Dear Sophie -
Aren't these portraits stunning? CECIL BEATON captured the exceptional beauty and unique essence of one goddess after another.
Although many have tried, no one has done it better.
With love,
Jennifer
I knew Steve Jobs wouldn't be able to resist this image.
Dear Sophie -
The celebrity portrait photographer ANNIE LEIBOVITZ started her career at the then newly launched Rolling Stone magazine. Along with her team of stylists and art directors, her commercial images are lavish rich color compositions while her black and white observations are among her most poignant.
Despite her success, in an effort to compose a life as beautiful as she imagined, she found herself in serious financial debt. Note to self... desire must match means!
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
SUSAN SONTAG was a novelist, essayist and intellectual. One of her finest works is a collection of writings titled "On Photography" on recording and reading images, the basis of debate for generations of photographic theorists to come.
Sontag was openly bisexual and spent the last decade of her life with the photographer Annie Leibovitz. She was very tough on her partner, drawing distinctions between fine art and commercial photography.
Where would you draw that line? You be the judge.
With love,
Mom
She sure rocked that gray streak!Â
Dear Sophie -
CATHY OPIE is a So. Cal. gal. From her striking images of freeways to her series of sun bleached surfers and domestic life, she is surely from this place and time.
With love,
Mom
Take that Helmut Newton!
Dear Sophie -
With a searing eye, NAN GOLDIN has created beautiful raw images of intimacy that have urgency and poignancy. Her palette is lush and the narratives cinemati
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
DIANE ARBUS was a photographer who focused her powers of observation on the fringes of society. She worked for years as a commercial photographer until she developed her own practice and haunting eye.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
KEI SEKIMACHI is a SF native who lives in Berkeley. She is an amazing fiber artist whose materials and forms have continually evolved from weaving to sculptural works with monofilament. She is celebrated by Jack Lenor Larson, was married to the woodworker Bob Stocksdale, and friends with both June Schwarcz and Ruth Asawa.
A true tapestry indeed.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
MARGARET DE PATTA was a jeweler inspired by the design and spacial theories of the Bauhaus and her mentor, Laszlo Maholy- Nagy.
While her work was luminous, she struggled with the challenges of being an artist.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
BERNARD MAYBECK is best known for his Arts and Crafts style buildings, including our own Outdoor Art Club in downtown Mill Valley. He was an engineer instructor at U. C. Berkeley for many years and teacher and mentor to Julia Morgan. While related to the work of Greene and Greene, he also branched out into the Beaux Arts style when commissioned to design the Palace of Fine Arts.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
JULIA MORGAN was the first woman architect licensed to practice in the state of California. She studied engineering at U.C. Berkeley and was the first woman admitted to a prestigious academy in Paris (after a few failed attempts!). William Randolph Hearst became the great patron of her San Francisco practice.
Let's head to the Fairmont and give her a toast!
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
Although born in Paris, SONIA DELAUNAY traveled to Paris when she was 20 years old, and apart from some stints in Portugal and Madrid, spent most of her life there.
She was a fantastic colorist and worked as a painter, fashion designer and created costumes for the theater.
With love,
"I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive."
Henry Miller
HENRY MILLER was an American writer who lived much of his life in Paris, after growing up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He chronicled his sexual exploits with his lover Anais Nin so graphically, that his work was repeatedly banned, only fanning his reputation. Some titles include "Tropic of Cancer", "Tropic of Capricorn" and "Black Spring".
Upon the onset of WWII he came to America and settled in Big Sur.
With love,
Mom
JEAN COCTEAU was a poet, artist and fimmaker.
Beautiful....
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
GEORGE BRAQUE and Pablo Picasso worked so closely together, that at times it is almost impossible to distinguish among their works.
Braque stood by CUBISM and systems of fragmentation over the course of his career while Picasso continued to explore other painting methodologies.
With love,
Mom
JANET FLANNER was the Paris cultural correspondent for THE NEW YORKER magazine for 50 years, writing under the pen-name Genet. Her column was titled "letter from Paris".
She was friends with the other American Expats including Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, e. e. cummings, Fitzgerald and Hemingway, and was key to introducing new French artists to the American public including Braque, Matisse, Andre Gide and Cocteau.
During WWII she was a war journalist living in New York and later covered the Nuremberg trials.
With love,
Mom
Brancusi's spiritual aspirations, his longing for transcendence of the material world and its constraints, are verbalized in his description of Bird in Space as a "project before being enlarged to fill the vault of the sky."
Dear Sophie -
The Roumanian born CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI came to Paris and made his life there. He rejected any decoration in his work and reduced his forms in search of an essence and spirituality.
With Love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
CHARLOTTE PERRIAND was a key contributor to the studio of LE CORBUSIER AND PIERRE JEANNERET, designing much of the tubular steel furnishings for their interiors.
She had a vision for the future.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
JEAN PROUVE was a self-taught metal worker, designer and architect.
His industrial designs have a palette and lines that feel just as fresh today.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
The great architect designer EILEEN GRAY was a disciple of LE CORBUSIER, actively working in Paris in the 1920's & 30"s.
Although her structures didn't survive the war, her furniture and textiles prevail, fundamental to our modernist vocabulary today.
Born in Ireland, she spent her entire adult life in France up through her 98th year.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
The Americans GERTRUDE STEIN and ALICE B. TOKLAS hosted a dynamic salon at their home in Paris up until the war. With her brother LEO STEIN, Gertrude amassed a formidable collection of paintings collecting the likes of PICASSO and MATISSE. Although both born in California, they met in France, and their love for one another was immediate and lifelong.
GERTRUDE was adventurous and forward thinking with her writing as well as her dress, her taste and opinions. ALICE was quiet, a great chef and Gertrude's muse.
Despite their mutually semitic heritage, they survived the war in France as collaborationists, marring their place in history.
With love,
Mom