The great end of art

The great end of art is to strike the imagination with the power of a soul that refuses to admit defeat even in the midst of a collapsing world. -- Friedrich Nietzsche

In every person

In every person who comes near you look for what is good and strong; honor that; try to imitate it, and your faults will drop off like dead leaves when their time comes.-- John Ruskin (1819-1900) English Art Critic

Loving what I'm doing

We all get report cards in many different ways, but the real excitement of what you're doing is in the doing of it. It's not what you're gonna get in the end - it's not the final curtain - it's really in the doing it, and loving what I'm doing. -- Designer Ralph Lauren

The Empire State Building in Black and White

The Shalimar in Wildwood New Jersey 1962

Kitchen of the future, 1959 version

Gas Station, design by Frank Lloyd Wright...really, no joke

Pop

Lichtenstein

Jazz music

"Jazz music was the classic American art form that had accompanied virtually every "glorious" era of mobsterism in the United States since the end of the nineteenth century. In Storyville, the legendary turn-of-the-century red-light district of New Orleans, ragtime gave way to a freer, more blues influenced form of jazz as practiced by the likes of Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton, and Louis Armstrong. The music had its roots in the African-American experience; it was also the music of the bordello, the speakeasy, and Mob-owned nightclubs from Boston to Los Angeles. Jazz was race-mixing music, through which rich and poor alike came together out of a desire to skirt the placid white-bread veneer of American life (that is, until jazz itself was co-opted by white-bread America).

"It is probable that jazz would have been born without the influence of the Mob, but it is unlikely the music would have grown and flourished as it did without the economic framework provided by organized crime. Particularly in the era of the Roaring Twenties (i.e., Prohibition), when jazz became an international obsession, money from bootlegging rackets made it possible for nightclubs to hire large orchestras. Jay McShann, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington all created world renowned orchestras that were financed by Mob-controlled nightclubs. These orchestras spawned many legends of jazz who developed their talents and headlined in smaller clubs, some of which were also Mob owned.

"In Chicago, Al Capone adored the music and fostered an entire generation of musicians. In Harlem, the Mob-owned Cotton Club had as its house band the sophisticated Duke Ellington Orchestra. Kansas City had an entire district of jazz clubs and after-hours joints that spawned their own version of the music known as 'dirty jazz,' a Delta blues-influenced sound that gave birth to McShann, Basie, and Charlie 'Bird' Parker, among others. This flourishing jazz district in Kansas City - which existed from the early 1920s into the 1930s - was made possible by a corrupt political machine that served as a model for the Havana Mob as constructed by Meyer Lansky, Fulgencio Batista, et al., and which itself spawned Afro-Cuban jazz. "
T.J. English, Havana Nocturne, Morrow, Copyright 2007, 2008 by T.J. English, p. 244.

Links to larger Art Museums in the US

Ana Gorta Mor Collection


http://www.thegreathunger.org/html/collection/Angortamorart.html



Addison Gallery of American Art

http://www.addisongallery.org/



Amon Carter Museum

http://www.cartermuseum.org/



Art Gallery of the University of Rochester

http://mag.rochester.edu/



Art Institute of Chicago

http://www.artic.edu/aic/



Block Museum of Art

http://www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu/



Brooklyn Museum

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/



Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh

http://www.carnegiemuseums.org/



Cleveland Museum of Art

http://www.clemusart.com/educef/distance/index.aspx



Currier Museum of Art

http://www.currier.org/



Dallas Museum of Art

http://www.dm-art.org/index.htm



Dayton Art Institute

http://www.daytonartinstitute.org/



Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

http://www.famsf.org/



Fleming Museum

http://www.uvm.edu/~fleming/



Fred Jones Jr Museum of Art

http://www.ou.edu/fjjma/home.html



Harvard University Art Museums

http://www.artmuseums.harvard.edu/



Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

http://hirshhorn.si.edu/



Honolulu Academy of Arts

http://www.honoluluacademy.org/cmshaa/academy/index.aspx



Hyde Collection

http://www.hydecollection.org/



Johnson Museum of Art

http://www.museum.cornell.edu/



Maier Museum of Art

http://www.maiermuseum.org/





Montclair Art Museum

http://www.montclair-art.com/



Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

http://www.mfah.org/home.asp?par1=1&par2=1&par3=1&par4=1&par5=1&par6=1&par7=&lgc=0&eid=¤tPage=



National Gallery of Australia

http://nga.gov.au/Home/Default.cfm



National Portrait Gallery

http://www.npg.si.edu/



Nevada Museum of Art

http://www.nevadaart.org/



Norton Museum of Art

http://www.norton.org/



Oklahoma City Museum of Art

http://www.okcmoa.com/



Orange County Museum of Art

http://www.ocma.net/index.html?page=index



Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

http://www.pafa.org/

http://www.pafa.org/ (Link)





The Phillips Collection

http://shop.phillipscollection.org/phillips/



Pierpont Morgan Library

http://www.themorgan.org/home.asp



Pomona College Museum of Art

http://www.pomona.edu/museum/



San Diego Museum of Art

http://www.sdmart.org/



Sheldon Art Gallery

http://www.sheldonartgallery.org/



Smithsonian American Art Museum

http://americanart.si.edu/



Springfield Museum of Art

http://www.springfieldart.museum/



Tacoma Art Museum

http://www.tacomaartmuseum.org/



Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

http://www.museothyssen.org/



University of Kentucky Art Museum

http://www.uky.edu/ArtMuseum/





Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

http://www.virginiamuseum.blogspot.com/



Walker Art Center

http://www.walkerart.org/index.wac



Westmoreland Museum of American Art

http://www.wmuseumaa.org/



Whitney Museum of American Art

http://whitney.org/



Yale University Art Gallery

http://artgallery.yale.edu/