Among the writers I know, Lewis Hyde's The Gift is almost always required reading. It is a treatise on the differences between gift-giving cultures (mostly tribal and now disappeared) and the commodity-driven cultures born of the Industrial Revolution (still predominant and thriving stunningly in the glut of digital...

The portrait of Juan de Pareja by Velázquez that hangs in a gallery of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan is surrounded by other estimable works, even a few of genius. But this work compels the viewer to look. It is a portrait of personal disappointment and anguish, and...

The news that the Chilean government has exhumed Pablo Neruda's remains, to determine whether or not his death was caused by poisoning, brings a new, but not surprising, twist to Neruda's life, even forty years after his demise.

Neruda died just days after his friend Salvador Allende, the democratically elected...

The current dispute between the book retailer Barnes & Noble and the publisher Simon & Schuster has caused much handwringing and worry among those whose livelihoods depend on such organizations. But the dispute is one that has visited all changing industries fighting a rear-guard action against newer, more...

"My grandfather gave me a job!" Andrew Skurman laughs. "That's how I got so interested in architecture."

Skurman sits back, folds his arms before him and enters what is clearly an affectionate recollection. "He had a company in the Bronx making elevators and, when I was 14, they needed draftsmen,...

David Kennard leans lovingly over the glass before him, which is filled with the somber beauty of a vintage French pinot noir. He surveys the wine a moment, and then takes a sip, enjoying every sensation that it gives him. "We spent one full year with people who make wine...

"Yo soy americano," I said to Sonia Fava. I did not realize that my accent (North American English-speaking to the core) was terrible. The "R", for example, in "americano" had no trill of any kind and therefore marked me as an arriviste hick. This was my first class in the...

In the history of literature, the genre of the letter has been a very important element. Epistolary exchange has shed light on the lives of most of the important artists and historical figures -- and some less important figures that happened to have written well -- in the history of...

Critics, ever in the back seat, have yet written marvelously about the graphic arts. When I first read E. H. Gombrich's The Story of Art, I thought that being an art historian would be something to which I could aspire. The book is still a must for anyone...

During a recent visit to the Republic of Ireland, the Papal Nuncio to that country, Archbishop Charles Brown, was interviewed by The Irish Independent. He was asked about the future for women as priests in The Church, and replied "The Catholic faith exists in part because of the...

Contemporary Argentine tango dance has become a worldwide phenomenon. The music that accompanies the dance, though, is still thought to be mostly a Buenos Aires/Montevideo event. However, just as the dance is flourishing with new names and stellar talents in far-flung capitals, so is the music of tango.

But this...

"When I was 12," Mike Campbell says, "I was taking piano lessons, and despised them. So as a trade, my mom said, 'OK, you cook dinner for us four nights a week. And if that works out, no more piano.'" Mike takes up one of the lamb chops he is...

Very few of us are able to ascend to a world-class level in the arts. For every heralded artist, hundreds of others -- thousands -- labor in the fields with little to celebrate when the opportunity for harvest arrives.

When you meet such a gifted person (or, in the case...

A few years ago, a short-lived controversy stormed through museum circles when some unorthodox museum directors mounted exhibitions of high fashion design. The resistance to the idea was noisy. "It isn't art!" was the cry. Because fashion design was deemed frivolous by traditionalists, the notion of major museum shows for...

The exhibition The Cult of Beauty, now in its only U.S. showing at The Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco (through June 17) reminded a friend of mine that, when she lived in New York City in the 1960s, "you could have bought most of these paintings for a...

"I like doing two types of film," David Kennard says. "One in which I try to channel, if you will, the wit and wisdom of some sort of expert. The other in which I am trying to synthesize a lot of people's opinions about something into something that's my own....

"My eyes had been opened wide," Roth Martin says. He smiles. He has just described how his life had changed. "And it all began with some fireplace mantels."

What began was Hedge, a very-much-talked-about San Francisco gallery in which noted contemporary artists are shown on an exclusive basis,...

Writing about the Irish is no joke.

Your preparation for it depends upon where you were as a child on celebratory feast days like Easter Sunday and Christmas. In my case, that would be the kitchen where, in my experience, all the action was. Irish men frequently have low conversational...

In American business, the mission statement is viewed as the core declaration that determines the course of a company. Much intellectual sweat pours from the foreheads of the leaders of businesses in their efforts to get their mission statement right. The trouble is that, in most companies, the statement ends...

On St. Patrick's Day, a Latino friend whose family has lived in Arizona and California since before 1848, asked me "What immigration problem?" He leaned far over the cappuccino on the café table between us, shook his head slowly and then looked up at me once more, a smile on...