Latest news with #modernist
Telegraph
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Cheltenham Music Festival closes with an uproarious raspberry from Malcolm Arnold
Eighty years old this year, the Cheltenham Music Festival decided to salute its own illustrious past in a closing concert from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales that was celebratory, nostalgic and madly rumbustious, all at once. There was plenty to celebrate, not least the fact that the Cheltenham Music Festival must be the only one in Britain if not the world to give birth to its own musical genre. After it was founded in 1945 the Festival became an indefatigable commissioner of new works, many of which were symphonies of a challenging, modernist kind. Cheltenham was determined to put itself on the map culturally, and nurturing an ever-growing body of 'Cheltenham Symphonies' as they became known was a very good way to do it. Alas most of them have not survived the test of time. But as last night's performance of Malcolm Arnold 's Fifth Symphony proved, the test of time isn't always fair. In 1961 when this symphony was premiered the fashion was for deeply serious modernist symphonies, and Arnold's symphony was simply too badly behaved. It's got tunes, for one thing – really good ones, that sound like a cross between Mahler and Rachmaninov with a bit of 'filmic' sentimentality thrown in. There's also what sounds like a car-chase from an Ealing comedy, and a madly cheerful menagerie of military pipes, all mixed up with aggressively modernist dissonance, which is surely Arnold blowing a raspberry at the po-faced 1961 musical establishment. All this was led with appropriate gleeful relish by conductor Gergely Maduras, and played with uproarious energy by BBC NOW. It was madly entertaining, but the most shocking thing was the desolate ending, which gave a sense of existential dread lurking behind the motley parade of different moods. Alongside this 64-year-old festival commission was a brand-new one, SoundingsDancesEchoes, a Fanfare for Cheltenham by the young British composer Anna Semple. It began with faint percussive sounds like distant thunder which groped upwards and burgeoned first into notes and harmonies and then into glowing, wheeling brass chords. Just as it seemed the music was going to become properly celebratory it deflated and dissipated into stray sounds. Semple was clearly determined not to write a conventional fanfare, and the result certainly had a poetic suggestiveness. But like many 'atmospheric' pieces it was dogged by a lack of momentum. There were two more salutes to Cheltenham Festival's past. The first of them was the Four Sea Interludes from Britten's Peter Grimes, conducted by the composer himself at the very first Cheltenham Festival. It's one of those pieces that's in danger of becoming worn smooth from over-familiarity, but here its wild, untamed quality came across vividly. The other salute was Elgar's Enigma Variations, also played on that far-off day in 1945. Here the beefy vividness in the orchestral playing that worked so well for Arnold and Britten was a disadvantage. The performance seemed lacking in finesse and brass-heavy, though it was redeemed by some lovely solo playing, above all from the principal cellist and violist.
Times
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Is it an art gallery or a St Tropez holiday villa?
There's a familiar-looking painting hanging above a staircase leading to the professional-grade chef's kitchen in the basement of the St Tropez holiday villa I'm in. The painting features several evenly spaced circles of paint on a white background in a triangular frame. 'That's not a Damien Hirst, is it?' I ask Emilia Jedamska, the founder and chief executive of St Tropez House, the villa rental company that oversees this home. 'Yes, it's his D-Lysergic Acid,' comes the reply. The painting, the chemical name of which is better known as LSD, sold at auction at Christie's in London for £361,250 in 2012. On further inspection of the expansive modernist house, the Hirst turns out to be one of the cheapest of the artworks that fill Villa Ama's seven bedrooms and extensive grounds. Opposite it sits a 2m-high Jeff Koons mirror-polished, stainless-steel ballerina sculpture. Above the breakfast table hangs a colourful work by Takashi Murakami and, in the garden, as well as a 17.5m heated swimming pool and outdoor cinema, there are monumental sculptures by the Austrian artist Franz West and the American artist Richard Serra. Art, Jedamska explains, is the villa owners' passion. 'They want to live with it and share it with guests rather than have it stuck in some freeport somewhere.' And in St Tropez's increasingly crowded and expensive villa rental market, the owners — who are descendants of the Asscher diamond family — hope the extensive art collection will help their villa to stand out. 'The vision is not for a standard holiday rental with decorative things slapped on the walls,' Jedamska says. 'It's to allow guests to live with some of the most valuable art in the world.' Their strategy is obviously working — in spite of it costing from €150,000 a week, the house is already almost booked up for summer. • Read more luxury reviews, advice and insights from our experts Brits are probably their biggest clients, Jedamska says, but their guests come from all corners of the world. 'We have one Swiss client who has come for five years in a row, and immediately books next year when they check out,' she says. 'I'd say 80 to 90 per cent are families with children, and it can often be three generations or groups of families. We once had three families from Brazil with nine children between them. We avoid groups of friends, and say no to celebrities bringing along DJs.' Villa Ama isn't alone in adorning its walls and garden with museum-grade art to stand out among some of Europe's most desirable villas. Nearby, the seven-bedroom, seven-bathroom Villa Brisas, costing €150,000 a week, has a Jeff Koons diamond sculpture, one of the Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone's 'vibrant ring' paintings, and three works by Philip Colbert, the British artist. In this villa the owners are taking no risks with sticky-fingered children — each work of art is encased behind protective Perspex. The six-bedroom Villa Marine on the water's edge inside Les Parcs, a gated community where many of the super-rich (including the billionaires Bernard Arnault and François-Henri Pinault) have homes, is available for from €110,000 a week through Excellence Riviera. While The Collectionist offers the seven-bedroom l'Oasis des Pins overlooking the sea for £110,095. But not all villas have six-figure price tags — Villa Soleil, offered by the Firefly Collection for €61,335 a week, has striking paintings and sculptures around the pool, and the five-bedroom Villa Stellar, for €55,000 a week on Pampelonne beach, is full of original prints by the photographers Slim Aarons and Terry O'Neill. Nicolette, the owner of Villa Botania within the Les Parcs, says she rents the villa out in the summer because 'the traffic is a nightmare and I'd rather be elsewhere. We have people from all over the world, Americans, British, Swiss, Canadians, Dubai,' she says. Many of the guests bring a cook to prepare meals, and some their own staff. Each has their own specific demands: some want a nanny, others a yacht. 'Once one guest asked us to provide a housekeeper to unpack their suitcases when they arrived,' she says, 'while another ordered 70 bottles of rosé to be delivered upon their arrival'. Some will also bring their own security guards, in addition to those employed by the villa. Homes with particularly important art collections will also have at least one member of staff permanently on site. The art curator Karlina Nathan, who helps many of the villa owners to build up their collections, says she encourages them to include pieces in their homes by artists who have painted in St Tropez, like Paul Signac, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and David Hockney. 'Art is no longer just a decorative accessory in luxury homes; it's an integral part of a property's identity, reflecting the owner's taste, travels and interests,' Nathan says. And by adding art, she adds, 'we create environments that elevate the experience of a home'. What that experience means here is that, if you rent a different house every holiday, you can wake up to a new collection of art each time. When they're Hockneys and Picassos, that really is an elevated experience.
Mail & Guardian
10-07-2025
- Mail & Guardian
Else Berg: Restitution of a modernist voice silenced by the Holocaust
Else Berg, who died in the Holocaust Else Berg was a modernist Jewish artist who played a significant role in European avant-garde circles in the early 20th century. Trained at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, and the Berlin University of the Arts in Germany, she focused on painting as her primary discipline. Her work embraced the hallmarks of modernism — abstraction, innovation and self-expression — and her portraits share affinities with the stylistic sensibility of Amedeo Modigliani. After extensive travels through Eastern Europe with her husband, the established painter Mommie Schwarz (1876–1942), Berg settled in Amsterdam. When the Nazis came to power, many of their friends and family fled to England or the US. Berg and Schwarz initially felt safe in the Netherlands, but when the wearing of the yellow badge became compulsory, they refused and went into hiding in the village of Baambrugge. After returning to their studio apartment in the Sarphatipark, Amsterdam, they were ultimately betrayed and arrested in November 1942. Both were deported to Auschwitz and murdered shortly after their arrival on 19 November. Their possessions, including artworks, were probably looted in the same fashion as the homes of more than 140 000 Jews in the Netherlands — emptied by Abraham Puls & Sons, the notorious Amsterdam moving company that collaborated with Nazi-directed Dutch police. Frame of reference: The handing-over ceremony at the Frans Hals Museum in the Netherlands for a portrait (top centre, woman in blue) by Else Berg, who died in the Holocaust Following World War II, it was mistakenly assumed that Berg and Schwarz had no surviving family. It is now known that they did and these heirs are the rightful claimants to any of Berg's looted possessions. Professor Frederik P Scott (1915–1976), a medical student from the University of the Witwatersrand, travelled to the Netherlands in 1938 with a scholarship from the Dutch-South African Association for Medical Education to complete his studies at the Rijksuniversiteit of Groningen. He lodged with the artist Sebastiaan Galis, whose mentorship extended far beyond the domestic. Galis introduced Scott to the De Ploeg artists' collective and helped nurture his interest in visual art. When World War II broke out, Scott remained in the Netherlands, graduating in 1942 and working at the Groninger Academisch Ziekenhuis — The University Medical Centre Groningen. In Groningen, he met and married Dora Bossart. After the war, the Scott family — including their son Willem, born in 1944 — was evacuated to England and then repatriated to South Africa aboard a cargo vessel in December 1945. In 1955, Scott returned to the Netherlands for a sabbatical year to specialise in dermatology at the former Klinisch Ziekenhuis Binnengasthuis hospital. Rekindling ties with Galis, he received as a gift Portret van Een Jonge Vrouw (circa 1913) by Else Berg — one of two Berg paintings Galis had acquired for a few gulden at the Waterlooplein flea market in Amsterdam after the war. Thus began Scott's lifelong engagement with art. In addition to his dermatological practice, he became a collector, connoisseur and author, assembling an extensive collection of South African and European works. The Berg portrait always held an important place in his collection, though questions about its whereabouts between 1942 and 1945 lingered. How had the painting ended up at the Waterlooplein market? Could it have been part of a Puls & Sons clearance? Art historian Linda Horn, author of Else Berg en Mommie Schwarz: Kunstenaarspaar in Amsterdam 1910–1942 (De Vrije Uitgevers, 2012), researched the provenance of Berg's oeuvre and proposed various legal avenues for addressing the painting's history. However, the possibility of wartime looting could not definitively be ruled out. After the 1998 Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets and the publication of the Washington Principles, a framework was established to enable the restitution of Nazi-confiscated artworks. The Scott heirs chose to be guided by these principles and resolved to return the painting to its cultural roots by donating it to a museum in the Netherlands. Recognising that museums might hesitate to accept works with incomplete provenance records, it was essential to secure the full support of the rightful heirs. With Horn's help, contact was made with Else Berg's heirs in the UK. The Winter and Berg families gave their approval, agreeing that donation to a Dutch museum would be a fitting and dignified resolution. While the process was amicable, it was not without complications. Two prominent museums were honoured to be considered as custodians but ultimately declined. Either the painting did not align with their collecting strategy or they feared it might end up in storage and not be exhibited. Debate emerged among Berg's heirs regarding the ideal destination for the painting. One perspective advocated for its inclusion in a Jewish historical institution, such as the Yad Vashem Museum of Holocaust Art in Jerusalem, to honour Berg's tragic fate. Another emphasised her rightful place in the modernist canon. As Fred Scott (Junior) noted in his correspondence: 'Else Berg's art practice was primarily driven by a desire to engage with the formal challenges that defined early 20th-century modernism. 'Her distinctive style and refined aesthetic sensibility introduced a fresh and expressive visual language. Notably, her use of large planes — broad, flat areas of colour or tone — played a significant role in shaping modern artistic standards in Europe. 'In her portraiture, Berg often elongated and simplified facial features, using these planes to construct a sense of volume and structure. Through the reduction of forms to their essentials, and the bold application of colour and simplified shapes, she achieved portraits that were both striking and deeply expressive, capturing the essence of her sitters. 'Given the innovative qualities of her work and its relevance to the evolution of European modernism, we believe this painting merits renewed consideration within its original cultural and art historical context.' After further discussion, consensus was reached that the painting should return to the Netherlands — to an institution more closely aligned with Berg's artistic legacy than a Holocaust memorial institution. The Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem graciously accepted the donation. In heartfelt correspondence, the museum's curator of modern art, Maaike Rikhof, wrote: 'We are utterly delighted and grateful that our museum collection will soon be complemented by the wonderful portrait by Else Berg!' The painting, once acquired by Galis on the Waterlooplein, has now arrived safely in Haarlem. 'What an amazing experience to finally be able to admire it in person,' Rikhof wrote. 'The vibrant colours and soft brushwork are striking, as is the melancholic gaze of the woman depicted.' The museum has announced plans to include Portret van Een Jonge Vrouw in its new permanent collection presentation this year, alongside Berg's Zelfportret met Penselen (circa 1929) and a portrait of her by Leo Gestel Dame met Grote Hoed in Prieel (1913). 'We thought it might be nice to celebrate the presence of Berg in this new presentation with those who helped make it possible,' Rikhof added. This donation not only enhances the museum's modern art collection but also helps restore and honour the legacy of Else Berg, a pioneering Jewish modernist who was silenced by the Holocaust. On 27 February, the Frans Hals Museum held an event to mark the formal acceptance of the donation from the Scott family collection. The celebratory event included, alongside museum staff, members of the Scott family, the Berg and Winter heirs and Linda Horn. The inclusion of Portret van Een Jonge Vrouw alongside Gestel's early portrait of Berg carries special resonance for the Scott family. It closes the circle begun in the 1930s, when the young South African medical student, Professor Frederik P Scott first encountered Dutch modernist painting under the guidance of Sebastiaan Galis. More than 80 years later, that influence — anchored in friendship, historical circumstance and shared aesthetic passion — has found lasting form in the public reuniting of Berg's image and legacy on Dutch soil. The donation also gains deeper meaning in light of the reference to Else Berg in Steve McQueen's 2023 film Occupied City, which movingly underlines the devastating impact of the Holocaust in the Netherlands and reaffirms the importance of preserving and remembering the lives and voices it sought to erase.
BBC News
30-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
'I tend Surrealist painter's forgotten grave in Dorset'
For three years, an art lover has been tending the forgotten grave of a Surrealist painter after he discovered it overgrown and obscured by Hillier RA lies in the parish churchyard of Glanvilles Wootton in north Dorset but the reason he is buried there is his grave is regularly cleaned by journalist Seth Dellow, from Ilminster, Somerset, who has also tried to track down the artist's said he decided to care for the plot because he liked Surrealism and found it "weird and bizarre" that Hillier would be buried there. Hillier was a member of the Unit One modernist group of the 1930s, along with Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and founder Paul of his paintings were inspired by the landscapes of north Dorset and Somerset and, following his death in Bristol in 1983, he was buried at St Mary's in Glanvilles Wootton. Mr Dellow said when he found the gravestone it was "completely neglected, covered in lichen, the grass had completely overgrown it"."The lichen was very thick so I thought I'd start cleaning it up - that was a few years ago now," he Dellow contacted the parish clerk and churchwarden, hoping to track down the artist's family but without success."I think what really needs doing is the gold lettering," he said. "The weather has had an effect. It's starting to disappear and there's a risk that one day you won't be able to read what it says." Hillier was born in China, the son of a diplomat, but attended school in lived for more than two decades in France and served in the Royal Navy during World War Two before settling in East Pennard, 20 miles away from his final resting Dellow said: "He was painting rural scenes. You don't really get many British Surrealists who are painting those scenes, especially in Somerset and north Dorset."I don't know why he's buried here but he did paint parts of Dorset - in the area near Sherborne, Wincanton, and places like Cucklington, near the border."For some reason he was very attracted to those areas."I really like Surrealism as an art form. It was a time when Britain had just been to war and it was a difficult time for the country."It's just a surreal story to have a Surrealist from Somerset and Dorset buried here, that's what I find really weird and bizarre, but I love it." You can follow BBC Dorset on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
Wall Street Journal
16-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- Wall Street Journal
House of the Week: A Hidden Gem in a Boca Raton Historic District
Doug Greenhut, 58, and Wendy Greenhut, 59, were living in Delray Beach, Fla., when they saw a magazine ad for a modernist home in Boca Raton. The pair spent 20 years in their midcentury modern house, but didn't like how the area had changed from a quiet beach town into an overcrowded vacation destination, says Doug. As soon as they stepped inside the Boca house for the first time, they were hooked. 'We wanted something different and unique,' Wendy says.
