Archive for the ‘Arts’ Category

​I was looking for something very unrelated this afternoon, and came across this quite-the-surprising for-sale find: the original cover art to the June 1981 Mad, which contained the magazine's Dallas parody "Dullus." Drawn by Sam Viviano, that's quite the timely offering, what with Larry Hagman set to return to Dallas in October, when TNT sets up shop for its next-gen reboot at Jack Matthews's Lamar Street studios.Turns out, the eBay offering -- for a mere $2,495, yipes -- is in conjunction with its listing on the Lewis Wayne Gallery's website. That's worth a browse too -- because that's a shopping site set up in part by Jim Halperin, co-chair of Unfair Park's cross-the-street neighbor Heritage Auction Galleries. He uses that site to sell off some of his art -- and Halperin has an extraordinary collection of Mad keepsakes, not to mention EC Comics, Robert Crumb and Frank Frazetta originals ... for starters. He'll let you look but not touch the whole kit and kaboodle here. What, him worry?

The under-construction City Performance Hall​Upcoming is a chat I had this morning with Corinne Hill, the interim director of the Dallas Public Library system. I called her to talk about the new Arts, Culture & Libraries Committee debuted on Tuesday when Mayor Mike Rawlings sent word of his new council committee appointments. She said she didn't know much about the committee, which will be chaired by Ann Margolin and is tasked with coming up with a plan for finding "alternative funding sources for arts, culture and libraries." Hill suggested I ask the mayor or Paula Blackmon, his chief of staff. Blackmon offered a few thoughts, which will follow, after which she said the mayor would call. Which he just did.So, then. Why the new committee?"I believe that we'll never be this great city we all talk about from time to time unless we are a smart, cultured and creative city," Rawlings says. "I think we need to make sure we put structure around that desire in some manner. We spend a lot of time and money at City Hall talking about things, and I realized we didn't have that voice in that dialogue. So that's it from a strategic standpoint."From a tactical standpoint, I think there are people that want more funding for the libraries. And the AT&T Performing Arts Center, we're not funding it as we should be -- we're committed to $2.5 million and have only paid $1.5 million. And, there are our many cultural centers and the new City Performance Hall coming online. I wanted to make sure we had the wisdom of some of the city council people" involved in those funding discussions.

Dallas Museum of ArtPortrait of Mrs. Emery Reves by Graham Sutherland, 1978​When first we noted in March that Wendy Russell Reves's only child, Arnold Leon Schroeder Jr., was suing the Dallas Museum of Art and former UT Southwestern president Kern Wildenthal, it was, for a moment, Big News -- big enough, even, for The New York Times. Schroeder, of course, is claiming he and not the museum should have ownership of the masterpieces that make up the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection. And, of course, he is claiming Wildenthal and others plied Wendy, "a chronic alcoholic," with enough drink to convince her to part with several million donated to the hospital. The DMA and UT Southwestern issued their indignant denials -- first in press release form; then, three months later, in motions to dismiss that dismiss Schroeder as an unsympathetic footnote trying to "bootstrap a conspiracy theory" where there is none.That was more than two months ago; since then the case has puttered along out of sight, settling into the dull rhythm of legal-filing call-and-response. I'd forgotten all about it. But, yesterday, a Friend of Unfair Park asked via email: "What is the latest with the DMA/Reves/Schroeder lawsuit? For some reason I am obsessed with the Reves collection and the case." And so I lifted the case jacket for the docs that follow -- one filed two weeks ago, another only yesterday.In the first, Schroeder, through his attorneys (including a certain former WFAA reporter), asks the court to knock down the motion to to dismiss, insisting the DMA and UT Southwestern are attempting to "divert the Court's attention from the substantive issues and law that govern this stage of the proceedings by throwing stones at Schroeder." He then turns to French law, insisting that upon Wendy's death in '07, he automatically became the "forced heir" entitled to 30 years' worth of restitution. "Before Schroeder became Wendy's forced heir," says the filing, "the DMA, through the individual Defendants, took property and millions of dollars, doing all they could along the way to avoid the anticipated impact of French law."Yesterday, the Dallas Museum of Art responded by dismissing Schroeder's claims as "strained," "laboring," "a red herring" based on "pre-Civil War case law." As far as the DMA's concerned, he simply has no standing to even bring such a case in the first place -- and even if he did, well, the statute of limitations expired long ago. "Evidently," says the filing, "he is trying to fit a square peg (tortious interference with inheritance rights allegations) into a round hole (constructive fraud claim), because he does not have a square hole (tortious interference with inheritance rights claim)." The filings follow, by request.Update at 4:59 p.m.: About two hours ago, attorneys representing Kern Wildenthal filed their response to Schroeder's claims. Long story short: His are "outrageous claims" demanding "dismissal with prejudice." That doc now follows, along with the others.

Via eBay seller "barbiehunter9"​Five years ago, SMU hung in the Hamon Arts Library a heretofore little-known collection of works by a former Hilltop art student -- and then professor -- named Ed Bearden. The occasion garnered press then, and continues to generate interest, because of the subject matter: portraits from the set of George Stevens's adaptation of Edna Ferber's novel Giant. As SMU noted then, in an online exhibit you can still peruse today:Before shooting Giant, director George Stevens asked the late Dallas artist and SMU art professor Ed Bearden to draw the film's storyboards. Stevens wanted a Texas native to conceive the characters visually in order to capture their authenticity. Bearden's pen portraits were enlarged and displayed on the set as a guide to makeup and costume crews. The artist also went to Marfa during shooting to sketch on the Giant set. Several of his drawings appeared with John Rosenfield's article on the Giant shoot in the Autumn 1956 Southwest Review.Bearden, born here in 1919, is no small footnote in Dallas's art history: He was among the misleadingly monikered Dallas Nine, a "small group of Dallas painters whose seminal body of art works is regionalist art in the best sense -- works that serve as description and definition of a particular time and place," as Patsy Swank wrote in this 1996 history-of that ran in D. Bearden wasn't among the initial group that showed at Fair Park in the early '30s, but his mentor, the legendary Jerry Bywaters, was. Bearden, who studied under Bywaters at SMU in the early '40s, would show at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts at Fair Park in '44, when Bywaters served as the museum's director. Four years later, Bearden himself began teaching art on the Hilltop.Via.​Ed and wife Fran were also among the group of modern artist who hatched the Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts in the mid-'50s, when local bigwigs began equating modernism with Communism and demanded the DMFA's board "disallow the exhibition or acquisition of work by artists who were known to be communists or communist sympathizers," as John Lane wrote. In time, according to brief bios here and there, Bearden went into the advertising business, painted portraits of presidents and took other private commissions and continued working up till his death in Dallas in 1980.Only last fall, the David Dike gallery on Fairmont displayed a "never-before-seen collection" of his works, dating from '40 to '80. And they continue to show up at auctions, here and abroad, his pieces going for a few to a couple thousand. And then there are these two pieces: An eBay seller from Brownsville has available, for the next few days, a skyline sketch dating back to the 1960s, available at the low, low price of $395. It was found at an estate sale; how lucky. It would make a nice accompaniment to this '66 offering: a panoramic view of the city painted for Arthur's, back when the Addison steak house was in its original McKinney Avenue location.

Courtesy the AT&T Performing Arts CenterDee and Charles Wyly​Earlier this evening, word began circulating: 77-year-old billionaire Charles Wyly, namesake of the Dee and Charles Wyly Theater in the AT&T Performing Arts Center, had died. There were no details at first, but, slowly, they emerged: Wyly, in Aspen, was killed this morning while out running regular errands -- getting his coffee, the morning paper. Most of his family is in Colorado; so too many friends from Dallas. This is the entirety of the release from the Colorado State Patrol detailing the accident:On August 7, 2011 at approximately 10:50 a.m. a blue Porsche Targa was northbound on Airport Rd. attempting to make a left turn onto Colorado Highway 82. A gray Ford Freestyle was traveling in the right lane eastbound on Colorado Highway 82. The Ford struck the Porsche on the driver's side. The driver of the Porsche, Mr. Charles Wyly, age 77, from Woody Creek, CO was transported to Aspen Valley Hospital where he died of his injuries just after noon. The driver of the Ford, Ms. Genezi Lacerda, age 40, of Snowmass Village, CO sustained moderate injuries and was also transported to Aspen Valley Hospital. Both drivers were wearing seatbelts at the time of the crash. Alcohol/drugs are not suspected to have contributed to this crash. This crash remains under investigation.Colorado State Trooper Heather Cobler adds in an email to Unfair Park that Wyly had stopped at a stop sign before pulling onto the main road into Aspen. The driver of the Ford didn't have a stop sign. No charges have been filed.Wyly, of course, is the man behind the likes of Michaels and Bonanza Steakhouse; he and wife Dee have also spread their wealth to myriad charitable and arts organizations throughout Dallas. And, of course, Charles and brother Sam are the subject of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation claiming they hid $550 million in profit over the last 13 years, charges Sam and Charles vehemently denied. (The court ruled only last week that they must turn over docs related to the case.) A statement from the AT&TPAC, among others, is forthcoming.Update at 8:30 p.m.: "We would not have had the Center without him," says Bess Enloe, vice-chair of the AT&T Performing Arts Center's Board of Directors, in a statement. "He was one of the critical people who really made it happen. He understood how the Center, over time, would absolutely transform the city of Dallas, and he never lost sight of that." The AT&TPAC's full statement follows in full.Update at 9:40 p.m.: And this, just in."Mr. Wyly was a role model, friend and inspiration," says William A. Brewer III, Mr. Wyly's attorney and long-time friend. "He is among the finest people I have ever known. His contributions in business, philanthropy and civic leadership will forever be remembered."

​When word came down earlier this evening that Nancy Hamon had died at 92, I immediately thought of the unfortunate dust-up three Julys ago, when some folks, among them Joyce Foreman and Carla Ranger, voiced their displeasure with the Dallas ISD's decision to put Hamon's name on the side of Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts -- a decision based solely upon the fact she donated $10 million toward the facility. That silly name game promoted Schutze to note, finally, that Hamon -- a San Antonio native, a UT-Austin grad, a donor to every arts organization in town, damn near -- is "not at all show-offy and ....probably had nothing to do with the signage issue."Absolutely not: Though Hamon, who married oil-and-gas man Jake in '49, donated countless millions toward everything from Dallas Opera to the Dallas Historical Society to the AFI Dallas to ... look, everything else, few in town probably know who she is or what she's done with her money. It's like then-SMU Meadows School of the Arts Dean Carole Brandt said in 2000, when Hamon received her honorary degree, "Mrs. Hamon has always lived out loud through grand curiosity, impatient expectations and personal commitment to that which is beautiful. The Meadows School celebrates her extraordinary vision and support of the literary, visual and performing arts. She has made a difference in them all."All manner of tributes pour in this evening, among them one from the AT&T Performing Arts Center, toward which Hamon put $10 million in '08. Says Bess Enloe, co-chair of the AT&TPAC's board, "Nancy always expressed such joy and vitality in her life, and that just extended to her giving, especially with the arts. She understood how art can transform lives for the better and how they help define a great city."Update at 10:43 p.m.: Then there's this, just in from SMU President Gerald Turner, who says, "Nancy Hamon's impact on the arts at SMU and in Dallas was profound. Her personality was a force of nature that made her a natural leader. She will be missed by all of us, but her legacy as an arts visionary is secure."

Office of Cultural AffairsFrom the stage, a view of the Majestic Theater's auditorium, barely visible through the scaffolding​A Friend of Unfair Park who lives near the Majestic Theater (lucky!) wonders what's going on inside the historic venue, which, earlier this year, had its roof replaced and new air-conditioning unit installed (lucky!) courtesy some '06 bond money set aside for much-needed improvements. So happens that today the city's Office of Cultural Affairs posted to its Facebook page a few snapshots of the interior work being done, which looks all the more impressive thanks to the scaffolding that's engulfed the joint.Maria Munoz-Blanco, director of the city's Office of Cultural Affairs, says this is the Big Finish to a long few months' worth of repairs, which also included giving the building a watertighten-up. "We're going to fix some of the plasterwork that needs to be fixed," she says. "And it looks incredibly dramatic because to get to the balustrades they had to build scaffolding from the bottom up."Munoz-Blanco says the work should be done by the end of August, and in mid-September the play The Diary of Black Men will begin a run originally scheduled for July. After that, Benny Hinn's got an event planned. And after that ... well, look, let's just jump as the OCA director talks about how it's going now that the city's running the Majestic.

Photo by Patrick MichelsDallas Opera General Director Keith Cerny when he was introduced at the Winspear in April 2010​Back in April 2010, the Dallas Opera finally announced it had found someone to run the show: Keith Cerny, who was tasked with, among other things, finding contributors to the opera's endowment during the $10-million matching grant challenge that expires on Halloween of this year. He also told Patrick that he would oversee the "gradual evolution" of the company's schedule, which is set three years in advance.That evolution has begun: Moments ago Dallas Opera announced that it's canceling Katya Kabanová, which was set to bow at the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House on October 28 and run through early November. The decision was made, according to a lengthy release, "as part of a careful, multi-year plan to balance and stabilize company finances as rapidly and prudently as possible." The company says the cancellation was a recommendation made by Cerny that was "ratified unanimously by the Executive and Finance Committees meeting in joint session this week." From the release:"The Dallas Opera is committed to preserving its proud legacy through careful balancing of artistic goals with sound financial management," says Dallas Opera Chairman Dr. Kern Wildenthal. "Although our General Director and CEO, Keith Cerny, assumed this role little more than a year ago, he has repeatedly demonstrated his commitment to cutting costs while enhancing the company's artistic reputation. He has the full backing of the Board of Directors as we navigate this challenging period in the company's history."Wildenthal goes on to insist that when Dallas Opera moved to the Winspear from the Music Hall at Fair Park, that cut seating dramatically -- from 3,400 seating capacity to 2,200. And "to produce five fully staged, world-class productions for the same number of patrons in our new, more intimate facility requires an annual budget increase of approximately $4 million above the previous $12 million level, or roughly 33 percent," Wildenthal explains. "Additionally, virtually all of this increased revenue must be obtained through additional ticket sales and philanthropic donations during one of the most difficult economic environments in modern memory."The rest of the release follows, including instructions on how get refunds.