When JMB Met JMB
Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol by Jeanette Montgomery Barron Photo courtesy the artist

When JMB Met JMB

These days the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat is so prevalent — Basquiat-branded phone cases, skateboards, BE@RBRICK collectible toys, even t-shirts at Abercrombie & Fitch — it's hard to imagine a time, before his estate decided to sell-out and cash-in, that the gay Black young man was an artist who spoke for those on the outside. Before dying of a heroin overdose at the age of 27 in 1988, the Brooklyn-born son of a Haitian father and a Puerto Rican mother began his career as a graffiti artist and by 22 was one of the youngest to exhibit at The Whitney Biennial in New York. The visual appeal of his erratic, chaotic acrylics often bellied their biting commentary on racial politics and class warfare, notably in his work "Irony of Negro Policeman."

In "JMB," a beautiful new limited edition book by Kent, Conn., based photographer Jeanette Montgomery Barron, whose famed portraits of New York City's art world have transfixed us with their moody mystery, Barron collects her intimate sittings of Basquiat through the 1980s. She will discuss "JMB" at House of Books in Kent on Saturday, June 3, at 6 p.m. For more go to www.houseofbooksct.com

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less