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Colin Bailey, the Chief Curator of the Frick Museum in New York has been awarded the prestigious Mitchell Prize.
Colin Bailey has a PhD. in Art History from Oxford. He studied at Brasenose.
The Mitchell Prize is awarded every other year to a book in English that has made an outstanding and original contribution to the study of the visual arts. The 2004 prize recognizes Dr. Bailey’s recent work Patriotic Taste: Collecting Modern Art in Pre-Revolutionary Paris
The Mitchell Prize was founded in 1977 by Jan Mitchell, a renowned collector, philanthropist, and president of the Mitchell Foundation for the History of Art. In Mr. Mitchell’s words, “Scholarly and well-written art history illuminates the artist’s true intention and brings us into closer understanding of his or her creation.” Among the distinguished past recipients are Francis Haskell, Meyer Schapiro, John Pope-Hennessy, Hugh Honour and John Fleming, John Rewald, Virginia Spate, David Bindman and Malcolm Baker, and Elizabeth McGrath. Comments Anne L. Poulet, Director of The Frick Collection, “It is with great pleasure that we congratulate Colin B. Bailey on receiving the Mitchell Prize, an honor of profound meaning and importance in the field of art history. As with the prize itself, his book Patriotic Taste: Collecting Art in Pre-Revolutionary Paris represents an exceptional achievement, and we salute him with pride.”
About the Book and its Author
During the final decades of the ancien régime, prominent collectors in Paris commissioned and collected French paintings of the period, works by Greuze, Fragonard, David, and others that together comprised "l'École Française" — the French School. Patriotic Taste: Collecting Art in Pre-Revolutionary Paris addresses six of these figures and the collections they assembled, showing that private patronage in this period was revitalized by this patriotic desire to collect contemporary art. Dr. Bailey’s previous publications include the exhibition catalogues Renoir’s Portraits: Impressions of an Age (Yale University Press, 1998), Loves of the Gods: Mythological Painting from Watteau to David (Rizzoli, 1992); and, most recently, The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard. Masterpieces of French Genre Painting, which has accompanied the major 2003–2004 exhibition held in Ottawa; Washington, DC; and Berlin. He is currently coordinating two special exhibitions set to open at The Frick Collection in the next year: From Callot to Greuze: French Drawings from the Weimar Collections (June 1 through August 7, 2005) and Memling’s Portraits (October 6 through December 31, 2005).
About The Frick Collection
Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919), the coke and steel industrialist, philanthropist, and art collector, left his New York residence and his remarkable collection of Western paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts to the public "for the purpose of establishing and maintaining a gallery of art, [and] of encouraging and developing the study of fine arts and of advancing the general knowledge of kindred subjects." Designed and built for Mr. Frick in 1913 and 1914 by Thomas Hastings of Carrère and Hastings, the mansion provides a grand domestic setting reminiscent of the noble houses of Europe for the masterworks from the Renaissance through the nineteenth century that it contains. Of special note are paintings by Bellini, Constable, Corot, Fragonard, Gainsborough, Goya, El Greco, Holbein, Ingres, Manet, Monet, Rembrandt, Renoir, Titian, Turner, Velázquez, Vermeer, Whistler, and other masters. Mr. Frick's superb examples of French eighteenth-century furniture, Italian Renaissance bronzes, and Limoges enamels bring a special ambiance to the galleries, while the interior and exterior gardens and the amenities created since the founder's time in the 1930s and 1970s contribute to the serenity of the visitor's experience.
Renowned for its small, focused exhibitions and for its highly regarded concert series and lectures, The Frick Collection also operates the Frick Art Reference Library, founded by Henry Clay Frick's daughter, Helen Clay Frick, located in an adjoining building at 10 East 71st Street. Both a research library and a photo archive, the Frick Art Reference Library is one of the world's great repositories of documents for the study of Western art. It has served the international art world for more than seventy-five years.
Basic Information
General Information Phone: (212) 288-0700
Web site: www.frick.org
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Stephen Allen debuts his English-style Princeton Brass Band at Rider University.
Dr. Stephen Allen sends us best wishes for the boat race. He can't make it because his Princeton Brass band will be making its debut at Rider University. He will be playing a brass instrument called a, "Euphonium"
Dr. Allen Studied at Somerville College
He says:
"One of the things that amazes people is this wonderful rich sound," he says. "It's not the bright, brilliant sound they'd hear from a marching band or orchestral brass players, it's got an organ-like quality to it. And that's the seductive thing — once they hear it, they get hooked."
You can see the article here:
Stephen Allen debuts his English-style Princeton Brass Band at Rider University
Originally, Stephen Allen picked up the euphonium because his doctor thought the focused breathing would be great therapy for his childhood asthma.
But then he fell in love with the warm, garrulous sound of the lower brass instrument and began to explore the tradition of brass bands in his native Britain. After a few years on the euphonium, Mr. Allen was a true believer.
Now he's on a mission to convert the American public. Indeed, he says hearing a brass band for the first time is a little like a religious experience.
"One of the things that amazes people is this wonderful rich sound," he says. "It's not the bright, brilliant sound they'd hear from a marching band or orchestral brass players, it's got an organ-like quality to it. And that's the seductive thing — once they hear it, they get hooked."
He hopes folks in central New Jersey will feel the same way about the new Princeton Brass Band, which will make its formal public debut at Rider University's Bart Luedeke Center April 3. A Ewing resident, Mr. Allen founded the band last year, rehearsing for the first time in early May. Since then, the group has grown to about 30 men and women, playing euphoniums, fleugelhorns, cornets and more — all of which Mr. Allen calls "saxhorns."
"They're instruments invented by Adolphe Sax, who also invented the saxophone," Mr. Allen says. "They're known as 'conical bore' because they start thin at one end and they gradually taper, until they flare out into the bell. That's not the same as a trumpet, for example, which stays cylindrical all the way until it fans out into the bell."
In America, saxhorns were employed in Civil War-era bands, and have the mellow sounds associated with sentimental, mainstream tunes from that time. In England, however, whole brass bands became popular during the last half of the 19th century when these conical bore instruments were developed into a full-voiced family.
The first brass bands were sponsored by companies such as mills, factories and mines to provide a social outlet for their employees. As more companies began to sponsor bands, friendly rivalries grew, leading to the institution of competitions between bands. The 1996 film Brassed Off gives a good look into this competitive tradition, as well as the modern social issue of what happens to the bands — and the workers in general — when the old industries become redundant.
"The tradition is really strong in the northern part of England," Mr. Allen says. "Around Yorkshire, you have these legendary bands like Grimethorpe, which is probably best-known in the U.S. because of the movie 'Brassed Off.' Today, there's a big, extended family of brass bands in Europe, the U.K., Scandinavia and even Japan. People just really relate to this music. There's this distinctive, rich sound. It's bottom-heavy, since you have several euphoniums, tubas and basses. Then there's this certain type of uplift associated with the sound, something life enhancing. When people come to a concert they go away feeling really energized."
Coming from Britain to the East Coast, Mr. Allen took a position as professor of music at Rider University a few years ago, and wondered if musicians in the region would be interested in an English-style brass band.
"There isn't a really strong brass band tradition here, but being based in Princeton, between Philadelphia and New York, I knew there would be a lot of talented brass players who might be interested, since the repertoire is challenging," he says. "A lot of Brits warned me that it would be an uphill battle, because Americans are so busy, for one thing. I was told 'the Yanks won't really get it.' But that hasn't been my experience."
The group plays an array of music, from classical works to jazz numbers like Billy Strayhorn's "Chelsea Bridge" and pop-rock like "McArthur Park" by Jimmy Webb. For the April 3 concert, they've been polishing specially arranged renditions of masterpieces such as Gustav Holst's "Moorside Suite" and "The Corsair" by Hector Berlioz.
In addition to doing concerts, the Princeton Brass Band hopes to get involved in spirited national and international competitions. Mr. Allen has definite plans to take the band to Chicago next year, to compete in the American Brass Band Championships.
The musicians come from central New Jersey as well as Philadelphia and New York. In fact, one player works in international banking in Manhattan and rents a car to come to rehearsals. From all walks of life and a number of professions, the senior member is in his 70s and the younger ones are graduate students in the performing arts, looking for opportunities to "have a blow," as Mr. Allen puts it.
The men and women of the Princeton Brass Band rehearse Sunday afternoons at the Princeton Church of Christ and Mr. Allen says it's a very chummy group — some are even dating.
"No one is paid," he says. "Everyone does it for the sheer love of music and the enjoyment of good company. The players come from every kind of background, bringing a wealth of diversity. We hope to build on the brass band tradition by commissioning American and international composers to write new music especially for us."
Mr. Allen says the group also wants to do educational programs and outreach to schools and institutions in the area, keeping the momentum of the brass band movement humming along at a brisk tempo.
He keeps in touch with his musician friends in Britain, who report on the blossoming of new brass bands there. Mr. Allen believes the popularity of the bands has crossed the Atlantic as well.
"I heard a report on the BBC that orchestral music overall is in trouble — groups are financially strapped for one thing, and culturally people seem to be less and less interested," he says. "But brass bands seem to be really taking off. The report I heard suggested it was even a brass band 'golden age.'"
The musicians in the Princeton Brass Band certainly seem to have been converted and share Mr. Allen's passion for playing.
"It's a physical thing that sort of massages you in the chest," he says. "There's one moment every week where something comes out right and everyone knows it."
The Princeton Brass Band will perform at the Bart Luedeke Center, Rider University, 2083 Lawrenceville Road, Lawrence, April 3, 4 p.m. Free admission. For information, call (609) 895-5504. For information about the band, e-mail Stephen Allen: sallen@rider.edu. Group Web site coming soon: www.princetonbrassband.org
©PACKETONLINE News Classifieds Entertainment Business - Princeton and Central New Jersey 2005
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