Stories about painting, sculpture, architecture, history

 "Flowers Behind the Wall" Kateryna Bilokur 1935 Oil on canvas. Museum of Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art Kyiv In 1922, Kateryna Bilokur brought her drawings to the ceramics technical school. It seemed like her flowers and painted cups and plates were a perfect match. But the girl was rejected: she had no education. None at all. Her home in her native Bohdanivka was prosperous. But this prosperity required constant farm labor. School was too far away, and her shoes would wear out. So little Katya wasn't sent to school; she was left to work in the fields and around the house. Drawing, however, was discouraged. How stupid! But she painted anyway. What she saw and loved: flowers. And on her canvases, she often wrote: "Painted from life by K. Bilokur." Although it's hard to find such a natural setting: roses, mallows, lilies, tulips, morning glory—all close together and all blooming at once. Naive art is precisely about an ideal world. Even if there's cold, hu...

Rene Lalique (1860-1945) began his career as a freelance designer creating jewellery for notable French jewellery houses Cartier and Boucheron. By the 1920s he was noted for his glass creations embracing the Art Deco style. Prominent commissions included the creation of vast glass columns for the luxury liner SS Normandie and panels used on the Orient Express. At the core of the auction and of particular interest to classic car enthusiasts is a remarkable collection of all but two of the car mascots he created including some of the rarest and most sought after designs ever created. During the 1920s and 1930s these proved status symbols for wealthy vehicle owners who would attach them to the front of their cars, sometimes being illuminated. These mascots came in the form of stylized female nudes such as Chrysis from 1931 and the iconic Victoire from 1928. Many came in the form of animals such dogs, fish, birds, insects, horses and even a wild boar (Sanglier). The decorative vases and sm...

 📸 Romualdas Rakauskas (1941-2021) was a Lithuanian photographer. His photographs create a poetic narrative of his native land and its people, sensitive and poignant, full of love and tenderness. His works are exhibited at the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, the French National Library in Paris, the International Center of Photography in New York, the Aušra Museum in Šiauliai, and elsewhere. His kind, optimistic works let us know that not all is lost in this world and that there is more good, bright, and kindness around us than there is gloom and doom. The artist invests his whole self, his love, and his kindness in each photograph. The titles of his series speak for themselves: "Blooming," "Happy," and "Land of Inspiration." Romualdas Rakauskas's first solo photography exhibition was called "Tenderness." The master photographer dedicated it to warm human connection. "After graduating from university, I moved from Vilnius to Kaunas, ...