opportunity to return to Ireland, the official Wednesday Addams HQ following the relocation of production from Romania to Ashford Studios in Wicklow. She explains that she has worked in Wicklow before, filming Ella Enchanted at Ardmore opposite Anne Hathaway and Minnie Driver in 2002. 'To come back to Ireland, where I'd done films at the Ardmore Studios before, and the story of the Addams family, it was magic,' she says. READ MORE She was furthermore thrilled to reconnect with Tim Burton , having collaborated on his 2005 stop-motion feature Corpse Bride. She was also drawn to Wednesday's spooky setting of Nevermore Academy, which, in a roundabout way, reminded her of her own childhood. Lumley was born in India into a military family in the final years of the Raj but lived in Hong Kong and Malaysia until she was eight. When she thinks back to her early life she remembers endless summers and giant flowers that would bloom overnight and disappear just as quickly. She recalls, too, the upheaval of moving to Britain for school: the gloom, the damp, the chill that got in your bones and never left. 'I found Britain unbearably cold,' she says. 'The horror of it was that I could never get warm. But what was so lovely was that, having come from a tropical place – massive storms and no seasons, everything was always green, no leaves falling and different colours, different lengths of days, all that. And I began to love and value that about our countries – looking forward to spring, seeing the buds coming up, is part of this thrill of life.' She was reminded of all of this when she was in Wicklow for Wednesday. As the show returns for its second season, woebegone Wednesday ( Jenna Ortega ) has come back from her summer holidays for a new term at the forbidding Nevermore Academy, a place of darkness, mystery and things going bump into the night. Cold rooms, creaking corridors and enigmatic teachers all conspired to bring Lumley back to her own youth and the draughty boarding school in Hastings, Sussex to which she was sent aged 11. The difference was that, rather than Wednesday's cast of witches and wizards, her instructors were Anglican nuns. Joanna Lumley in her recent travel series Joanna Lumley's Danube. Photograph: Burning Bright Productions/ITV 'They were Anglo-Catholic, as opposed to Catholic. They were what we would call blue stockings in that they were great teachers,' Lumley recalls. 'They taught French and Latin and ancient Greek and chemistry and physics and things. And they didn't try to make us too holy. They wanted us to turn into being good people, interesting people.' There wasn't much luxury – none at all, in fact. Yet she feels the richer for the experience. 'It was a poor school. It didn't have any money. So we had very cold corridors lit by gas lamps and cold little dormitories and little thin iron beds and the windows propped open at night-time. And sometimes you'd wake in the morning, there'd be snow on the floor of the dormitory, or leaves have blown in overnight. The food was pretty grim. But it was such a happy place. It was fine. That sort of not-hardship, but it was quite hard, you know, quite sort of tough. It sets you up for life. Because then it's a hotel you're staying in, if isn't it up to scratch, it's not as bad as school.' School was followed by a stint in modelling and an exciting life in swinging London. Her life on screen began in 1969 as a minor Bond girl in George Lazenby's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It was the start of a career which included Hammer horrors, soaps (she featured in eight episodes of Coronation Street in 1973 as Ken Barlow's girlfriend) and the fantastically weird 1979 BBC sci-fi drama Sapphire and Steel, in which she was winningly chilly as a mordant time traveller. It was 1992, however, before the world realised she could be funny when Jennifer Saunders cast her in Absolutely Fabulous as ghastly fashionista Patsy. A huge hit, the show revealed Lumley to be a gifted comedian – a talent she showcases dazzlingly in Wednesday, where she holds her own against the deadpan Ortega. 'I was always the sort of the clown of the family. So it was quite odd, actually, when I started acting, never to be cast in funny parts – always to be some strait-laced, pretty girlfriend or something,' she says. 'So boring, so awful. So you can imagine when Absolutely Fabulous came along, and one was allowed to let rip, it was fantastic. The more Jennifer and I made each other laugh, the more she would write madder and madder scenes. The more ghastly the women became, the more we loved them.' Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley in Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie Wednesday series one was a huge global hit for Burton and Netflix in 2022; it made a star of Jenna Ortega and scooped multiple Emmys. The show remains in the same deliciously glum groove in season two, for which production has shifted from Romania to Ashford. The cast has expanded, too, to include Steve Buscemi (as Nevermore's new principal) and Lady Gaga (whose part is shrouded in mystery). But these starry newcomers will have their work cut out outshining Lumley's impish Hester – mother to Catherine Zeta-Jones's Morticia Addams and grandmother to Wednesday. Lumley is a whirlwind unleashed upon unsuspecting Nevermore and, at 79, retains her comic timing. Ever the eager-beaver girl scout, she threw herself into the production and enjoyed every moment – even the long hours in the make-up chair. 'The care that they took to make this brand new character, a grandmother – mother of Morticia, grandmother of Wednesday – to make her look the way they wanted it,' she says. 'I had two wigs. They prepare your hair so all your hair has gone, gone, gone away. Scraped and waxed and pin, pin, pinned back, and then a wig cap on. Then the first wig was white, and then the next wig was black, on top of the white one. I can't tell you the time and brilliance they did. Doing it every day like that. So it was fantastic. And then the clothes are quite corseted and these heavy boots you're pushed into.' Hester is a naughty older confidante to Wednesday – encouraging her granddaughter's rebellious streak to the disapproval of the more sensible Morticia. Lumley sees something of her teenage self in Wednesday – a kindly soul but a bit of a rule-breaker too. 'I was polite, so I wasn't horrid. But I was probably quite naughty. Naughtiness in those days, breaking bounds, meant staying out after lights or going beyond the games field where you weren't supposed. So it was all quite humble stuff.' She said yes to Wednesday on the spot, drawn to the spooky material and keen to collaborate once more with Tim Burton. The other big attraction was the chance to work again in Ireland and explore her passion for WB Yeats and his artist brother Jack. The love affair with Irish culture is a long-running one. She recalls crossing paths with Edna O'Brien at dinner parties in the 1970s and grows starry eyed discussing her fondness for the country's most famous poets. 'I met Seamus Heaney once,' she says. 'I was trembling so much I could hardly get my copy of Rattle Bag out. And I said to [English poet] Ted Hughes, who I knew slightly, 'Do you think Mr Heaney would sign this?' And he said, 'Well, just go and ask him. He'll only sign if he wants to.' With shaking hands, I went up and he signed my book for me.' She has fond memories of visiting Sligo in June 2015 to participate in the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of WB Yeats's birth. She cut the ribbon for the Yeats garden at the Model arts centre and read from his work at Hargadon's pub. She is every bit as keen on Jack B Yeats – as she demonstrates when tilting her camera to reveal The Princess of the Circus. 'WB, I have poems stuck everywhere. I have some of them by heart. Jack Yeats, who I came to quite late – I was simply blown away.' Joanna Lumley at the Chelsea Flower Show in London in May. Photograph:for The King's Trust To her delight Netflix put her up at the Merrion Hotel – across the road from the National Gallery, with its collection of Yeats's paintings. She took in other landmarks – including the Molly Malone statue, the 'notorious Tart with the Cart' whose appendages are enthusiastically – and controversially – fondled by tourists. This is a subject close to her heart. 'Oh, look, Ed, can you write this? Please? This really meant something so much to me, because I love Ireland as much as you can if you're not an Irish person. When I eventually saw the statue of Molly Malone and her very low-cut dress and everyone touching her ... Listen to the song: 'In Dublin's Fair City ... she wheels her wheelbarrow.' Now she was a little fishmonger. She was as pretty as a picture, but she probably had a shawl around her head. Little girl up from the docks, smelling of fish, with a little narrow waist and a little white beautiful face – that Irish colour, sheet-white with black hair, green eyes. She wasn't a blousy great woman with a dress down to here. So the statue is wrong.' She pauses for emphasis. 'Okay, this is my long, long-winded way, Ed, of saying: make a proper Molly Malone statue.' Wednesday Addams's dorm room sits in magnificently creepy silence. It is dominated by that famous spider-pattern window, with its melodramatic views over Nevermore Academy. To one side, Wednesday's typewriter is set on a table next to a bare-boned bed. The walls at the opposite end are festooned in colour – the favoured style of Wednesday's quirky best friend and roommate, Enid. To reach Wednesday's inner sanctum and her boarding school, Nevermore, the traveller must take a long and winding road, the M11, which stretches from Dublin's M50 into deepest Wicklow – and which leads to Ashford Studios, where cameras have rolled on one of the world's biggest TV shows since early 2024. Wednesday series one was shot in Romania. But Ireland was always the first choice for showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, and when studio space finally became available, they enthusiastically upped sticks. Ireland was more accessible than central Europe, and much further from Ukraine, which Russia invaded when the production team was putting the final touches to the first season. 'We shot our last series [Into the Badlands] here. So we've been to Ireland before. We love it so and it's been fantastic,' says Gough. The nice thing about being in Ireland, which I completely appreciate about the Irish, is that they don't give a damn about celebrities — Showrunner Alfred Gough He is speaking to The Irish Times from his production office on the first floor at Ashford – next door to the dressingroom of Catherine Zeta-Jones (who plays Wednesday's mother, Morticia Addams) and up the stairs from the studio space housing Wednesday's dorm and Nevermore's gleefully grotesque new science lab – in part inspired by Dublin's 'Dead Zoo' aka the Natural History Museum on Merrion Square. It's a 'closed set', meaning journalists are not allowed within gawping distance of the cast. So there is no opportunity to watch Jenna Ortega reprise her part as woebegone Wednesday or executive producer Tim Burton return to direct four of the eight episodes in his distinctively baroque style. Nor is there confirmation of the presence of Lady Gaga , rumoured to have flown in to Wicklow to shoot a cameo the previous week. Gough is avuncular in that gosh-darn American way. He is also a proven hitmaker, as demonstrated by series such as Smallville and Into the Badlands, the Wicklow-filmed fantasy caper that has a loyal cult audience. Wednesday, however, is a success on an entirely different scale. When it launched in 2022, it became one of the world's most beloved binge watches more or less overnight, propelling Ortega to instant stardom. 'Do you anticipate that? No,' says Gough. 'We thought the show was good. And we thought it would appeal to the audience everybody thought it would appeal to [ie Addams Family and Burton fans]. Then when it kind of became this other thing ... That's a combination of factors.' He feels Wednesday is the perfect heroine for troubled times. While outwardly hostile and aloof, underneath she is vulnerable and unsure of herself – an introvert in an extrovert's world. Coming out of the pandemic, millions identified with a shy young woman who wanted nothing more than to be given the space to be herself. Gough nods. 'It was the right show at the right time, where, clearly, everybody identified with Wednesday and feels like an outcast.' Joonas Suotamo, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jenna Ortega, Isaac Ordonez and Luis Guzmán in series two of Wednesday. Photograph: Helen Sloan/Netflix Several factors contribute to a hit such as Wednesday, he continues. Ortega was a star in the making, having appeared in Netflix's You and Yes Day, while Burton, director of the 1989 Batman movie and of Beetlejuice, has a significant following. And the Addams Family has brand recognition – largely thanks to the early 1990s films starring a young Christina Ricci as Wednesday. But sometimes it's all down to luck, feels Gough. 'That's just when you hit the culture at a certain point. We had that experience with Smallville,' he says, referring to the all-American Superman prequel which celebrated the wholesomeness of small-town life. 'Smallville came out in 2001, a month after 9/11, and it was suddenly like comfort food for the American soul. Everybody needed a hero and that. Some of these things you can't predict. But then I do think it speaks to the power of Netflix and the power of that platform.' [ Wednesday: The Addams Family gets a Gen Z twist – and Tim Burton gets his mojo back Opens in new window ] Wednesday is set in rural Vermont – for which Wicklow was the perfect stand-in. The producers made full use of dark and mysterious forests around Roundwood – and of 18th-century Powerscourt Estate, which it repurposed as the palatial residence of Hester Frump, Wednesday's impish grandmother, played by Lumley. A favourable tax regime helped too: Ireland recently improved its Section 481 film and TV incentives, raising the cap on eligible expenditure from €70 million to €125 million (each of Wednesday's eight new episodes carries a reported budget of around €17 million). 'We tried to get here in season one, and it was right after the pandemic, when the world, at least the film world, was opening up again,' says Gough. 'And literally between Brexit and the rush of other productions, we couldn't. There was no stage. Our last show was called Into the Badlands. And the old warehouses that we had shot in, I think, had become Covid test centres or, like, package depots because of Brexit. So we ended up in Romania season one, which worked out great. It gave us all the space that we needed, but it wasn't conducive for a long-term television show. When we had the opportunity to come to Ireland, we all jumped on it.' Gough acknowledges there is pressure – after Stranger Things and Squid Game, Wednesday is Netflix's bigger franchise. The streamer has doubled the budget for series two, but there are also concerns over whether its audience has remained loyal; after all, the 14-year-olds who went crazy for Wednesday's goth chic in 2022 will be 17 in 2025 and may have moved on. Gough tries not to get bogged down in any of that. He quotes Quentin Tarantino's mantra about film-making: ultimately, you have to create something you yourself would wish to watch. 'If we don't love it, how are we supposed to expect anyone else to love it?' he says. 'We have a very high bar for ourselves. It's harder, obviously, with all the noise, and it obviously affects the actors and other things. And you know, we're not some little show in the middle of eastern Europe this year.' Amid the hype, he feels Ireland has kept everyone grounded – one final magical ingredient sprinkled into Netflix's bubbling, boiling bingewatch cauldron. 'If we had been in America trying to shoot the show, or even in the UK, we'd have a lot of paparazzi. There'd be a lot of spoiler pictures. We've had very little of that,' he says. 'The nice thing about being in Ireland, which I completely appreciate about the Irish is that they don't give a damn about celebrities. You do not care.'
Forbes
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
5 Luxurious Reasons To Stay At Rosewood Amsterdam During Your Next Netherlands Trip
Rosewood Amsterdam Ten years in the making, the Rosewood Amsterdam opened its doors in May, canal-side on the illustrious Prinsengracht. It features an astounding art collection, spacious spa, multiple dining and drinking options, and many historic architectural details. Meticulously blending old and new, this property is equally appealing to design lovers and history buffs. Here are five reasons you'll want to check out this luxury hotel, either as an overnight guest or to meet for a meal or cocktail. Rosewood Amsterdam 1. The Last Monumental Hotel Once the Netherlands' Palace of Justice, Rosewood Amsterdam is the very last hotel constructed within a monumental building in the city of Amsterdam. Open just in time for Amsterdam's 750th anniversary, the building featured Neo-Classical architecture which can be seen and felt through grand staircases, intricate woodwork and decorative ceilings which have been preserved during the property's construction. To breathe new life into the building Rosewood Amsterdam worked with Studio Piet Boon to add sophisticated natural materials and bespoke furnishings. The rooms feature distinctly Dutch Delft blue touches and curated artifacts that make it feel like you're staying in a well-lived in home rather than an interchangeable space. Rosewood Amsterdam 2. 1000+ Art Works Art plays an integral part of your stay from the moment you arrive at Rosewood Amsterdam. You're greeted by 'Statica', an interactive artwork by Studio Molen (Frederik Molenschot) which references the city and its inhabitants. While a lot of art is there to observe, this artwork is composed of hundreds of individual pieces which you can move and play around with to make it your own experience. In the grand hall you'll see large colorful reliefs from artists Frank Stella, Olyka I and Jablonow III. A nearby illuminated hallway bathes you in a variety of colors and moods by Amsterdam-based visual arts duo Children of the Light. Art lovers can even take something home during their stay when they purchase a marble object from the Art Vending Machine by Casper Braat. Rosewood Amsterdam 3. Indoor and Outdoor Dining The central courtyard of Rosewood Amsterdam is a visual focal point and central gathering spot of the hotel. The restaurant Eeuwen serves breakfast, lunch and dinner with both indoor and outdoor seating. During the summer you can enjoy a late sunset eating fresh oysters, sipping champagne, and a tasty seabass with mussels and Dutch shrimp. During the colder months you can still get the outdoor experience in one of their glass ceiling event spaces which lets you experience the elements without braving brisk weather. You can also come here for cocktails at Advocatuur which serves craft cocktails and Indian-inspired bites. The bar is flanked by their in-house genever distillery, a nod to the Netherlands' rich distilling heritage. One of the bartenders may also show you their 'secret' genever room which is located in what was once a prison cell for a clandestine tipple. Rosewood Amsterdam 4. Signature Suites Those looking for spacious and grand accommodations will love Rosewood Amsterdam's 5 signature suites which rival apartments in size. The Library Suite is located in what was once the library of the Palace of Justice and features unique touches like a designer raincoat to use during your stay. Referencing the old prison doors which were covered with various scribblings, the luxurious modern bathroom is covered with a contemporary interpretation of handwriting to add a little irreverence. Rosewood Amsterdam 5. Private Boat Overlooking the canal, you can't help but crave a boat tour when you stay at Rosewood Amsterdam which is why you'll love their private salon boat which was designed by Studio Piet Boon. Explore the city waterways in style when you book a boat tour through the hotel. Spacious, light and with thoughtful touches everywhere you turn, a stay at Rosewood Amsterdam is a celebration of old and new. You can spend your day enjoying the hotel's various amenities and you're also centrally located to explore the city.
Daily Mail
29-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Anything but Maggie! Private emails reveal how Starmer ordered removal of Thatcher's portrait from No10 study - as Reeves set all-woman rule for art in No11 snubbing Gladstone and Disraeli
Private emails have revealed how Keir Starmer demanded Margaret Thatcher 's portrait was replaced with 'anything' in the Downing Street study. The PM previously said the image of the Tory doyenne was taken down because he does not like 'pictures of people staring down at me'. But correspondence with the Government Art Collection, obtained by MailOnline under freedom of information rules, suggest he less worried about what went in place of the painting than it being moved 'as soon as possible'. Meanwhile, separate exchanges with Rachel Reeves ' team have revealed her determination that all the art in the Treasury would be either of women or created by women. Incoming ministers are entitled to use any of the 15,000 art works that make up the Government Art Collection to decorate their offices in any way they see fit. Priority on choices is given based on seniority, with the displays regarded as a way to project British soft power during official visits. The painting of Baroness Thatcher, by Richard Stone, was originally installed by Gordon Brown despite complaints from left-wingers. GAC officials offered to come to see the PM and 'present some options and talk through the artwork' Depicting Lady Thatcher just after the Falklands War in 1982, the reputed £100,000 cost was covered by an anonymous donor. The work was placed in her former No10 study, unofficially tagged the Thatcher Room. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport initially rejected the FOI request as 'vexatious' before relenting and supplying emails covering two months after the general election. However, personal details of junior staff and material 'out of scope' has been redacted. A message from the facilities manager at No10 to the GAC on August 5 - as the country was being wracked by summer riots - said: 'I've been asked to have the Thatcher painting in the Study swapped out for anything else! Any suggestions as to what we could replace it with and how soon?!?!' Red Ellen: The flame-haired Communist who became a Labour minister Ellen Wilkinson, whose picture Rachel Reeves requested for the wall of her office, was a founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain who went on to become a minister under Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee. Born in Manchester in 1891 to a working class family she went to university and became a suffragist and socialist activist at a young age, travelling to Russia after the resolution and meeting Leon Trotsky and Lenin's wife. She became known as 'Red Ellen', a nod to both her hair and her socialist politics. She went on to have a leading role in the Jarrow Crusade, the 1936 march from Tyne and Wear to London to protest against high unemployment. She served as MP for Middlesbrough East from 1924 to 1931, as one of the first female members of parliament. During this time she supported the 1926 General Strike. She was elected MP for Jarrow in 1937 and held the seat until her death in 1947, aged 55. Despite her socialist politics she served in the wartime coalition government at the Ministry of Home security. After the war, despite being involved in attempts to remove Clement Attlee as Labour leader, she was made education secretary. Wilkinson featured in Reeves' 2019 book, Women of Westminster: The MPs Who Changed Politics. The now Chancellor wrote: 'When Ellen Wilkinson was elected, she decided to defy convention by entering the Smoking Room. She was stopped at the door by a policeman who informed her that ladies did not usually enter. '''I am not a lady,'' she responded curtly. ''I am a Member of Parliament,'' as she pushed the door open. These acts of defiance, determination and courage brought about a sea change in the cosy male club that had previously existed.' The official followed up the message the next morning, saying they had received an out of office response and is there 'someone else that can help'. 'It is a PM request and he is keen to get something else in to replace that painting sooner rather than later,' they added. A GAC staffer replied asking for a 'steer on the PM's art preference'. After one of their colleagues weighed in to point out that the Thatcher portrait was not a GAC piece, the No10 aide wrote back: 'Exactly. Not sure where we will place the Thatcher painting. I just know we need to replace it with another piece and preferably a GAC piece as soon as possible.' Last September, Sir Keir told the BBC his decision to take down the picture was 'not actually about Margaret Thatcher at all'. 'I use the study for quietly reading most afternoons... where there is a difficult paper,' he said. 'This is not actually about Margaret Thatcher at all. I don't like images and pictures of people staring down at me. 'I've found it all my life. When I was a lawyer I used to have pictures of judges. I don't like it. I like landscapes. 'This is my study, it is my private place where I got to work. I didn't want a picture of anyone.' The Thatcher portrait has reportedly since been hung in a first-floor meeting room. Downing Street sources denied that Sir Keir's words clashed with the content of the emails. Tory MP Stuart Andrew, the shadow culture secretary, told MailOnline: 'Instead of focusing on the real issues that affect the lives of the British people, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves wasted precious time in office on petty, divisive actions like tearing down portraits of Conservative women who made Britain better. 'Starmer's leadership is unravelling before our eyes, and if he doesn't get a grip soon, the damage to Britain will be irreversible. 'This Government needs to stop playing politics with history and start delivering real results for British people.' Fellow Tory MP Mark Francois, a shadow defence minister, said: 'Given all his travails over winter fuel payments and then benefit cuts, you might think having a portrait of a strong and decisive PM, like Mrs Thatcher, in his office would be a good omen - but apparently not. 'Unlike her, it seems Sir Keir was for turning, over his choice of art - along with just about everything else.' At the end of July GAC officials proposed a rehang of 11 Downing Street that included 'an emphasis' on 'notable women artists and sitters'. But it did propose hanging some works by and of men, including King James II. An aide to Ms Reeves replied: 'On No11 as a whole, and feeding into the proposed rehang of the State Room, Rachel would like the paintings all to be of women or by women. 'That would reinforce Rachel's message to the Treasury as the first female Chancellor, it would be significant (has it been done before in Downing Street or an equivalent Government building?) and it could amplify GAC's work celebrating the Representation of the People Act Centenary. 'This would be difference to the proposed rehang, although clearly some elements could still work. 'On portraits, it would point to having female portraits.' The message added: 'On the Chancellor's study, there is quite a lot of interest in Rachel's choice of the person to put behind the desk. 'Please treat in confidence and not yet final, but Rachel would like a picture of Ellen Wilkinson here.... Elsewhere in the room, she would also like a picture of Emeline Pankhurst if possible.' 'More generally, Rachel welcomed Eliza's suggestion that it would be possible to lift the feel of the room and (would) welcome suggestions on abstracts, landscape or still life paintings by women. 'In line with the theme above, this would mean moving the picture of Gladstone and the busts of Gladstone and Disraeli.' Jewish Conservative peer Disraeli served as Chancellor several times and headed British imperial policy as Prime Minister twice. There have long been attacks on Liberal PM Gladstone over his family's involvement in slavery - with calls for statues to be removed and civic buildings renamed. The emails also laid out what Ms Reeves wanted in her No10 flat, requesting pictures that would link to her Leeds constituency. However, the Chancellor seemed less keen on an unspecified work by Anthony Gormley and Double Deathshead by the Chapman brothers. In September last year, Ms Reeves told an all-female reception at No 11: 'This is King James behind me, but next week the artwork in this room is going to change. 'Every picture in this room is either going to be of a woman or by a woman - and we're also going to have a statue in this room of (suffragist) Millicent Fawcett, who did so much for the rights of women.'
New York Times
27-06-2025
- General
- New York Times
Scorched Stumps and Spotless Art at the Reopening Getty Villa
When visitors arrive at the Getty Villa's gate and granite pillar, they will almost immediately be confronted by a Los Angeles hillside that has been changed — and charred. The eucalyptus trees have been intentionally pruned, their blackened stumps protruding from the ground at sharp, jagged angles. The devastation is hard to miss, said Camille Kirk, the Getty's sustainability director. 'We have to acknowledge the burn,' she said. The museum that is as famous for its stunning landscape as for its art collection is reopening on Friday on grounds that have been licked by flames. Nearly six months after the Palisades fire carved its way through the neighborhood and came knocking at the museum's door, the best way to understand its significance may be to notice what is no longer there. Roughly 1,400 trees burned beyond saving, many which once shaded the now barren hills that stretch out around the 65-acre property. The melted P.V.C. pipe that had made up the museum's irrigation system in those hillsides has been removed. Gone too is the rosemary, zapped by flare-ups, that once decorated the concrete ledges that encircle the museum. That is how close the flames got. Less than a football field from a Greek and Roman treasure trove. But while the grounds were damaged — the hills on all sides were enveloped, the museum quite literally surrounded by fire — officials say the campus buildings and galleries were never ablaze. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Bloomberg
26-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Small Pennsylvania College to Auction Art Collection in Bid for Cash
Albright College, a small liberal arts school in Reading, Pennsylvania, is parting with its art collection that has included works by Salvador Dali and Robert Rauschenberg. The college is selling several of its pieces in a public auction to raise money to support student programs and academic endeavors, according to a statement on the school's website. Albright is also working with the Reading Public Museum to transfer select works.
