Art
T
hree compelling New York
museum exhibitions reflect
the course of history and
share a common thread of
beauty, fashion and glamour
in different ways. The “Gilded Age”
at the Museum of the City of New
York provides a view of the 19th
century lifestyle of the elite in New
York, while the “Killer Heels”
exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum
encompasses decades of styles of
high heel shoes. An exhibition of
Cubist Art at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art would not have come
to fruition without the 40 year
collection of cosmetics mogul
Leonard A. Lauder. We know that
Cubism has had an influence on
fashion throughout the decades.
portraits, and decorative objects, all
created between the mid-1870s and
the early 20th century. The Tiffany
& Co. Foundation Gallery consists
of elegant state-of-the-art display
cases, herringbone wood flooring,
decorative wallpaper, mirrored
window shutters, draperies, as
well as a historic chandelier and
fireplace mantel from the Museum’s
collections.
“Gilded New York” at
the Museum of the City
of New York
Visit the Museum of the City of
New York’s website www.mcny.org
The Museum of the City of New York
was founded in 1923 and has been
responsible for celebrating New York
City and educating the public about
its distinctive history, heritage, and
transformation.
Last year, the museum inaugurated
its Tiffany & Co. Foundation Gallery
with “Gilded New York”, an
exhibition that explores the city’s
visual culture at the end of the 19th
century. This was an era of glamor in
New York, when the city’s cultural
institutions helped launch its global
prominence and New York became
the nation’s corporate headquarters.
The elite class displayed a massive
amount of extravagance when it
came to its fashions, architecture,
and interior design.
“Gilded New York” presents some 100
works, including costumes, jewelry,
“Gilded New York” is organized by
Donald Albrecht, the City Museum’s
Curator of Architecture and Design;
Jeannine Falino, an independent
curator; and Phyllis Magidson, the
City Museum’s Curator of Costumes
and Textiles. The exhibition runs
through November 30, 2014.
“Killer Heels” at The
Brooklyn Museum
Founded in 1895, the Brooklyn
Museum is a massive, 560,000 square
foot art institution. Its permanent
collections include a wide range of
objects -- from ancient Egyptian
masterpieces to contemporary art
-- representing almost every
culture in the world.
“Killer Heels: The Art of the High
Heeled Shoe” is a current exhibition
through February 15, 2015. It
explores the most provocative and
coveted fashion accessory and its
rich and varied history. Comprised of
160 elevated shoes in a wide range
of styles, origins and eras, this
exhibition is a feast for the eyes.
Included in this exhibition are the
high platform chopines (a style of
women’s platform shoe that was
popular in the 15th, 16th and 17th
centuries), Salvador Dalí’s fanciful,
inverted Shoe Hat of the late 1930s,
many of the glamorous stilettos seen
on today’s red carpets, and the
memorable eight-inch-heel platform
booties created by United Nude for
Lady Gaga.
Both contemporary and historic
footwear in “Killer Heels” have been
borrowed from designers or culled
from the renowned Brooklyn Museum
costume collection housed at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, the
Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto and
Museo Ferragamo in Florence, Italy.
Throughout the ages, the highheeled shoe has gone through many
transformations and interpretations
of artistic expression for both
designer and wearer. According to
Lisa Small, the Brooklyn Museum’s
curator of exhibitions and this
exhibition “Killer Heels” strives to
present shoes “from an aesthetic,
design and material culture
standpoint.”
Visit The Brooklyn Museum’s website
www.brooklynmuseum.org
“Cubism: The Leonard A.
Lauder Collection” at The
Metropolitan Museum
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
is an art mecca that attracts more
than six million visitors each year.
Its history begins in 1866 in Paris,
France, when a group of Americans
agreed to create a “national
institution and gallery of art” to
bring art and art education to the
American people. It is one of the
world’s largest and finest art
museums that hosts a collection
comprised of more than two
million works of art.
Over the past 40 years, Leonard
A. Lauder, the cosmetics mogul
and philanthropist, has selectively
acquired masterpieces and seminal
works to create the most important
collection of Cubist Art that has
existed in private hands. This
unsurpassed collection is now
a promised gift to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art and will be shown
in “Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder
Collection”, from October 20,
2014 – February 16, 2015.
Included in this unprecedented
exhibition are 79 paintings,
collages, drawings, and sculpture by
the four preeminent Cubist artists:
Georges Braque (French, 1882–
1963), Juan Gris (Spanish, 1887–
1927), Fernand Léger (French,
1881–1955), and Pablo Picasso
(Spanish, 1881–1973).
Cubism is recognized as the most
influential art movement of the
early twentieth century and remains
a major source of inspiration for
many artists today. Fundamental
traits of Cubist art -- with its
distortions, dimensions, angles
and geometric shapes -- were also
translated into fashion from 1908
into the early 1920s. We can still
see its influence on designers today.
Simply consider Prada’s angular
shoes and Lagerfeld’s cubist shapes.
In his book, “Cubism and Fashion,”
Richard Martin states, “In the search
for a description of or analysis for
fashion’