Bob Duggan
Contributing Writer
Bob Duggan has Master’s Degrees in English Literature and Education and is not afraid to use them. Born and raised in Philadelphia, PA, he has always been fascinated by art and brings an informed amateur’s eye to the conversation.
If you’re like most people, you’ve already broken your New Year’s resolutions. No worries. Here’s a different promise to yourself that should be easier, more enjoyable, and more educational to […]
Open any American history textbook and you’ll find it there—Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze’s 1851 painting Washington Crossing the Delaware. George Washington’s steely profile cutting through the wind as he stands in […]
News that Helen Frankenthalerdied yesterday at the age of 83 after a long illness is making a lot of people recall just how important a figure the self-described “saddle-shoed girl […]
Continuing a tradition I started last year, here’s a very personal, very subjective, “I can’t read everything, so I probably left out something, so mention it in the comments, OK?” […]
The extra dimension of time embedded in each photo we see this holiday season reminds us of how fleeting each moment truly is.
With all apologies to the memory of Theodor Geisel, it’s not the Grinch stealing Christmas this year—it’s Banksy! In Cardinal Sin (above), Banksy takes a replica of an 18th century […]
Imagine you’re an expert on some famous artist. Now imagine someone comes to you with a painting they believe is by that famous artist. After looking at the painting, you […]
Just when you think a contemporary art megastar such as Damien Hirst has done his worst to make a mockery of the modern art world, he finds a new weapon […]
Now that the silly season of American politics revs up for another presidential election, it’s a fair question to ask who will be the next great caricature? Nixon cast his […]
Peer into any young American boy’s imagination, and you’ll likely find knights, soldiers, and pirates roaming about. That fact is a true today as it was a century ago. One […]
As the times go, so goes Van Gogh. Toiling in relative obscurity during his life, known by fellow painters but not by the public at large, Vincent Van Gogh’s greatest […]
Say “Miami” and, depending on your age, certain things come to mind: Crockett and Tubbs, senior citizens in cabana wear, LeBron James. In a generation or so, another association may […]
For many Americans a “moment of Zen” is the segment that ends every episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Those brief glimpses of contemporary life usually reprise an […]
Today, December 1st, marks the 23rd observance of Day With(out) Art, the art world’s way of observing World AIDS Day. At the time of that first observance in 1989, the […]
One of the odder cultural moments of the late 1970s that still sticks with me is the cinematic tour de force titled The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh, the improbably story […]
I love Rockwell’s rendering of the Thanksgiving feast. Three generations circle the food—a nuclear family more rarely seen today in person, but still existing in our hearts and minds in modern permutations.
Ask me to build a Mount Rushmore of Abstract Expressionism, and I’ll put the faces of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, and Barnett Newman up there. From Hollywood […]
During his lifetime, Diego Rivera stood as one of the most important and controversial artists in the world. Today, thanks to the international feminist phenomenon of Frida Kahlo (who stood […]
As NYC police attempt to clear Zuccotti Park of the Occupy Wall Street protesters, it seems appropriate to reconsider who OWS is and what they want. To me, their goals […]
Of all the surreal moments in the Penn State sex scandal surrounding the actions of former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, the most surreal for me was watching on a […]
When Leonardo da Vinci painted at the court of Milan from 1482 through 1499, he contributed to the revolution in seeing we now know as the Renaissance. Lorenzo de’ Medici […]
In our time of confined specialization, it’s hard to comprehend the multimedia talents of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, whose poetry and painting helped shape the Victorian Age into the paradox-laden, hot […]
As the assault of comic book superhero-featuring movies over the past few years attests, the men and women in tights serve today as the closest thing American culture has to […]
What sends chills and thrills up your spine just by looking at it on a museum wall? Fright, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. But here is perhaps the scariest painting of them all.
“I don’t have students,” Man Ray allegedly told Lee Miller when she finally tracked the Surrealist down in a Parisian bar after he eluded her visit to his front door […]
Wander through most major museums and you’ll find a remarkable number of works with no name. Either lost to the mists of time or never recorded because the work was […]
The Italian Renaissance remains one of those amazing hinges of human history where civilization made a great leap that continues to be felt today. For German art historian Hans Belting, […]
Every art lover knows the story. Sad, mad Vincent Van Gogh went into the wheat fields of Auvers-sur-Oise on the morning of July 27, 1890 to paint Wheatfield with Crows […]
Hemingway wrote of courage as grace under pressure. In Private Acts: The Acrobat Sublime, Harriet Heyman writes of grace under the pressure of gravity and the courage demonstrated by those […]