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The day the music died, in 1959 - Buddy Holly.
Charles Hardin Holley (1936-59) was born in Lubbock Texas. As the youngest child in his family, Holly was nicknamed Buddy, and Holly was the accidentally altered form of his surname. Young Buddy...
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Vita Sackville-West and Sir Harold Nicolson
Dennison's book[Lady with a Red Hat, by William Strang, 1918]Vita Sackville-West (1892–1962), writer and gardener, grew up at Knole, a huge, grand Kentish house that looked medieval. Knole is now in...
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Richard Rogers, architect of Centre Pompidou and other grand sites, has died.
Richard Rogers (1933-2021) was born in Florence, son of William Nino Rogers and cousin of Italian architect Ernesto Rogers. The family moved back to UK in 1939 and after leaving school, Richard did a...
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Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) Vs Vlad the Impaler (15th century).
Vlad III dines amid impaled victims following his assault Kronstadt/now Brasov. Printed in Nuremberg in 1499. BibliophiliaSee an earlier post where Vlad III was freed after his family’s death, and...
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American Art Deco: Designing for the People 1918-1939. 3 great American...
Although the term Art Deco had not yet been invented, the new style was already exploring societal shifts following WWI and the killer flu pandemic of 1918-9. Art Deco works were symmetrical,...
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Enid Blyton - my favourite author in primary school, but perhaps not now
Enid Blyton (1897–1968)’s bestselling adventure stories thrilled generations of readers but, like so many working mothers today, Blyton struggled to juggle her career as a writer with caring for her...
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Liberty of London - history of a famous design shop
Arthur Lasenby Liberty (1843-1917) was born in Bucks. He was employed by Messrs Farmer and Rogers in Regent St, following the hugely successful International Exhibition in London in May-Nov 1862. By...
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King Gustav III of Sweden - gold, diamonds and gifts of grandeur
Nationalmuseum, Sweden’s museum of art & design, holds c700,000 objects: paintings, sculpture, drawings and graphic art from the C16th until the early C20th, and applied arts and design. The...
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Ada Blackjack - a brave female Robinson Crusoe in the Arctic.
Alaskan-born Ada Deletuk (1898-1983) was an indigenous Inuit. They were a hunting people, eating fish, walrus, seals, whales, caribou and bears. Ada saw, but did not learn hunting and survival...
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Jewelled treasures from the last Punjabi Maharajah & Maharani
The book "In Pursuit Of Empire: Treasures From The Toor Collection Of Sikh Art", 2018was written by Amandeep Singh Madra and Parmjit SinghA pair of gold and seed pearl pendant earrings from the...
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A beautiful cultural city to visit: Geneva.
Swiss cities have some of the best cultural venues in Europe, a joy for tourists and scholars. Aviel Cahn, Grand Théâtre director, highlighted Geneva’s museums, performance venues and...
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British passion for "Fabergé in London: Romance to Revolution" V & A.
Imperial Easter eggs created by Carl Fabergé (1846–1920) have been lent by Moscow Kremlin Museums to London’s V&A in the best display of the eggs for years. Fabergé in London: Romance to...
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Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Berlin's amazing Neue Nationalgalerie
Neue Nationalgalerie was the sole European building that Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) designed, after he departed for U.S in 1937 amid the rise of the Nazis. Its design qualified it as one of...
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Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller, great US athletes excluded: 1936.
Robert Barty grew up as part of the Indigenous Ngarigo tribe in Bowen in rural Nth Queensland. Daughter Ashleigh Barty is therefore a member of the same Ngarigo people who grew up in Ipswich...
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Emma Goldman: best Jewish, Russian, U.S, feminist, working class activist,...
Emma Goldman (1869-1940) grew up in Jewish Kovno and St Petersburg. Her formal education was limited, but she read widely and in St Petersburg she associated with a radical student circle. In the late...
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History of Levi Strauss at a great San Francisco Museum
Levi Strauss Co. Building, San Francisco 1907Levi Strauss (1829–1902) was born in Buttenheim Bavaria, 7th child of Hirsch and Rebecca Strauss. Two older brothers had already migrated to the USA, and...
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biggest heist in modern German history: Dresden Green Vault diamonds - 2019
Rooms in Dresden's historic building date back to the C16th. The unique and priceless jewel sets in Dresden Grünes Gewölbe-Green Vault were the Museum’s special attraction. Among the stolen pieces...
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Dresden's spectacular Green Vault diamonds, stolen in 2019.
Rooms in Dresden's historic building date back to the C16th. The unique and priceless jewel sets in Dresden Grünes Gewölbe-Green Vault were the Museum’s special attraction. Among the stolen pieces...
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Sydney's magnificent General Post Office (1874), but now it's something else
Sydney’s General Post Office/GPO building replaced an earlier postal building on the same site since 1830. This second building was designed by colonial architect James Barnet. The northern façade...
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Who can claim Brancusi's The Kiss sculpture? Not ANOTHER court case!
Tatiana Rachewskaia (1887-1910) was a wealthy Russian woman, apparently a relative of the great Tolstoy, who appeared in the novel of the revolutionary writer Ilya Ehrenburg, Men, Years, Life. She...
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