Tag: house museum

Postcard from London, England: Painter’s former home exotic as a peacock

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Above: Staircase hall in the Leighton House, Holland Park, Kensington, London

My parents surrounded me with every facility to learn drawing, but, strongly discountenanced the idea of my being an artist unless I could be eminent in art.”

Lord Frederic Leighton, 1879

From a wealthy family, Frederic Leighton (1830-1896) traveled extensively throughout Europe and exotic countries bordering the Mediterranean. He studied art in France, Germany and Italy and emerged an artist of striking talent on the fast track toward “eminence.” In 1855, Leighton exhibited his first major painting at the Royal Academy in London and scored a monumental sale.

There was a very big picture by a man called Leighton. It is a beautiful painting, quite reminding one of a Paul Veronese, so bright and full of light. Albert was enchanted with it—so much so that he made me buy it.”

Diary entry of Queen Victoria, 1855

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Postcard from Amsterdam, Netherlands: Making room at the table

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Above: House of Vineyard exhibition reacted and related to historic artifacts in the Abraham and Louisa Willet-Holthuysen House Museum.

Historically, the voices and experiences of Black and Brown femme queens have often been marginalized. But their resilience, courage, and unyielding spirit have paved the way for progress both off and on the runway…. In the dining room, we honor five queens who not only fought for a seat at the table, but created their own.”

House of Vineyard curator notes for temporary contemporary art exhibition

Keeping a house museum fresh, appealing and relevant to diverse audiences is extremely difficult, speaking as someone who had chaired a committee running one. I wish my visit to the Abraham and Louisa Willet-Holthuysen House Museum, a house built on the Herengracht Canal in 1685, had been years earlier.

Instead of keeping its collection static, the house museum stimulates repeat visitation by weaving thoughtfully curated contemporary art throughout its rooms. Often times, house museums are filled with gray-hairs, but not everyone there had our same color hair. The House of Vineyard’s “Grand March: A Historic House through a Ballroom Lens” attracted a diverse, youthful group. And it worked. All ages appeared interested in both the old and the new.

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Postcard from Palermo, Sicily: ‘Crazy enlightenment project’ bridges centuries

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Above: A contemporary overhead walkway sensuously links galleries in a recently renovated 18th-century palace, Palazzo Butera.

At first, I tried to resist, but Francesca insisted, saying, ‘You can fulfill all of your dreams here.’” 

Massimo Valsecchi, interviewed by Elaine Sciolino for an article published in The New York Times on September 26, 2024

We stayed in the Kalsa District, the old Arab quarter in Palermo, for a month in the spring of 2023. This meant we strolled upon a portion of an impressively long tiled veranda addressing the sea numerous times. However, we were clueless about the possibility of visiting the adjacent Palazzo Butera to discover the beauty contained within its walls.

Freshly renovated, the palace did not open its doors to the public as a museum until 2021 and, when we visited, still seemed the city’s best-kept secret. It certainly hadn’t made the guidebooks yet. The New York Times article quoted above nudged me to retrieve this postcard from the backlog of unmailed ones.

‘Everyone said we were mad,’ a serene Francesca Valsecchi admits with a smile as she recalls the decision she and her husband Massimo took in 2015, when they moved from an apartment in Cadogan Square in London to the colossal Palazzo Butera in Palermo…. what Massimo describes as his ‘crazy Enlightenment project.’”

Susan Moore, Apollo Magazine, August 30, 2022

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