Bob Duggan
Contributing Writer
Bob Duggan has Master’s Degrees in English Literature and Education and is not afraid to use them. Born and raised in Philadelphia, PA, he has always been fascinated by art and brings an informed amateur’s eye to the conversation.
Half a million people die annually in the United States from substance abuse or addiction, which represents 1 in 5 deaths overall. One-half trillion dollars are lost annually in the […]
Ever since Lafayette, some connection between America and France, however tenuous, has existed. One of the strongest bonds between the two countries is the American love of French art. When […]
Thanks to years of conservative pushback, the United States Census looks like a huge waste of time and taxpayer money to many Americans. Even worse, many Americans misconceive the census […]
This summer at The Phillips Collection there’s a different kind of colorblindness going on. White is the “new black,” or at least the color telling the most interesting stories in […]
Any art lover who has been to Paris knows what it’s like to try to see everything in a finite time frame. Cruel choices must be made, masterpieces must be […]
Everyone loves labels. Italian Renaissance, French Baroque, Classical Greek—such little conveniences help us understand and comprehend the often tangled and messy reality of artists and art movements, which, like any […]
Walking through the Late Renoirexhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art recently, I couldn’t help but be struck by the power of Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s paintings of his three sons—Pierre, Jean, […]
“I think I’m beginning to know something about painting,” Pierre-Auguste Renoir said on the day he died as he turned away from a still life he’d been working on and […]
This past week, Thomas Kinkade, famed “Painter of Light,” found himself behind bars after an arrest based on suspicion of drunken driving (mugshot shown). That sad episode came on the […]
When Sigmar Polke’s family crossed over to the freedom of West Berlin from the oppression of East Berlin on the subway in 1953, 12-year-old Sigmar feigned sleep to add to […]
Leave it to an Italian art publisher to do an American artist right. Skira’s Edward Hopper, distributed in the United States by Rizzoli, may be the finest single volume visually […]
The established poet William Carlos Williams wrote in 1956 of newcomer poet (and friend) Allen Ginsberg that he “sees with the eyes of the angels.” Williams most likely referred to […]
When the Arno River overflowed in 1966 and flooded Florence, Italy, an art apocalypse nearly took place in that grand Renaissance city. Countless works, including Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Doors of Paradise,Donatello’s […]
“A woman has no peace as an artist until she proves over and over that she won’t be eliminated,” Louise Bourgeois once said. On Monday, this plane of existence eliminated […]
While researching the Botticelli’s Venus and Mars (shown) at the National Gallery, London, David Bellingham, a program director at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, made an interesting discovery. The fruit held […]
In a recent article in The Australian, Matthew Westwood writes about Canadian social scientist Sarah Thornton, whose book Seven Days in the Art World (cover above) “explores the dynamics of […]
For many people, even those most enlightened when it comes to art and culture, Africa remains “the dark continent” out of which little emerges that sparks interest. The Museum for […]
A recent Washington Post article by Jacqueline Trescott and Dan Zak made the bold, but hard to argue with statement that United States museums foil thieves much better than their […]
“The camera is a weapon. The camera can be a machine gun. It can be a psychoanalytical couch. It can be a warm kiss,” opines Henri Cartier-Bresson in The Decisive […]
“How could you conceivably cut yourself off from other men and from the life they bring you in such abundance? In the name of what uncaring, ivory-tower kind of attitude?” […]
In an exhibition currently at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City, a crane reaches into a mountain of clothes and pulls out at random a selection of shirts, […]
Photographer Ansel Adams claimed that the goal of his art was “to rekindle an appreciation of the marvelous.” Ansel Adams: Eloquent Light at the Amon Carter Museum rekindles the marvelous […]
In 1504 no less a historic name than Niccolo Machiavelli, author of The Prince, brought together the two greatest artists of the time to decorate the walls of the Great […]
“And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden,” Crosby, Stills, and Nash sang in “Woodstock,” the song that tried to capture the spirit of the generation-defining gathering. For […]
The Impressionists now stand as the ultimate in artistic comfort food for the mainstream public. The billowy softness of their images graces office walls in framed reproductions and countless calendars. […]
It’s amazing to think that the work of a groundbreaking photographer such as Henri Cartier-Bresson could once be found on the coffee tables of middle class homes accross America, and […]
“Here we are now,” Kurt Cobain intoned in 1991 on Nirvana’s Nevermind album, “entertain us.” With that catch phrase, the entire genre of grunge rock launched itself into the cultural […]
When we think things out, it is usually on paper. Writers scribble random thoughts on scraps near at hand and mine those jotted flashes of insight later for fuller, more […]
“Every generation is born to this same anatomical legacy; how they then fashion it with clothing is, in miniature, the story of culture,” argues Susan J. Vincent in her sweeping […]
Just as the Philadelphia Museum of Art set to close its showcase of in-house Picassos in Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris, The Metropolitan Museum of Art revved up their […]