Kenneth Paul Block (noted in passing)


Kenneth Paul Block was a fashion illustrator whose artful strokes captured the elegance of high-couture women of the ‘50s, then the fluid look of later decades. For nearly 40 years, starting in the mid-‘50s, Block was an illustrator for Women’s Wear Daily and later for W magazine as well, both published by Fairchild Publications.

Noted in passing

Antonio Pineda, age 90, was a renowned Mexican modernist silversmith praised for his striking jewelry designs and ingenious use of gemstones. Pineda died of kidney failure in Taxco, Mexico on December 14, 2009.

The Percy Children

Ronnie Cutrone


No Time To Say Goodbye, available on Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/No-Time-Say-Goodbye-Memoir/dp/


In 1962, six year old John Tuohy, his two brothers and two sisters entered Connecticut’s foster care system and were promptly split apart. Over the next ten years, John would live in more than ten foster homes, group homes and state schools, from his native Waterbury to Ansonia, New Haven, West Haven, Deep River and Hartford. In the end, a decade later, the state returned him to the same home and the same parents they had taken him from. As tragic as is funny compelling story will make you cry and laugh as you journey with this child to overcome the obstacles of the foster care system and find his dreams.
http://www.amazon.com/No-Time-Say-Goodbye-Memoir/dp/0692361294/
http://amemoirofalifeinfostercare.blogspot.com/

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John William Tuohy is a writer who lives in Washington DC. He holds an MFA in writing from Lindenwood University. He is the author of numerous non-fiction on the history of organized crime including the ground break biography of bootlegger Roger Tuohy "When Capone's Mob Murdered Touhy" and "Guns and Glamour: A History of Organized Crime in Chicago."
His non-fiction crime short stories have appeared in The New Criminologist, American Mafia and other publications. John won the City of Chicago's Celtic Playfest for his work The Hannigan's of Beverly, and his short story fiction work, Karma Finds Franny Glass, appeared in AdmitTwo Magazine in October of 2008.
His play, Cyberdate.Com, was chosen for a public performance at the Actors Chapel in Manhattan in February of 2007 as part of the groups Reading Series for New York project. In June of 2008, the play won the Virginia Theater of The First Amendment Award for best new play.


Contact John:
MYWRITERSSITE.BLOGSPOT.COM
JWTUOHY95@GMAIL.COM


From Professor William Anthony Connolly

This incredible memoir, No Time to Say Goodbye, tells of entertaining angels, dancing with devils, and of the abandoned children many viewed simply as raining manna from some lesser god.
The young and unfortunate lives of the Tuohy bruins—sometimes Irish, sometimes Jewish, often Catholic, rambunctious, but all imbued with Lion’s hearts— is told here with brutal honesty leavened with humor and laudable introspective forgiveness.
The memoir will have you falling to your knees thanking that benevolent Irish cop in the sky, your lucky stars, or hugging the oxygen out of your own kids the fate foisted upon Johnny and his siblings does not and did not befall your own brood.
 John William Tuohy, a nationally-recognized authority on organized crime and Irish levity, is your trusted guide through the weeds the decades of neglect ensnared he and his brothers and sisters, all suffering for the impersonal and often mercenary taint of the foster care system.
Theirs, and Tuohy’s, story is not at all figures of speech as this review might suggest, but all too real and all too sad, and maddening. I wanted to scream. I wanted to get into a time machine, go back and adopt every last one of them. I was angry. I was captivated.
The requisite damning verities of foster care are all here, regretfully, but what sets this story above others is its beating heart, even a bruised and broken one, still willing to forgive and understand, and continue to aid its walking wounded. I cannot recommend this book enough


William S. Burroughs, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Debbie Harry photographed by Victor Bockris, December 1986.


Portrait of a Man, Frans Hals


Self-Portrait with Dark Felt Hat at the Easel, 1886, Vincent van Gogh


Tempest, 1872, Ivan Aivazovski


The Church at Moret, Rainy Morning, 1893, Alfred Sisley


The Rommel Pot Player, 1618, Frans Hals


They Cha U Kao, Chinese Clown, Seated, 1896, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec


Vincent Van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890), Oleanders, 1888. Oil on canvas.


Winter. Shrovetide festivities, 1919, Boris Kustodiev


Guitar, Sheet music and Wine glass, 1912, Pablo Picasso


Antibes, 1893, Pierre-Auguste Renoir


Portrait of the Composer D.V. Morozov, 1919, Boris Kustodiev


Portrait of Madame Renoir, 1888, Gustave Caillebotte


11 Times Great Actors Played Great Artists



BY KAT SOMMERS

The second season of Genius starts tonight (April 24) on the National Geographic Channel, turning its attention to the world of art and Pablo Picassoafter the first season dramatized the life of Albert Einstein.
Antonio Banderas stars as Spain’s greatest artist, following in the footsteps of Sir Anthony Hopkins, who portrayed him in 1996 Merchant Ivory film Surviving Picasso (with Clémence Poésy playing painter Françoise Gilot, the role played by Designated Survivor‘s Natascha McElhone).
It got us thinking about other great artists who’ve been portrayed in films — and the great actors who played them.

11. Robert Pattinson as Little Ashes (2008)
Surrealist Salvador Dalí has been played numerous times, most notably by Adrien Brody in Midnight in Paris and Robert Pattinson in this film about Dalí and his friends, the filmmaker Luis Buñuel and writer Federico García Lorca. Focusing on Dalí’s battle to suppress his sexuality, it was a brave and unusual performance so soon after his turn as vampire Edward Cullen in the first Twilight film.

10. Sally Hawkins in Maudie (2016)
It’s fair to say Sally Hawkins‘ 2017 film, The Shape of Water, overshadowed this one about Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis, and her unlikely romance with the reclusive Everett Lewis (Ethan Hawke). But her performance here is every bit as resolved, with subtle touches and a mischievous sense of humor.

9. Colin Firth in The Girl With the Pearl Earring (2003)
Based on the bestselling novel by Tracy Chevalier, this film about the woman behind one of the world’s most famous portraits (Scarlett Johansson) also features the painter himself, Johannes Vermeer, aka a rather fetching and bewigged Colin Firth.

8. Juliette Binoche in Camille Claudel 1915 (2014)
Chocolat star Juliette Binoche plays French sculptor Camille Claudel, who was confined by her family to an insane asylum after she suffered a breakdown. She stayed there for the next 30 years, deprived of all her art materials, and this sombre and deeply affecting film takes place two years after she’s committed.

7. Tony Curran in Doctor Who (2010)
Who would you choose if you could travel back in time to let someone know the impact their work would have after their death? In season five Doctor Whoepisode “Vincent and the Doctor,” our favorite Time Lord (Matt Smith) does just that when he takes Vincent van Gogh (Tony Curran), who died in penury in 1890 having never sold a single painting, to the Musee d’Orsay in Paris.

6. Salma Hayek in Frida (2002)
Salma was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for her performance as Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, in a film that also starred Alfred Molina as Kahlo’s husband Diego Rivera. She lost out though, to another actress who depicted a creative genius: Nicole Kidman and her fake schnozz as Virginia Woolf in The Hours.

5. Ed Harris in Pollock (2000)
Ed Harris made his directorial debut with this biopic, as well as taking on the lead role of renowned American painter Jackson Pollock. It earned him a nomination for the Best Actor Oscar, while co-star Marcia Gay won hers for her supporting role as Pollock’s wife and fellow painter Lee Krasner.

4. Timothy Spall in Mr. Turner (2014)
Directed by Vera Drake and Happy-Go-Lucky filmmaker Mike Leigh, this biopic about impressionist painter J.M.W. Turner follows the last quarter century of his lifer, as the death of his father takes a profound toll on him. Snubbed by the Academy and BAFTA, Timothy Spall‘s lead performance won him the Best Actor award at Cannes.

3. Emma Thompson in Carrington (1995)
Emma Thompson led a stellar cast as painter Dora Carrington, one of the feted Bloomsbury Group whose members also included writer Lytton Strachey(Jonathan Pryce), painter Vanessa Bell (Janet McTeer) and diarist Frances Partridge (Alex Kingston). Rufus Sewell and Samuel West also star, as artist Mark Gertler and historian Gerald Brenan.

2. Jeffrey Wright in Basquiat (1996)
The 1980s New York art world comes to life in this film by artist-director Julian Schnabel, with Andy Warhol (David Bowie), art dealer Bruno Bischofberger(Dennis Hopper) and gallerist Mary Boone (Parker Posey) all represented. Front and center though is Westworld‘s Jeffery Wright, whose performance as the neo-expressionist painter Jean-Michel Basquiat became his breakout role.

1. Daniel Day Lewis in My Left Foot (1989)
“Daniel Day Lewis gives the greatest performance of his career,” says the trailer. Well, not quite. But in 1989 his performance as painter Christy Brown was the best of his career, and won him the first of three Best Actor Oscars.