Monthly Archives: November 2021

November 10

The Lewd, the Crude and the Ugly: Epstein’s Sculpture

posted by

On the 10th of November 1880, sculptor Jacob Epstein was born in New York, yet he is best known as an English artist, having settled in Britain in 1905. As a Jewish American in Edwardian London working in a rough, stylised modernist manner, the critical reception of his work was far from friendly. Epstein has […]

»»
November 09

Dylan Thomas’ Début on Air

posted by

On the 9th of November 1953, Welsh poet Dylan Thomas died  in New York. Famous for such poems as ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’ or ‘And death shall have no dominion’, Dylan is also remembered for his exceptionally fruitful collaboration with the BBC. Between 1943 and 1953, Dylan made approximately 145 appearances on air, reading poetry and prose. The […]

»»
November 08

Art into Science in Rorschach’s Psychiatry

posted by

On the 8th of November 1884, Swiss Freudian psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach was born in Zürich. He was famous for devising the inkblot test which he believed helped reflect unconscious parts of the subject’s personality as projected onto the visual stimuli. Following his art teacher father Ulrich, from an early age, Hermann found himself strongly drawn to painting […]

»»
November 07

Was Camus a Sisyphus or a Stranger?

posted by

On the 7th of November 1913, Albert Camus, a French Noble Prize winning author, philosopher and journalist, was born in Dréan, French Algeria. Known for literary landmarks, such as The Stranger, The Plague or The Fall, he is considered one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. Initially a close friend of Jean-Paul Sartre, Camus’ rejection […]

»»
November 06

Jeanette Schmid, the Cross-dressing Whistler

posted by

On the 6th of November 1924, Rudolf Schmid was born in Volary, Sudetenland (now in the Czech Republic). In 1941 he enlisted in the Wehrmacht, the German Armed Forces, aged just 17 and served in the beginning of WWII at Udine in Italy. However, Schmid’s constitution was not built for the army. “A delicate young […]

»»
November 05

Is Bonfire Night a Pagan Rite?

posted by

In the early hours of the 5th of November 1605, Guy Fawkes was found guarding explosives in Westminster Palace. Late January 1606, the man and his fellow Catholic plotters were found guilty of an attempted assassination against King James I; on the last day of the same month, they were hung and quartered; their body […]

»»
November 04

Buried History: Tutankhamun

posted by

On the 4th of November 1922, British archaeologist Howard Carter (1874 –1939) and his team found the entrance to the 14th-century BC Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt. This little known pharaoh ruled in the 18th dynasty (ca. 1332 BC – 1323 BC) during the Egyptian New Kingdom period. […]

»»
November 03

Matisse’s Joy of Life versus Picasso’s Fear of Death

posted by

On the 3rd of November 1954, Henri Matisse died in Niece, France. He was an exceptional artist with a unique and brave vision that allowed him to break away from all artistic conventions of his time. Yes, he did have a short liaison with Impressionism, but the impact of his later achievements on art could […]

»»
November 02

Hite’s Sex Study that Aroused Feminists

posted by

American-German sexologist Shere Hite was born on the 2nd of November 1942 in Missouri, U.S.A. In 1976, at the height of a second feminist wave in America, when she was still a young, unknown graduate student, she published The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality. The book sold some 50 million copies worldwide. […]

»»
November 01

The Cracking Story of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling

posted by

On the 1st of November 1512, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was first unveiled for public view. Michelangelo, and his five assistants, worked on this gigantic artistic enterprise for about four years, yet they managed to include three hundred and thirty-six figures on this 40.5-metre long and 14-metre wide ceiling. According to certain mathematical […]

»»