Latest news with #Swimming
Washington Post
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Hours before JFK's death, Jackie's quiet moment with a painting
Great Works, In Focus • #193 Hours before JFK's death, Jackie's quiet moment with a painting Thomas Eakins's 'Swimming,' an acclaimed and scandalous picture, was displayed in the first lady's hotel bedroom in November 1963. Expand the image Click to zoom in Column by Sebastian Smee May 22, 2025 at 11:10 a.m. EDT 5 minutes ago 4 min The night before her husband's assassination, Jackie Kennedy slept under this painting. 'Swimming,' by Thomas Eakins, had been lent to the hotel in Fort Worth where President John F. Kennedy and the first lady were staying. The painting was part of a private exhibition, intended only for the presidential couple. The display was hastily assembled by a group of Texans who, wanting to welcome them, borrowed art from local collections, both public and private. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement The Kennedys had separate bedrooms in a three-room suite on the eighth floor at the Hotel Texas. The shared area was decorated with paintings and sculptures by Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Franz Kline, among others. One bedroom, intended for the president, was decorated with pictures in what the organizers considered a more 'masculine' vein. It included Eakins's 'Swimming,' a painting of Native Americans on horseback in a snowstorm by Charles Marion Russell and one of a sombrero by Marsden Hartley. The other bedroom was adorned with supposedly more 'feminine' artworks by Raoul Dufy, Maurice Prendergast and Vincent van Gogh. But the tired couple came in at midnight and switched rooms, not knowing how they had been decorated — or with what intention. When, in the morning, she registered this touching act of Texan hospitality, Jackie Kennedy made a personal phone call to Ruth Carter Stevenson, who had overseen the suite's decoration. (Stevenson was the daughter of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art's namesake. She had recently realized her father's dream to create a museum for his collection.) The first lady didn't know, as she made the call, that her husband had just a few hours to live. She thanked Stevenson for giving her the great pleasure of sleeping under … well, a lot of buff naked men. Those may not have been her exact words, but she did thank Stevenson for the opportunity to sleep beneath one of Eakins's most acclaimed pictures. She didn't mention — if she knew at all — that it was also his most scandalous. You don't notice it at first, but there's a dog in the painting. You can see it in the liquid foreground, its snout in the air, its paddling body tinting the ripples reddish brown with its reflected fur. The dog's name was Harry — and its presence helps makes sense of the otherwise odd gesture of the man on the rock, whose twisting torso and overhead arm may be tossing something down to the hound or, with a click of the fingers, trying to get its attention. Following centuries of tradition, Eakins made the study of Greco-Roman sculpture central to his teaching at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he had studied himself and where, after several years in Paris, he returned to teach, eventually becoming its director. But Eakins hated affectation and artifice. So he banned the conventional practice of making studies from casts of ancient sculptures. He embraced photography and, in 1884, collaborated with Eadweard Muybridge, the great pioneer of stop-motion photography, on studies of humans and animals in motion. The experience clearly informed the sequential, almost comic-strip-like composition of 'Swimming.' Eakins associated nakedness with truth. Adamant that the ancient Greeks made their works directly from life, he engineered opportunities to paint naked bodies, encouraging his students to pose nude for one another. 'Swimming,' which is in the Amon Carter's collection, epitomized his approach. It has been described as Eakins's manifesto painting — an illustration of the kind of artist community he hoped to create, focused on life studies and nature. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement But the painting also got him in hot water. Its subjects were identifiable as his students. (Eakins himself appears as the figure swimming toward the dog at right.) Accounts emerged of Eakins pushing nude modeling on his students a little too aggressively and of exposing his bared pelvis to a female student when she sought his instruction. In 1886, he was forced to resign, ostensibly for removing the loincloth of a male model in a class where female students were present. Just under 80 years later, in a strange turn, a president's wife drifted into oblivion, after midnight, beneath six bare bodies, all catching the daylight.
RNZ News
21-05-2025
- Sport
- RNZ News
Fairweather wins stunning 800 freestyle final to qualify for World Champs
New Zealand swimmer Erika Fairweather. Photo: PHOTOSPORT Olympians Erika Fairweather, Eve Thomas and Caitlin Deans have all recorded World Championship qualifying times in an impressive 800m Freestyle final on the opening day of the New Zealand Swimming Championships in Auckland. Fairweather showcased the form which saw her reach four Olympic finals last year. The 21-year-old led the race from start to finish, recording a time of 8:21.67s to go well under the World Champs qualification time of 8:34.62s. Eve Thomas pipped Caitlin Deans for second place with a of 8:29.32, just over half a second ahead of Thomas. "It means so much to me to make that qualification time," Deans said. "Everyone swam such a good race so I'm really stoked. Sharing the pool with Eve and Erika and having them to push me along has made me a better athlete and got me to where I am and it's great that we all swam under that time." North Shore's Louis Clark won the men's 1500m Freestyle in a time that qualified him for the 3-kilometre knockout Open Water event at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore in July. Another athlete to punch his ticket to a world event was 18-year-old Igor Russanov who qualified for the World Junior Champs with his fifth place finish in the 50m Freestyle final. Sixteen-year-old Ariel Muchirahondo continued his fine run of form, picking up the first long course open national title of his career, storming home to win the men's 400m Individual Medley. In the multi class events Viking Swim Club's Gaby Smith took out the women's 100m Breaststroke final. The SB9 swimmer went under the World Para Swimming Championships qualification time. In the men's 100m Breaststroke Joshua Willmer finished third to break his SB8 New Zealand record twice in one day and go under the World Championships qualification time. In the women's 50m Freestyle Chelsey Edwards added another national title to her name, while Zoe Pedersen finished third setting a New Zealand 18-years record and going under the World Junior Championships qualification time. Olympian Hazel Ouwehand retained her national title in the women's 100m Butterfly. More than 350 athletes are competing at the Championships. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Forbes
18-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Mac Miller Earns A New Posthumous Top 40 Hit
Mac Miller's 'The Spins' debuts at No. 26 on the U.K. Hip-Hop and R&B Singles chart, while Swimming ... More returns and celebrates 100 weeks on the albums tally. LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 08: Rapper Mac Miller performs at Camp Flog Gnaw at Los Angeles Coliseum on November 8, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Chelsea Lauren/WireImage) Years after his death, Mac Miller continues to impact charts all around the world, both with new, posthumous offerings and tunes and full-lengths he released during his lifetime. The hip-hop star, known for his genre-blurring style, regularly appears on a variety of tallies with a mix of long-overlooked cuts and continual favorites. This week, Miller scores another win in the United Kingdom with a beloved track, while one of his albums — the final he got to share during his lifetime — reaches an important milestone. Miller collects a new hit on the Official Hip-Hop and R&B Singles chart in the U.K., a list that tracks the best-performing rap, hip-hop, and R&B tracks in the nation. The late rapper sees 'The Spins' debut at No. 26, giving him another posthumous win. While Miller has landed on the chart before – he's actually scored just four smashes on the genre-specific tally – his appearances have been fairly sporadic. 'The Spins' marks Miller's first new appearance on the Official Hip-Hop and R&B Singles chart in more than five years. He last landed on the list back in January 2020, when 'Good News' debuted shortly after its release. Prior to that success, he also charted with 'Self Care,' a completely solo effort. He first showed up as a featured artist on Ariana Grande's breakout smash 'The Way,' which helped launch her career more than a decade ago. 'The Spins' originally appeared on K.I.D.S. — short for Kickin' Incredibly Dope Shit — which was released in the summer of 2010. At the time, the mixtape introduced a rising star to a new generation of hip-hop fans. More than a decade later, fans are still consuming the collection, and, it seems, especially one track. Miller's Swimming album also manages to return to a U.K. tally this week. The collection makes its way back to the Official Hip-Hop and R&B Albums chart, breaking back onto the list at No. 26 — coincidentally the same position as 'The Spins' on the associated singles ranking. Swimming was the last full-length effort Miller released during his lifetime. The project dropped in August 2018, just a month before his death, and was met with widespread praise for its introspective lyrics and genre-bending production. As Swimming breaks back onto the Official Hip-Hop and R&B Albums chart in the U.K., it hits a major milestone. The title has now spent 100 weeks on the ranking — a triple-digit performance that cements it as Miller's most successful release in that part of the world. Swimming is the only one of his efforts to spend at least 100 weeks on the genre-focused tally. His first posthumous release, Circles, comes in a distant second, having held on for just 17 frames. Most of his other collections have only managed a handful of weeks.
