Did you know that Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, was an History of Art major at university? Oh, those halcyon afternoons, back on the rolling green hills of St. Andrews, sipping the finest Scottish nectar while pondering the Old Masters, letting reveries of portraits become scholarship. Those were the days, back when the future Queen of England as a major in History of Art. And so now she’s heading up The Art Room, a charity that lets her swing by schools where disadvantaged little tykes are learning about brushes and paints. Bonus fact: Prince Williams was, once, also a candidate for a degree in History of Art, but he soon switched to Geography. Ah, Geography, of course—the future king has to know exactly how, once, the sun never set on the British Empire. [Express via artnet]
Between awards shows in LA, we get the LA Art Show. Which means we get celebrities near nice pricey canvases. Who came to see works by Baldessari, Ruscha and Picasso? James Franco, Jessica Chastain and Adrien Grenier came to see works by Baldessari, Ruscha and Picasso. [The Hollywood Reporter]
Cat art in Moscow! The Manezh, which I know as the home of Cosmoscow, is currently playing host to “Kitties at the Manezh.” Meow. [The Art Newspaper]
Selma got snubbed by the Academy, and that’s just awful, but we can still go see “Freedom Journey 1965: Photographs of the Selma to Montgomery March by Stephen Somerstein” at the New-York Historical Society. [NYT]
New appointments at Dallas Contemporary! Alison Gingeras will be adjunct curator and Justine Judwig will be director of exhibitions and a senior curator. Also, if you’re in Dallas, land of the ten-gallon hat, there’s a Loris Greaud exhibition opening this weekend. Do it. [Dallas Contemporary]
“For years, the Cooper Hewitt museum, founded by Sarah and Eleanor Hewitt in 1897 and acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1967, has struggled with its identity. How could the museum—with its decorative-arts collection heavy on wallpapers, painted fans and glass birdcages, housed in a Neo-Georgian manse encrusted in oak paneling and stained glass—reconcile its gilded-age swank with the mandates of a contemporary design museum appealing to a modern audience?” [WSJ]
