Emily Mason (1932–2019) was an American abstract painter and printmaker. Mason developed her individual approach to the Abstract Expressionist and color field painting traditions with her veils of color and spontaneous gestural mark.  Mason was born and raised in New York City, where she lived and worked until her death.  Emily Mason was born in Greenwich Village to Alice Trumbull Mason and Warwood Edwin Mason.  Her mother was a founder of the American Abstract Artists.  Her father was sea captain for American Export Lines.  She attended the High School of Music & Art from 1946 to 1950, then she attended Bennington College from 1950 to 1952.  In 1952, Mason transferred from Bennington College to the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, where she was graduated in 1955.  In 1956, Mason was awarded a Fulbright grant to study in Italy.  Before moving there, she met fellow painter Wolf Kahn, who later joined her in Venice.  They married on March 2, 1957, at the municipal building near the Rialto Bridge, witnessed by strangers and friends including filmmaker Tinto Brass.  Her work earned her a second year of the Fulbright grant, which they spent between Venice and Rome, visiting other artists including Gretna Campbell, Louis Finkelstein, and Lee Bontecou.  In late 1958, the couple returned to New York, where Mason gave birth to their first daughter Cecily in 1959.  In 1963, the family returned to Italy.  Their daughter Melany was born in Rome in 1964.  In 1968, the couple bought a farm in Brattleboro, Vermont, where Mason would spend her summers painting. In an interview with magazine Western Art & Architecture, Mason explained:  "It is important to balance city life with experiencing nature.  Winter in the city is the time for the fermentation of ideas.  Summer is my time to carry them out."  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Mason   

In early March, 1936, Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) drove past a sign reading, “PEA-PICKERS CAMP,” in Nipomo, California.  At the time, she was working as a photographer for the Resettlement Administration (RA), a Depression-era government agency formed to raise public awareness of and provide aid to struggling farmers.  Twenty miles down the road, Lange reconsidered and turned back to the camp, where she encountered a mother and her children.  “I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet,” she later recalled.  “She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding field and birds that the children killed.”   Lange took seven exposures of the woman, 32-year-old Florence Owens Thompson, with various combinations of her seven children.  One of these exposures, with its tight focus on Thompson’s face, transformed her into a Madonna-like figure and became an icon of the Great Depression and one of the most famous photographs in history.  This image was first exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art in 1940, under the title Pea Picker Family, California; by 1966, when the Museum held a retrospective of Lange’s work, it had acquired its current title, Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California.  https://www.moma.org/artists/3373  

The exhibit, “Dorothea Lange:  Seeing People,” will run from now through March 31, 2024.  The National Gallery of Art, including the “Dorothea Lange:  Seeing People” exhibit is free to visit and does not require passes. For those who cannot attend in person, selected works are also available to view on the museum’s exhibit page, and there is an exhibition publication. And for those who might only be familiar with her more famous photographs, this will provide a far more holistic view of Lange’s work.  “Seeing People” is divided into six thematic parts and spans her decades-long portfolio.  Lisa Marie Segarra  https://petapixel.com/2023/12/08/depression-era-photographer-dorothea-langes-work-showcased-in-d-c-exhibit/  Find location and hours for the National Gallery of Art at https://www.nga.gov/visit/getting-here.html  

Fans will gather around TVs on Feb. 11, 2024 to watch the Kansas City Chiefs take on the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl, and to see Usher headline the halftime show.  But hours before that, Puppy Bowl XX is airing, with two teams of cute, adoptable dogs on the green turf.  The Puppy Bowl action happens at 2 p.m. ET (11 a.m. PT) on Sunday, Feb. 11, with a pregame show that starts at 1 p.m ET (10 a.m. PT).  Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the event will feature more than 125 dogs, a halftime kitty show, and a new puppy assistant coach.  During the show, viewers will meet pets from all over the country and learn how to potentially adopt a furry new family member. Among the stars are a group of special needs pups, a tiny dog named Sweetpea who weighs in at 1.7 pounds, and the latest inductees to the Puppy Bowl Hall of Fame.  https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/how-to-watch-the-2024-puppy-bowl-from-anywhere/ 

Super Bowl 58  Date:  Sunday, Feb. 11, 2024 ; Time: 6:30 p.m. ET  TV channel: CBS  https://sports.yahoo.com › how-to-watch-super-bowl  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2779  February 5, 2024