The fact of a picture frame.

Earlier this month, Chloe Veltman lamented the lost art of the picture frame. On my visit to NYC, with her comments in mind, I took some photos of picture frames at the Metropolitan Museum.

I love picture frames. I love the way they create space, and I love the detail they add to the picture within. I love the owner or framer's choice of a frame: plain or ornate? What color paint, if any? Gilded?

The frames in the photos are Dutch and Italian, if I'm remembering correctly.

Rose Art Museum

I'm a graduate of Brandeis University. I was surprised last week to get email from President Jehuda Reinharz informing me - and everybody other alum on the university mailing list - that the Board of Trustees had decided to close the Rose Art Museum and sell off its thousands of 20th century artworks. A couple of days later, I received email from the current president of the Alumni Association defending the decision. I was assured that the Board of Trustees had been pained to make this decision, and that the academic senate had previously voted to support the Board in whatever decisions it made. Yeah, yeah. The phrase "self-serving" did cross my mind as I read both email messages.

There's been outrage throughout the art world. The Boston Globe had an article up almost immediately and has had a couple more since (use the search box at boston.com to find them all). The Times had a news story last week, and also an editorial in today's paper. ArtsJournal has a Q&A with Michael Rush, the Rose's director.

Times art critic Roberta Smith closes her article, published yesterday, with this zinger:

The message out of Brandeis University last week — to its own students and to the world — was that when the going gets tough, none of this matters. Art is dispensable.

You bet. I've got an outraged letter of my own going to Brandeis in tomorrow's mail.

Tate Modern

Apparently I need a plane ticket to London, and soon. Hat tip to Alex for the tipoff.

What Terry Said

Go, run, see the gigantic J.M.W. Turner retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

I caught this show at the National Gallery in Washington, DC, in November, 2007. It is overwhelming; the cumulative impact of 150 Turners in one place can't be overstated. You might want to go twice and take in half the show each time.

The retrospective is at the Met through September 21, 2008. It's the first Turner retrospective in the United States - this I find amazing - and many of the works are on loan from British museums and private collections. I don't expect to have another opportunity to see them all in one place again.