THE PHILADELPHIA JUNTO.: Worcester MA

Showing posts with label Worcester MA. Show all posts

Wednesday, 30 April 2025

ARMOUR GUARD

MONUMENTAL HIGGINS ARMOUR COLLECTION, LONG IN MOTHBALLS, TO OPEN IN WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS

This fall, the Worcester Art Museum welcomes you to its new Arms and Armour Galleries. Uncover the real stories behind myths and legends, brought to life through over 1,000 objects from around the world. Showcasing the Museum’s collection of arms and armor—the second largest of its kind in the United States—this new 5,000-square-foot space invites you to delve into timeless themes of bravery, power, identity, and honor, and reflect on how these concepts resonate in our lives today.

Rare artifacts, breathtaking artworks, and hands-on interactives make this experience perfect for all ages. With a focus on storytelling, the galleries will explore the societies and cultures in which these objects were used and reveal the skill and ingenuity required to create them. Discover the celebrity culture of Roman gladiators through a 2,000-year-old helmet. Marvel at ornate weapons-turned-fashion statements, like an Indian dagger worn to signify status and masculinity. Search the surfaces of brilliantly crafted suits of armor for clues about their makers. And come face-to-face with samurai Sakai Genzo through the ceremonial suit of armor he once wore.

The core of the Museum’s collection of arms and armor is the John Woodman Higgins Armory Collection. Previously housed at Worcester’s Higgins Armoury Museum until its closure, the collection was acquired by WAM in 2014. Now, this reimagined new installation will allow for the majority of these beloved treasures to be on display, using art to boldly redefine how we encounter them. The galleries are curated by Jeffrey L. Forgeng, WAM’s Higgins Curator of Arms & Armor and Medieval Art—who has curated the Higgins Armory Collection since 1999—to highlight the craftsmanship, technological innovation, and cultural significance of arms and armor throughout history.

The Worcester Art Museum is profoundly grateful to the funders, donors, consultants, and the many others who have supported this project. View the full list.

How to visit

All visitors

Timed-entry reservations will be required for all visitors to the Arms and Armor Galleries.
Reservations will be available online starting October 22 at noon ET. Subsequently, timeslots will be released every Wednesday at noon ET.
Making a reservation online in advance is the only way to guarantee your entry into the Arms and Armor Galleries. There may be a very limited number of walk-up tickets available each day on a first-come, first-served basis.
Reservations for the Arms and Armor Galleries include general admission to the entire Museum. While you must be ready to enter the Arms and Armor Galleries at the time on your ticket, you may enter the Museum at any time during regular hours to enjoy four floors of art.

The PJ depends on reader support. Please help us by contributing financially to Philabooks@yahoo.com via PayPal, or by contributing editorial content via WritersClearinghouse.yahoo.com.| Established 1976 Richard Carreño, Editor © MMXXV WritersClearinghouse All Rights Reserved.

Monday, 15 December 2014

And Now the 'Women's' Page....

Judith Martin

Richard Carreno
CAROLYN FOISY AND STYLE
Judith Martin's memory of 'For and About Women,' published in last week in The Washington Post Magazine, reminds me of my stint, in the early-to-mid-1970s, as a staff reporter and fashion columnist (the first of my gender) on 'Women,' the so-called society page at the Worcester Telegram and its sister weekend paper, the Sunday Telegram in Worcester, Massachusetts. Like Martin, I was young, but my background was somewhat different. I had been a political reporter. Thanks to The Post's 'Style' section, and seeing a kind of interpretative writing I wanted to adopt (difficult under the strictures imposed on 'straight' reporting at the time), I was able to build up the nerve to jump from 'hard' news to 'soft.'

Wednesday, 18 June 2014

THE TORTURED LIFE OF SCOFIELD THAYER By James Dempsey

DIAL 'T' FOR THAYER

By Richard Carreño

[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]

As its editor, patron, and publisher, Scofield Thayer revamped the Dial, an early 20th century literary monthly based in New York, into what today's readers might recognise as a late 20th century version of The New Yorker -- on steroids. Not for the little old lady from Dubuque, nor, really, for the patrician salons of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.

Thayer (1889-1982) himself was a wealthy, blue-blood (Scofield, PUL-lezze), born in the central Massachusetts mill town of Worcester. In the course six short years from 1920, Thayer harnessed bursts of inspiration and exasperation to interpret a then-burgeoning 'modernist' creativity (in poetry, literature, and art) to a growing urban, upper middle-brow readership. The Dial was a savvy, avant-garde periodical. But Thayer never walked on the wild side, inviting legal censorship.

James Dempsey

In one typical issue alone, his contributors included T.S. Eliot, John Dos Passos, George Santayana, D.H. Lawrence, Gilbert Seldes, William Butler Yeats, and Wallace Stevens. There was never a culture magazine quite like it before, nor arguably one since that could match Thayer's Dial for literary star-power and influence.

Thayer published then-controversial writers (including Ezra Pound); thought enough of James Joyce that he gifted him several thousand dollars in today's money; and regularly gave E.E. Cummings a literary platform. (And his blessing to bed is wife. Elaine Orr Thayer was an angelic-looking knock-out, who also liked to screw around).

Friday, 6 June 2014

Sacked Again

Gutted: Worcester Telegram newsroom

Take This Job

and Love It

By Richard Carreño

[WritersClearinghouse News Service]

I've been fired. So, probably, have you. Call it 'laid off,' 'redundant,' 'sacked, or the 'boot,' the result is the same. You're out the door. If you're lucky, you don't face of the humiliation of an escort.

Better to quit? Resign? Or even 'Take this job and shove it'? Yes, I thought so.

A number of years ago, in the late 90s when I was in my late 40s, I decided on the later option. I was then a reporter for the Worcester Telegram in Massachusetts. No, my job wasn't being fazed out. I wasn't threatened with the axe. I just wanted to move on, and I sensed the timing -- the beginning of the Internet-related downturn of the newspaper industry -- was right. I had returned to the Telegram after stints at the The Hartford Courant and The Boston Globe.

By then, I was plotting my escape.

A few months before, I had gone for an 'exploratory' interview as an adjunct lecturer in American literature at an American-affiliated university in London. Just a chat, to be sure. Only speculative, you understand. As I leaving the luncheon interview, I was assured that I had the job. Probably had to do with my reference to Soames Forsyte. You know, that Soames, the protagonist in Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga. Arch? Arcane? You bet. But old Soames helped me win the day.

Tuesday, 31 July 2012

Worcester, Massachusetts, July 2012

Former boyhood house (above) at 31 Providence Street of the late dramatist S.J. Behrman, with his synogogue (below) directly across the street.

Photos: Writers Clearinghouse News Service

The J U N T O depends exclusively on reader support. Please help us continue by contributing directly via PayPal, or by contributing editorial content via WritersClearinghouse@yahoo.com. Empowered by Writers Clearinghouse | S.P.Q.R. 1976 Richard Carreño, Editor

Tuesday, 6 December 2011

Worcester Art Museum

Wall at WAM

Wall at Wam by Charlene Von Heyl, through summer 2012

WAM, Salisbury Street

Soup's On: By Andy Warhol

Who Knew?: Sudio study of Cardplayer by Cezanne at WAM

Junto Photos: Richard Carreño

Gallery

Higgins Armory,
Worcester, Massachusetts

Junto depends exclusively on reader support. Please help us continue by contributing directly via PayPal, or by contributing editorial content via Writers.Clearinghouse@comcast.net. Empowered by Writers Clearinghouse | S.P.Q.R. 1976 Richard Carreño, Editor

John Woodhams Higgins: He started it

Higgins' house at 80 Williams St., now part Becker College.

BROADSTREETREVIEW.COM INDEX

Articles by Richard Carreño
Diego Rivera's ghost in Detroit October 15 2013 The city of Detroit may be broke, but the Detroit Institute of Arts owns $2 billion worth of art works. Its most valued pieces, by the Communist Diego Rivera, portray heroic workers triumphing over stoic managers. In the best capitalist tradition, Rivera’s frescoes are now being held hostage by a pair of union-busting Republican politicians.

Dissecting West’s ‘Death of General Wolfe’ August 06 2013 Benjamin West’s Death of General Wolfe was once a hallowed symbol of British imperialism. Now it’s been hijacked by Canadians, whose supply of national icons is otherwise limited. National Gallery of Canada. 380 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. www.gallery.ca/en.

Pittsburgh’s culture quest July 24 2012 The Mellons and the steel mills are gone, but Pittsburgh today boasts first-class museums, music, theaters and universities. The trouble is, they’re all in the wrong part of town.

Discovered: La Salle’s unsung art museum November 14 2011 An obscure museum in a North Philadelphia basement houses world-class treasures by masters like Tintoretto, Edouard Vuillard, Rembrandt Peale, Georges Rouault and Joseph Epstein. Most remarkable of all, admission is free. La Salle University Art Museum. Olney Hall, 1900 W. Olney Ave., lower level. (215) 951-1000 or www.lasalle.edu/museum.

Matisse and Barnes: A tale of two museums October 04 2011 Henri Matisse was one of the three great revolutionary artists (with Picaso and Duchamp) of the early 20th Century; Albert Barnes was a brilliant collector of revolutionary art. They made a great team until Barnes’s insufferable personality drove Matisse away, with consequences that still reverberate today.

‘Picasso and the Paris Avant-Garde’ at the Art Museum February 23 2010 Curator Michael Taylor has unveiled, for the first time in recent memory, the astonishing range, depth, and quality of the Art Museum’s Picasso holdings. But his show falls a few bricks short of an Anne d'Harnoncourt blockbuster. “Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris.” Through May 2, 2010 at Philadelphia Museum of Art, Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 26th St. (215) 763-8100 or http://www.philamuseum.org/.

Antiquity, looters and the Penn Museum November 10 2009 Who are the best stewards of ancient artifacts— enlightened Western curators whose museums stole the loot long ago, or dictators of Third World lands where the treasures were originally found? James Cuno of the Chicago Art Institute (who believes the former) confronts the Penn Museum (which favors the latter). "Iraq’s Ancient Past: Rediscovering Ur’s Royal Cemetery." Through Spring 2010 at University of Pennsylvania Museum, 3260 South St. (215) 898-4000 or www.penn.museum/sites/iraq.

‘American Stories' at the Met in New York October 18 2009 “American Stories,” currently at the Met in New York, reveals an indebtedness to Philadelphia's artistic patrimony. Almost the whole show could have been assembled from Philadelphia holdings or works by Philadelphia artists. So why is the Art Museum so modest about its contributions? “American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915.” Through January 24, 2009 at Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue and 82nd St., New York. 212-535-7710 or http://www.metmuseum.org/. Art

Museum’s admission hike June 29 2009 The Art Museum recently raised its admission fees, a fund-raising model that is strictly 20th-Century. Then it hired as its new director Timothy Rub, a successful advocate of the 21st-Century model: free admission. Does the Art Museum’s left hand know what its right hand is doing?

Venice: Nice place to visit, but…. March 31 2009 There’s no place like Venice to jump-start your romantic gene. But before you move there, remember: The plumbing stinks. And try schlepping groceries, or hauling a suitcase, or finding a doctor or a decent restaurant or a neighbor who’s under 50.

Newspapers and the Internet March 03 2009 In the Internet age, what will happen to fact-based journalism as daily newspapers fold? Contrary to what you hear from print journalists, the quality of coverage could improve. Which would you prefer: The Inquirer, or a Philadelphia edition of the New York Times?

Vidocq: Philadelphia's Sherlock Holmes December 20 2008 Sherlock Holmes, Charlie Chan and Sam Spade are all legendary but fictitious private eyes. But Edgar Allan Poe and Victor Hugo were inspired by a real Philadelphia gumshoe of literary dimensions, as I discovered behind the door of the Vidocq Society in Center City. The Black Tower. By Louis Bayard. William Morrow, 352 pages; $24.95. http://www.louisbayard.com/

Sarah Palin and the ‘C’ word September 13 2008 Thanks to Sarah Palin, the 800-pound gorilla is out of the cage. The 'C' word— class— is the one word in the American lexicon that's even better hidden in polite public discourse than race. And it has little to do with money.

Alfred J. Munnings at Brandywine Museum July 29 2008 A remarkable new show at the Brandywine River museum is a tribute to the great sporting artist Alfred J. Munnings and also to the private collectors of Chester County who’ve accumulated his works without fanfare.“Alfred J. Munnings From Regional Collections.” Through Sept. 1, 2008 at Brandywine River Museum, off U.S. 1, Chadds Ford, Pa. (610) 388-2700 or http://www.brandywinemuseum.org./

The horror of globalization February 16 2008 What is a German discount food chain doing in Philadelphia, pampering its customers and employees alike and otherwise violating cherished local customs? Don’t these foreigners know what we Americans did to the Hessians the last time we got really angry?

George Stubbs paintings at Penn April 17 2007 The English painter George Stubbs is largely forgotten outside racing stables, geezer men’s clubs and faux clubby steakhouses. But he transformed the way artists depicted horses and sporting scenes. Equus Unbound: Fairman Rogers and the Age of the Horse. Through June 15, 2007, at Kamen Gallery, U. of Pennsylvania’s Van-Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, 3420 Walnut St., first floor. Free and open to the public; photo ID required. (800) 390-1829.

Christie’s and ‘The Gross Clinic’ January 03 2007 As a leading art auction house, Christie’s well understands the role of a dummy bidder in jacking up the price of a work. In Jefferson University's recent sale of The Gross Clinic, Christie’s consultants apparently found an unwitting dummy in the Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton. Has Philadelphia’s art community learned anything from this $68 million lesson?

What price admission to the Barnes? August 12 2006 Hefty admisssion increases are the new order of the day at New York's Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum. Derek Gillman, new chief of the Barnes Foundation, may be tempted to follow suit. Here's one hard-nosed reason why he shouldn't.

Celebrating ....