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Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Business
- Boston Globe
Doris Lockhart Saatchi, critic and collector of cutting-edge art, dies at 88
A year earlier, in 1985, the couple had opened a museum for their collection in a converted paint storage warehouse in North London. It quickly became a leading showcase for contemporary artists on both sides of the Atlantic, from 'shallow-spaced and gleaming, smooth-surfaced art to an art of porous surfaces, flickering light, and a shifting space,' art critic Sanford Schwartz wrote in The New Criterion. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up With Charles Saatchi's money -- he had made his fortune in part as the adman who helped make Margaret Thatcher prime minister of Britain -- and his wife's discerning eye, the couple had the resources to give modernist art exceedingly wide visibility in both Britain and America. Advertisement 'They put on shows that established them as the collectors with more -- more Julian Schnabels (27 paintings), more Anselm Kiefers (23 in all), more Cy Twomblys, more Joel Shapiros and, in particular, more gleaming grids and tilting trapezoids by the Minimalists,' Deborah Solomon wrote in The New York Times Magazine in 1999. Advertisement 'Collecting was a passion Charles and I shared,' Doris Saatchi told The Sunday Times of London in 2017. 'We bought pieces we loved and we never, ever disagreed on a purchase -- we were insatiable!' By 1985, 'the couple was spending $1 million annually on art,' Kevin Goldman wrote in his 1998 book, 'Conflicting Accounts: The Creation and Crash of the Saatchi and Saatchi Advertising Empire,' about the company Charles Saatchi founded with his brother Maurice. The couple divorced in 1990 after 14 years of marriage. Charles Saatchi subsequently sold a number of major works from the collection, giving his company 'a much needed cash infusion,' Goldman wrote. Doris Saatchi's reputation as a critic and connoisseur -- she wrote for House and Garden, Artscribe, and later the London newspaper The Independent -- was by then well established. 'They were an incredible couple,' Julia Peyton-Jones, a leading British curator and gallery director, said in an interview. 'What they had in their collection was astounding. If you wanted to see exceptional examples of modern art, you went to Boundary Road,' she added, referring to the address of the Saatchis' museum at the time. (It later moved to a stately building in the Chelsea section.) A celebrated, icy portrait of Doris Saatchi from 1983 by photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, now in the National Portrait Gallery's permanent collection, cemented her image as a cool avatar of the art she promoted. She spoke of the strange 'power' the portrait evoked. 'He totally objectified me, dehumanized me, almost,' she told The Sunday Times. 'When I look at it, I don't see myself. I see Robert Mapplethorpe's wonderful photograph.' Advertisement Her aesthetic and her penchant for minimalism were guided by an attraction to the stripped-down. 'It's the way that everything is pared down to blocks of light and shade,' she said, explaining to The Independent in a 1998 interview why she liked a particular painting from the Italian Renaissance. 'I always feel I have to defend minimalist art,' she told The Sunday Times in 2017. 'What I love most about it is the way it affects the space you're in.' Describing a painting in her home at the time, in London's Battersea section (the newspaper called the house 'a temple to minimalism'), Ms. Saatchi said, 'This piece is so resolved -- by which I mean nothing can be taken away and nothing can be added.' She was keenly attuned to the new and unconventional and always on the lookout for what she called 'intensity,' as she wrote in a review for The Independent in 2001. 'One of the few predictions that it is safe to make about the world of contemporary art is that it is by nature cyclical,' Ms. Saatchi wrote. 'So, if you don't like the way things are going, only wait, and you will find that just about everything, including subject matter, medium and the most prolific sources of creative energy, will change.' Doris Jean Lockhart was born in Memphis on Feb. 28, 1937, the eldest of three children of Jack and Nina (Tall) Lockhart. Her father was an itinerant journalist and later a manager with Scripps-Howard Newspapers. The family moved to Scarsdale, N.Y. She studied art and art history for a year at the Sorbonne in Paris and graduated from Smith College in Northampton with a bachelor of arts in 1958. Advertisement She worked for a time at the J. Walter Thompson advertising firm in New York, her brother Richard said in an interview, volunteered in John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1960 (she once described herself as a 'Dom Pérignon Democrat') and moved to England because America was 'very conformist,' she told The Independent. She led a group of copy writers in the London office of the advertising firm Benton & Bowles and married a race-car driver, Hugh Dibley. It was there that she met Charles Saatchi, who was working for the firm at the time. Goldman described her in that period as 'tall, blond and decidedly cool,' a 'sophisticated woman who spoke several languages and knew a great deal about art and wine.' The couple began living together in 1967 and married in 1973. Along with her brother Richard, Ms. Saatchi leaves another brother, Jeffrey. Peyton-Jones said Ms. Saatchi was 'very respected for her eye' as an art connoisseur. 'She was very, very considered.' But Ms. Saatchi was sensitive to suggestions that her husband's wealth made her no more than a dilettante. 'I do have a lot of money; I've been very lucky,' she told The Independent. 'But I feel obliged to say that I have worked very, very hard.' This article originally appeared in
The Journal
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Journal
Sitdown Sunday: 'This war is being waged as if childhood itself has no place in Gaza'
THIS SUNDAY, WE thought we would choose seven longreads that focus on Gaza. We've hand-picked some of the week's best reporting on what is going on on the ground in the besieged territory that deserve your attention. 1. The trauma of childhood A displaced Palestinian child fetches water at a temporary shelter in Gaza city on 1 August. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo The normal markers of childhood in Gaza have been replaced by hunger, fear and trauma. Most no longer have access to education, and thousands have been orphaned. Some of those children tell their stories in this piece. ( The New York Times Magazine , approx 14 mins reading time) Before the war, Ms. Abu Hilal said, Tala was the star of her class and sometimes got up in the middle of the night to cram for tests. 'I wanted to be a doctor,' Tala said in an interview alongside her mother. 'I wanted my daddy to build a hospital for me. I wanted to treat everyone for free. My daddy is in heaven now.' Their father, Ashraf Abu Hilal, a former janitor, tried to return to their home last August, seeking to retrieve some goods that he could sell for food, according to Ms. Abu Hilal. He never returned. A day later, his brother spotted him lying dead in a nearby street, Ms. Abu Hilal said. Nearby gunfire prevented the brother from reaching Ashraf's body or discerning how he had died, Ms. Abu Hilal added. By the time they could reach the street safely, months later, little was left of the body, she said. (The Israeli military said it was unaware of the episode.) 'I hear how other kids call their dads — and their dad's reply,' Ms. Abu Hilal recalled Hala telling her. 'I wish baba could answer me, too.' 2. Keeping journalists safe Israel does not allow international journalists into Gaza, and those already working there are being killed and facing starvation. In this piece, AFP's global news director speaks about the situation facing freelancers and other journalists trying to do their jobs. ( Reuters , approx 10 mins reading time) From the very beginning, our journalists who were there, and now the people who work for us, have had to focus on trying to keep their families and relatives alive and fed. And that takes up a huge amount of time, stress and work every day. Sometimes that involves moving house, apartment, or place, because the dangers are coming and going all the time. That's a big part of the daily struggle; it's sometimes astonishing they manage to do any work at all. And then you have to imagine currently doing that in a context where people are extremely weak from lack of food. Our freelancers are all surviving on small amounts of food. They are all tired. Some of them have lost 20 or 30 kilos. They are all involved in that battle for food. A lot of them talk about dizziness, headaches, and weakness. Some days, they are just not able to get up. Another thing to bear in mind is that there's no real transport in Gaza. We think of Gaza as being a small place, which it is, but an event can happen, and to get there, some of our people will have to walk up to 25 kilometres a day. Advertisement 3. 'They're too malnourished to treat' 16-month-old Palestinian toddler Mohammad Zakaria Asfour lost his life at Nasser Medical Complex due to severe malnutrition this month. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo Marion McKeone speaks to an NHS nurse working in a field hospital in Gaza about the suffering and starvation he is witnessing there. ( The Journal , approx 9 mins reading time) As starvation takes root in Gaza, cases like Adel's are becoming increasingly common. 'The images you're seeing now are a result of weeks and months of malnutrition,' he says. 'Their bodies have become so damaged by malnutrition we're dealing with infections, with diarrhoea and respiratory diseases and all that has a massive impact on their ability to recover.' 'We're seeing an increasing number of children and adults with disabilities and women who are pregnant coming in in the latter stages of malnutrition. Many of them have reached a stage that is ultimately unrecoverable.' Compounding the crisis is the lack of even the most basic medical supplies. 'We put in an order five or six months ago for (medications and equipment) which we've had sitting in our warehouse in Stockport since then, just waiting for permission to bring it in,' Andersen says. 'We do what we can, but we've run out of even basic medications. We're running out of antibiotics. Even for something as simple as a wound infection, he says, not having the right antibiotics can mean the difference between life and death.' 4. The struggle for food Ghada Abdulfattah reports on the daily struggle of families to feed themselves in Gaza. ( The Atlantic , approx 8 mins reading time) In the late evening, Asala's children again started asking about food. She tried to hush Nada with water, and to distract the others, telling them that the tikkiya might come again tomorrow, or the camp committee might give them something. In past weeks, Asala would sometimes walk to her neighbor's tents to ask if anyone had a spare loaf of bread. The answer was almost always 'no.' Now and then Mohammad hears about aid trucks passing through the border to supply organizations such as the World Food Program. He joins the crowds of men who follow these trucks, but he often returns empty-handed. At times, Asala has followed him secretly. 'I just want to bring something home,' she told me. She described a dangerous scramble, crowds swelling with desperation: 'Some bring sticks. Some guns.' Once, her husband returned with a few cans of tomato paste he found on the ground, crushed under people's feet. 'They were cracked open and mixed with sand. I took it anyway.' 5. 'Legitimization Cell' Journalists and members of the National Union of Journalists in London hold a vigil for colleagues killed in Gaza in the last two years on 13 August. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo Six Al Jazeera journalists were killed by an Israeli strike last week. According to Reporters Without Borders, they are among more than 200 media professionals who have been killed by the IDF in Gaza. This piece is an investigation into an Israeli military unit that has been tasked with portraying Gaza-based journalists as undercover Hamas operatives. ( +972 Magazine , approx 7 mins reading time) Related Reads Sitdown Sunday: How an unknown teenager solved a decades-old maths mystery Sitdown Sunday: Scanning the heavens with the Pope's astronomer at the Vatican Observatory Sitdown Sunday: Unexplained deaths and child exorcisms - inside the cult of the Jesus Army The source described a recurring pattern in the unit's work: whenever criticism of Israel in the media intensified on a particular issue, the Legitimization Cell was told to find intelligence that could be declassified and employed publicly to counter the narrative. 'If the global media is talking about Israel killing innocent journalists, then immediately there's a push to find one journalist who might not be so innocent — as if that somehow makes killing the other 20 acceptable,' the intelligence source said. Often, it was Israel's political echelon that dictated to the army which intelligence areas the unit should focus on, another source added. Information gathered by the Legitimization Cell was also passed regularly to the Americans through direct channels. Intelligence officers said they were told their work was vital to allowing Israel to prolong the war. 6. 'Reporting on Gaza broke me down' Between 2010 and 2013, Phoebe Greenwood was reporting on Palestine. She reflects on the atrocities she saw there and the disinterest of news audiences, and says the world's outrage has come too late. ( The Guardian , approx 8 mins reading time) I lasted a little under four years in Israel and Palestine. In that time, I reported on forced displacement and punitive bureaucracy (Israel's occupation is expanded through denied permits, home demolitions and revoked ID cards). I wrote about child killings, war crimes and terrorism (perpetrated by both sides). I tried to explain as best I could the annexation of the West Bank and the collective punishment of two million people in Gaza without using forbidden phrases such as apartheid or war crime. I included the necessary balance of voices and opinions. But still, every report of an atrocity in Palestine was met with highly personal accusations of bias. Editors were often twitchy, readers disengaged. After two years of this, a grim reality became clear: people did not want to hear about it. By year three, I had started giving up trying to make them listen and the self-loathing arrived. Cynicism among reporters is a useful cipher for the fear, desperation and impotence that news industry norms do not allow them, but it has a dangerous side-effect: it dulls outrage. Without outrage, crimes such as apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide can continue uninterrupted – and they have. …AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES… Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference in Jerusalem on 10 August. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo A profile of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu from January 2024. ( The New Yorker , approx 50 mins reading time) It wasn't just the Tel Aviv left that had come to view Netanyahu as a threat to the state. Even old allies on the right could no longer ignore the spectacle of his narcissism and self-dealing. Michael Oren, a former member of the Knesset and Ambassador to the U.S. under Netanyahu, was one of many who trotted out the apocryphal remark of Louis XIV, 'L'état, c'est moi'—the state is me—to characterize the Prime Minister's attitude. Netanyahu, Oren told me, 'seems unable to distinguish between personal and political interests.' Ami Ayalon, the former head of Shin Bet, the country's internal security service, described Netanyahu to me as 'a person who will sell out everyone and everything in order to stay in power.' Moshe Ya'alon, the defense minister from 2013 to 2016, told me that Netanyahu's ideology is now 'personal political survival,' adding that his coalition partners 'don't represent the vast majority of the Israeli people' and are 'so messianic that they believe in Jewish supremacy—'Mein Kampf' in the opposite direction. They've taken Netanyahu hostage.' Note: The Journal generally selects stories that are not paywalled, but some might not be accessible if you have exceeded your free article limit on the site in question. Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
USA Today
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Pioneering ballerina Misty Copeland is retiring from American Ballet Theatre
Pioneering ballerina Misty Copeland is retiring from American Ballet Theatre Misty Copeland is ready for her swan song. The dancer, 42, has announced she will retire from the American Ballet Theatre after more than 20 years and deliver her final performance during the company's fall gala in October. "I could never have imagined the life ballet would give me," Copeland said in a statement. "To dance on the world's greatest stages, with artists I admire so deeply, has been one of the greatest gifts of my life." She continued: "My time with ABT has shaped me not just as a dancer, but as a person, and given me the platform to reach back and make space for others. This moment isn't a farewell, it's a celebration of everything we've built together, and a step toward all the work that's still ahead." Copeland made history in 2015 as the first Black woman to become a principal dancer at the ABT. Misty Copeland shares essential advice from Prince, favorite dish to cook, self-care tips Speaking to The New York Times Magazine, she said she initially "wanted to fade away into the background," only to realize this was not "really possible," so she decided to announce her retirement officially. "The legacy of what I've created, the way that I'm carrying so many stories of Black dancers who have come before me — I can't just disappear," she said. "There has to be an official closing to my time at American Ballet Theater, this company that has meant everything to me." Copeland also told the Times she is "dealing with a lot" while preparing for her final performance. How I became a ballerina: Misty Copeland "I have a labral tear that happened during my training recently," she said. "Then I found out that I have all these old injuries that I never acknowledged and danced through. My doctor was like, 'I think you should stop dancing.' I'm like, 'I'm trying!' So it's very humbling, but it's also comforting." The American Ballet Theatre's fall gala, scheduled for Oct. 22, is set to include a "curated selection of works from Copeland's celebrated repertoire," as well as video tributes and performances from her "collaborators and admirers," according to a June 9 announcement. Susan Jaffe, the American Ballet Theatre's artistic director, said in a statement that Copeland's legacy "is profound — not only through the roles she's redefined but also through the lives she's inspired," adding that her "advocacy for inclusion, equity, and education ensures her impact will resonate far beyond this moment." In a May interview with USA TODAY, Copeland reflected, "Throughout my career, so many incredible women, and specifically Black women, have really been like the backbone of my success. That, naturally and organically, taught me the importance of being a mentor." Contributing: Clare Mulroy
CNBC
07-06-2025
- Health
- CNBC
Susan Dominus
Susan Dominus has worked for The New York Times since 2007, first as a Metro columnist and then as staff writer for The New York Times Magazine. In 2018, she was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for public service for its reporting on workplace sexual harassment. She won a Front Page Award from the Newswomen's Club of New York and a Mychal Judge Heart of New York Award from the New York Press Club. She has studied as a fellow at the National Institutes of Health and Yale Law School. Her article about menopause in The New York Times Magazine won a National Magazine Award in 2024. She teaches journalism at Yale University, and her new book, "The Family Dynamic: A Journey into the Mystery of Sibling Success," is out now. Follow her on Instagram @suedominus.
Boston Globe
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Sebastião Salgado, photographer of human misery and dignity, dies at 81
A scene from the 2014 French/Brazilian documentary film "The Salt of the Earth," directed by Juliano Ribeiro Salgado and Wim Wenders. Courtesy of (c) Sebastiao Salgado In his landmark 1986 photo essay of gold mine workers in the Pará state in northern Brazil, one image showed a man encased in sweat and dirt cresting a wooden ladder. A loaded bag from the mine floor was held by a rope around his forehead. Another scene, shot from within the mine, was a wide-angle tableau of workers climbing and digging in an ant-like flow. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Goldmine, Serra Pelada, State of Pará, Brazil, 1986 © Sebastião Salgado © Sebastião Salgado, courtesy of Robert Klein Gallery Advertisement For decades, Mr. Salgado was on hand for many of the world's major crises - the devastating famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s, the 1991 US-led war to oust Iraqi forces from Kuwait, the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and other upheavals. He described his mission as seeking to convey a sense of the ordinary people caught, often helpless, in the tumult. The assignment in Kuwait was for The New York Times Magazine and centered on the efforts of workers struggling to extinguish oil-well fires set by Saddam Hussein's troops, an environmental disaster that came to define Iraq's turbulent retreat from Kuwait. 'The photos were beyond extraordinary,' said Kathy Ryan, a former photo director at magazine, who worked with Mr. Salgado on that assignment. 'It was one of the best photo essays ever made.' Advertisement On another noteworthy assignment, Mr. Salgado documented dramatic scenes following a failed assassination attempt on President Reagan in 1981. He photographed the gunman, John Hinckley Jr., moments after he was tackled to the ground. 'Everyone knows he had an incredible way of making pictures,' Ryan said. But, she added, he also had an uncanny sense of 'where important stories were.' His other projects - part of a body of work spanning 120 countries - included a series on migrants in North Africa desperate to reach Europe and the life in slums where the immediate concerns are food and safety. 'I admit there's a very specific message in my work,' Mr. Salgado said in a 1990 interview with journalist Amanda Hopkinson in London. 'The developing countries have never been as poor or as dependent as they are today.' 'It is time to launch the concept of the universality of humanity,' he continued. 'Photography lends itself to a demonstration of this and as an instrument of solidarity between peoples.' A scene from "The Salt of the Earth," directed by Juliano Ribeiro Salgado and Wim Wenders. Photo courtesy of (c) Sebastiao Salgado An economist by training, he borrowed his wife's camera in 1971 while working in London for the International Coffee Organization. During a trip to Africa, he took photos of workers and rural life. 'Four days later I had an obsession; a fortnight later, a camera of my own,' Mr. Salgado recounted. 'Within a month I had a darkroom.' He sought jobs as a freelance photographer in 1973 and later contributed work to the Sygma and Gamma photo agencies. In the late 1970s, he joined Magnum, a professional home for some of the world's top photographers. Advertisement Mr. Salgado stepped away from Magnum in 1994 to establish Amazonia Images with his wife, Lélia Wanick Salgado. Four years later, the couple founded the environmental group Instituto Terra, which seeks to restore stretches of Brazil's southeastern Atlantic Forest threatened by development. Mr. Salgado increasingly turned his lens on nature - drawing close enough to photograph the armor-like skin on a marine iguana in the Galapagos and, other times, pulled back for vistas such as a river through the Alaskan wilderness and the sculpted curves of Antarctic icebergs. An iceberg between Paulet and South Shetland islands off Antarctica, shown in a scene from "The Salt of the Earth." Courtesy of (c) Sebastiao Salgado In his 'Amazonia' series, Mr. Salgado traveled across the rainforest, taking portraits of Indigenous people and chronicling the power of the natural world such as towering clouds, appearing in his photos the color of forged steel, rising above the forest canopy. In a private nature reserve, he and his wife planted more than 300 species of trees as part of a rewilding. As the trees grew, birds and insects returned. The tree roots held back erosion. 'Although we were amazed at how nature can fight back, we began to get worried about the threat to the whole planet,' Mr. Salgado told the British Journal of Photography in 2013. 'There is a strange idea that nature and humanity are different but in fact this separation poses a great threat to humanity,' he added. 'We think we can control nature, but it's easy to forget that we need it for our survival.' Manda Yawanawá, from the village of Escondido. Rio Gregório Indigenous Territory, State of Acre, Brazil, 2016 © Sebastião Salgado © Sebastião Salgado, courtesy of Robert Klein Gallery Sebastião Ribeiro Salgado Jr. was born in Aimorés, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais north of Rio de Janeiro, on Feb. 8, 1944. His family operated a cattle ranch. Advertisement In 1964, the Brazilian military seized control of the government in a coup that ousted President João Goulart. As the ruling junta waged crackdowns on dissent, Mr. Salgado and his wife decided to flee. They headed in 1969 to Paris, which would become their main base over the next five decades. 'If a photographer is not there, there's no image. We need to be there,' he told Forbes Brasil. 'We expose ourselves a lot. And that is why it is such an immense privilege.' Among his honors was the Leica Oskar Barnack Awards, which he received twice, and more than 10 World Press Photo awards in categories including news feature and general news. In addition to his wife, he leaves his sons, Juliano and Rodrigo, and two grandchildren. A 2014 documentary on Mr. Salgado's life and work, 'The Salt of the Earth,' was co-directed by Wim Wenders and his son Juliano. Mr. Salgado, an honorary degree recipient, took a picture during a Harvard Commencement ceremony in Cambridge in 2022. Mary Schwalm/Associated Press In a memorial ceremony in Brazil's capital, Brasília, the country's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, led a minute of silence and called Mr. Salgado's photographs 'a wake-up call for the conscience of all humanity.' During an interview with the Guardian last year, Mr. Salgado asked: 'Why should the poor world be uglier than the rich world? The light here is the same as there. The dignity here is the same as there.' Mount Roraima, State of Roraima, Brazil, 2018 © Sebastião Salgado © Sebastião Salgado, courtesy of Robert Klein Gallery Material from The New York Times was used in this obituary.
