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Bob Duggan
Contributing Writer
Bob Duggan has Master’s Degrees in English Literature and Education and is not afraid to use them. Born and raised in Philadelphia, PA, he has always been fascinated by art and brings an informed amateur’s eye to the conversation.
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Walter, we hardly knew you. When I saw that American artist Walter De Maria had died at the age of 77 on July 25th, my mind’s eye immediate pictured The […]
“We can’t afford it!” Insert the frothing face of the Republican congressperson of your choice above that phrase and you have a pretty comprehensive picture of the current debate in […]
“Artists don’t have families,” the mysterious Warner Dax tells confused painter Daniel at their first meeting in the new film The Time Being. Dax (played by film and theater legend […]
Many of Johannes Vermeer’s most famous paintings seem almost eerily silent: The Milkmaid pouring cool milk into a jar, The Lacemaker deep in concentration, the Girl with a Pearl Earring […]
Murder, they wrote. The suspect? Media mogul, sports agent, and rapper Jay-Z. The victim? Performance art. The accomplices? Performance artists!? When Jay-Z decided to shoot the video for his song […]
When the Vatican recently cleared both Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II for sainthood—a hyper-holy two-fer—critics all along the political spectrum grumbled over the honoring of one man […]
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”—truer (and more gender, class, and race specific) words were never written by a group of rich, white, […]
When Man of Steel opened in theaters on June 14, 2013, it pulled in $116.6 million USD that opening weekend alone. Superman remains a box office bonanza in his eighth […]
Last Sunday, June 23rd, I gave a lecture at the Sanderson Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, titled “Art Made Personal: Chris Sanderson and The Wyeth Family.” Below is a summary […]
With strikes in American nerve centers such as New York City, Los Angeles, Houston, and even Las Vegas, one artist this summer is waging a one-man World War Z of […]
“Workers of the world, unite!”Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels bellowed in The Communist Manifesto in 1848, largely in response to the Industrial Revolution (and Second Industrial Revolution) threatening not just […]
Among the many things about America that the American Civil War changed was its art. Painting and sculpture simply couldn’t be the same. In these sesquicentennial years, every aspect of […]
Because two thirds of all countries in the world have abolished the death penalty, the majority of executions happen in just five countries—China, Iran, North Korea, Yemen, and the United […]
Despite knowing the full-colored truth, I’ve always pictured the 1930s and 1940s in black and white. Laura,The Big Sleep, The Killers, Shadow of a Doubt, and countless other examples of […]
On May 24, 1813, just months after publishing Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen went to a show in search of her female hero. ”I dare say Mrs. D[arcy] will be […]
How desperate can a city facing financial armageddon get? What’s the last resort for cities such as Detroit, wounded first by the failing American auto industry and then set bleeding […]
What really matters in an art education? Do we teach every child to paint or sculpt? Do we school them in names and dates and places? Or do we somehow […]
Modernism first moved on May 29, 1913. That’s century-old hyperbole, of course, but if any date achieves day of infamy status for modern art in the 20th century, it’s the […]
When the Tate Britain recently revealed the latest rehanging of their astounding collection of British art, many long unseen works found a new place in the galleries, but one long-standing […]
The gun debate in America may have “jumped the shark” with yesterday’s Mother’s Day Parade shooting in New Orleans that left 19 wounded, including two children. When something as universally […]