Hood Museum Buys Kobal Collection of Hollywood Photography

Greetings from Rome. I’m here to see the Superbarocco exhibition at the Scuderie del Quirinale. It’s a look at Genoese art from Rubens to Alessandro Magnasco, with a nice dose of Van Dyke. You’ll never go wrong with Rubens and Van Dyke, and, I hope and believe, with the weird and wonderful Magnasco, either. As splendid as the art of Genoa is, there’s never been a focused look at Genoese art and culture from, say, 1600 to 1700 outside of Genoa. The city is about much more than Columbus. I’ll write about this exhibition next week.

First, though, lights . . . camera . . . action! Not what you’d expect to hear in Hanover in mud season in New Hampshire. When I was at the Hood Museum, Dartmouth’s college museum, I learned they’d bought the Kobal collection of Hollywood-movie-star photographs. That’s 6,000 photographs shot on commission from the big studios during Hollywood’s golden age from the silent era to the early 1960s. It’s a superacquisito. So before I write about Superbarocco, I’ll pause for a look at the art of “tomorrow is another day,” “I coulda been a contender,” Fred and Ginger, Marlene, and the incandescent Jean Harlow. “We had faces,” Norma Desmond said, “and there just aren’t any faces like that anymore.”

About the Author

Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

Greetings from Rome. I’m here to see the Superbarocco exhibition at the Scuderie del Quirinale. It’s a look at Genoese art from Rubens to Alessandro Magnasco, with a nice dose of Van Dyke. You’ll never go wrong with Rubens and Van Dyke, and, I hope and believe, with the weird and wonderful Magnasco, either. As splendid as the art of Genoa is, there’s never been a focused look at Genoese art and culture from, say, 1600 to 1700 outside of Genoa. The city is about much more than Columbus. I’ll write about this exhibition next week.

First, though, lights . . . camera . . . action! Not what you’d expect to hear in Hanover in mud season in New Hampshire. When I was at the Hood Museum, Dartmouth’s college museum, I learned they’d bought the Kobal collection of Hollywood-movie-star photographs. That’s 6,000 photographs shot on commission from the big studios during Hollywood’s golden age from the silent era to the early 1960s. It’s a superacquisito. So before I write about Superbarocco, I’ll pause for a look at the art of “tomorrow is another day,” “I coulda been a contender,” Fred and Ginger, Marlene, and the incandescent Jean Harlow. “We had faces,” Norma Desmond said, “and there just aren’t any faces like that anymore.”