Art and Architecture, mainly

Benjamin and Pearl Wonsal lived in a tiny Jewish village in central-east Poland. Their first son was born in 1881 and eight other children followed. Benjamin emig­rat­ed to Can­ada in search of a better life, and in 1889 Pearl and the child­ren a...

Benjamin and Pearl Wonsal lived in a tiny Jewish village in central-east Poland. Their first son was born in 1881 and eight other children followed. Benjamin emig­rat­ed to Can­ada in search of a better life, and in 1889 Pearl and the child­ren a...

Reading "How the penis made men weak" by Joanna Bourke was telling.  The penis could be an uncert­ain and erratic organ. In C19th Britain and America, masculine anx­ieties were provoked by the spread of a new and invidious though pha...

An important influence on American Edward Hopper (1882-1967) was Robert Henri; he taught the young artist at the New York School of Art from 1900. Robert Henri was part of the Ashcan School of American realist painters, and was dedicated to an unsent...

After their marriage in 1906, American expats Nancy and 2nd Vis­count Wal­dorf Astor moved in­to Cliveden, a large country estate in Bucks on the River Thames. There Nancy became a wealthy, prominent hostess for the upper class. Or in th...

Susie Harries’ Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life is an interesting book because it focuses on my hero’s personal life rather than his lecture notes. Nikolaus Pevsner (1902–1983) was born in Leipzig into a com­fortable and cultivated Jewish family. Fa...

Byzantine ChurchThe Byzantine Empire was vast, powerful civilisation traced back to 330 AD when the Roman emperor Constantine I (272–337) dedicated a New Rome. Constantine I had been a pagan before he con­verted to Christian­ity and after he died...