Entrance to McGillin’s Olde Ale House in Philadelphia. Photo by Curt Hudson.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) – If he were alive today, William “Pa” McGillin probably wouldn’t recognize the nachos and watermelon martinis being served at his namesake pub. Yet he’d no doubt be heartened to see that its core commitment to beer and camaraderie has remained largely unchanged since he opened it 150 years ago.
McGillin’s Olde Ale House began celebrating its sesquicentennial this week, cementing its status as the oldest continuously operated tavern in Philadelphia and one of the oldest in the nation.
Established in 1860, just prior to the Civil War and before City Hall was built, McGillin’s sits tucked away in a small alley at the heart of downtown. Even some residents need a map to find it.
“It’s an institution, but in many ways it’s also sort of a hidden treasure,” said Don Russell, a local beer columnist who writes under the name Joe Sixpack. “A lot of people who think they know Philadelphia don’t even know that bar exists.”
Its 150th year begins on Jan. 1, but the festivities kick off 150 days before that. On Tuesday, the pub will start an anniversary countdown clock and invite an Abe Lincoln re-enactor to tap the first batch of McGillin’s 1860, an India pale ale created by Stoudt’s Brewing. Lincoln was elected president the year McGillin’s opened.
Since then, only two families have operated the tavern – a big factor in its longevity, current owner Chris Mullins said. He also attributes the bar’s success to its simplicity.
“It’s stayed true to its name: It’s an ale house,” the 61-year-old Mullins said. “It never tried to be too fancy or too different.”
McGillin’s reputation for being a comfortable place to eat, drink and be merry attracts an eclectic mix of customers. Its earliest years welcomed laborers as well as artist Thomas Eakins and actors John and Ethel Barrymore; today, bartenders also pour pints for office workers, craft brew enthusiasts and the occasional celebrity.
The main barroom in the two-story brick building is a large, dimly lit space filled with rows of small wooden tables and chairs. The tile floor is a century old; the walls, pillars and beams are covered with Philly-oriented memorabilia, beer collectibles, photos and framed liquor licenses dating to 1874. A cozy room upstairs houses a second bar.
The tavern’s history, as reported in newspaper clippings hung throughout the building, begins with Irish immigrant William McGillin turning a rowhouse on Drury Street into the Bell in Hand tavern. Regulars couldn’t be bothered with the name; they just called it McGillin’s.
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McGillin’s Olde Ale House: www.mcgillins.com
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-CS-08-04-09 1107EDT
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
Chris & Mary Ellen Mullins, owners of McGillin’s. Photo by Curt Hudson.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Looters who plundered one of Utah’s newest troves of dinosaur bones got away with ribs, vertebrae and part of an ancient leg bone they had to break apart to remove. They also stole hidden scientific clues about the life of a young diplodocus dinosaur that roamed the area some 150 million years ago.
“It’s like pieces of a puzzle that are now gone,” said Scott Williams, collections and exhibits manager at the Burpee Museum of Natural History, the Rockford, Illinois-based institution that has been digging at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management-owned site.
The bones – and the thieves – from the site near Hanksville haven’t been seen since the theft last fall. And, odds are, they won’t. Stolen dinosaur bones and other fossils snatched illegally from federally owned land often disappear into living rooms, lucrative underground markets or expensive private collections.
But a new forensic technique – something akin to DNA fingerprinting – could give investigators a long-sought tool to track fossil thieves.
Researchers are testing methods designed to match chemical signatures of naturally occurring elements that seep into bones during fossilization with surrounding soil.
The process – which analyzes a group known as rare earth elements – could someday lead to a database of site “fingerprints” used to link bones to looted areas. More work is needed, but early signs are encouraging that the technique could be useful in nabbing those capitalizing on looted fossils, said Dennis Terry, a researcher at Temple University in Philadelphia.
“I really hope we can make use of this to deter the ones out there really trying to make a profit from this,” said Terry, who is working on the project with fellow Temple researcher David Grandstaff.
Testing on the technique continues in Wyoming this summer. It has been honed since 2005 at Nebraska National Forest, another hotspot for fossil thieves. So far, results indicate the analysis could tie 85 percent to 98 percent of fossil samples back to their original sites. Terry is also speaking with officials at South Dakota’s Badlands National Park about starting a database of the park’s most poached sites.
“So often we catch people with fossils in their car or something like that but we can’t prove they were collected in the park,” said Rachel Benton, a paleontologist at Badlands, which has a long history of fossil poaching.
Fossil theft is a frustrating and all-too-common reality for paleontologists working on federal land who say the objects – aside from being government property – hold irreplaceable information in trying to piece together the story of ancient life.
“We’re not making T-rexes any more,” said Vincent Santucci, who heads the National Park Service’s paleontology programs.
That rarity also feeds high prices. There are legitimately collected fossils taken from private land with permission from the landowner. The complete skeleton of a 150-million-year-old dryosaurus found on private land in Wyoming was put up for auction earlier this year with a minimum price of $300,000.
Illicit artifacts can also fetch a high price, especially complete skulls and teeth.
“People are making a living off of selling resources that belong to the American public,” said Scott Foss, who oversees BLM’s paleontological operations in Utah, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.
In Utah, which is rife with dinosaur quarries and regularly the source of newly found species, the losses to scientific knowledge can be dramatic, said Jim Kirkland, the state paleontologist. He said he’s terrified that vandals will hit a significant site before scientists can meticulously go through it.
“I lose sleep over stuff like that,” said Kirkland, who, like other paleontologists, is cautiously optimistic about the new method.
The last survey in national parks found more than 700 instances of fossil theft or vandalism in 1995-98. Similar estimates aren’t available for national forests or the BLM.
For paleontologists, there’s a sense of inevitability that, once word trickles out about a rich fossil site, it’ll be hit by vandals or thieves.
“You can’t live there 365 days a year, 24 hours a day,” said Brooks Britt, a paleontologist with Brigham Young University who has had several of his sites vandalized.
That’s part of the reason why agencies tend not to disclose all of the paleontological sites they know about.
Looters run the gamut from casual visitors who pocket a few chipped fossils to sophisticated operators using professional power tools to swipe items for a lucrative underground market.
Methods differ too. Some are brazen, like three men who yanked a bone out of a visitor center display at Dinosaur National Monument on the Colorado-Utah border or those who tried to dig up 180-million-year-old dinosaur tracks at a BLM site in Wyoming. Several years ago, thieves at Badlands reported a false emergency in another part of the park so they could load up with fossils without fear of a patrolling ranger.
For law enforcement officers, fossil thefts pose a difficult problem. Many are responsible for patrolling millions of acres of public land where dinosaur quarries are remote and the odds of catching someone in the act are exceedingly rare.
At Badlands, rangers are relying more and more on remote cameras and sensors, said Mark Gorman, the chief law enforcement officer.
He and others are also hoping a new law signed by President Obama in March that toughened penalties for fossil thieves will have an effect.
Barbara Beasley, a paleontologist at the forest, said she’d welcome any help to fight poaching.
“Anytime anyone uncovers a fossil, they are very first human to every to see that and attached to that is a major responsibility making sure we do justice to the specimen,” she said.
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The name Indian Head Rock comes from a carving of a face on the bottom of the boulder. It has been theorized that the face was carved by an American Indian as a petroglyph, a boatman as a river gauge, or by John Book from Portsmouth, Ohio, who later fought in the Battle of Shiloh. Others believe a band of robbers used it to mark their nearby stash, or that a quarry man carved the face with a metal device. Image by BillyMassie, accessed through Wikimedia Commons.FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) – Depending on who you ask, officials in Kentucky and Ohio have been fighting the epic, interstate “rock war” over the wrong 8-ton boulder.
The historic “Indian Head Rock” bears numerous carvings of initials, names and a crude face and once jutted above the surface of the river, serving as a navigation marker for boaters. Kentucky officials believe that sandstone rock was raised from the Ohio River in 2007, and have been fighting for its return to the state every since.
Steve Shaffer of Ironton, Ohio, who led the expedition to lift it from the river – which he said was necessary to protect it – was charged with removing a protected archaeological object in Greenup County in Kentucky. However, that charge was dropped last week – even the prosecutor isn’t sure the rock sitting in a garage in Portsmouth, Ohio, is authentic.
“The problem is, I could not prove that this was indeed, beyond a reasonable doubt, the work of a Native American – or a pioneer,” Greenup County prosecutor Cliff Duvall said.
Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed by Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway seeking the rock’s return to Kentucky is still pending in federal court.
Duvall said there’s no doubt the rock Shaffer pulled from the river has historic value to the area. What’s uncertain is whether the carvings were done by American Indians or early pioneers, or if are relatively more modern, such as from the 1800s or later, he said.
It’s also possible there is another rock somewhere upstream that “has a likeness of an Indian with a headdress of feathers,” Duvall said in court papers.
Shelley Catharine Johnson, a Conway spokeswoman, said the Kentucky attorney general’s office will be consulting with University of Kentucky archaeologists in deciding how to continue.
Nevertheless, attorney Mike Curtis, who represents Shaffer, said he doesn’t believe prosecutors could have proven Shaffer’s rock to be the “Indian Head Rock” talked about in history books. Curtis said the description of the rock given in more than one book describes the carving as that of a “colossal human head.”
That description does not fit with the rock involved in this case, Curtis said.
“I don’t think anyone knows,” Curtis said. “Based on the literature, it couldn’t be.”
Residents on both sides of the Ohio River had watched for the rock as far back as the 1800s. It had been located about 110 miles southeast of Cincinnati.
People often visited the rock – some even carved their initials into it – when the water level dropped and it became visible. The rock also bears a stick-figure carving of a face on it.
Some believe the smiley face and crude drawing of a house are part of an ancient petroglyph.
George Crothers, the director of the University of Kentucky’s William S. Webb Museum of Anthropology and Office of State Archaeology, said he believes the rock is the same one that was registered and protected by the state in 1986.
“Based on the descriptions that we have of it, I’m pretty confident,” Crothers said. “I was willing to testify to that fact.”
Kentucky Rep. Reginald Meeks, a Louisville Democrat who has monitored the rock developments,said Shaffer’s rock is protected under Kentucky law even if it turns out not to be the “Indian Head Rock.” Meeks said he hopes Conway moves ahead with the civil trial.
“It’s important that we send a message to individuals who routinely come to Kentucky and loot and remove and sell for profit our protected sites,” Meeks said. “Those who would come here to plunder, we need to send them a very strong message that this is not going to be tolerated.”
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-CS-08-02-09 1221EDT
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
Full view of Indian Head Rock in a 2008 photo by BillyMassie. Image courtesy BillyMassie, accessed through Wikimedia Commons.
NEW YORK (AP) _ The creator of a “Charging Bull” sculpture near Wall Street has sued Random House for putting a picture of his statue on the cover of a book about the fall of Lehman Brothers.
The lawsuit by artist Arturo Di Modica Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan sought unspecified damages and to have the picture removed from the book, A Colossal Failure of Common Sense.
Random House spokesman David Drake said the publisher does not comment on pending litigation.
The lawsuit said Random House never sought permission to use a picture of the lower Manhattan statue that is popular with tourists.
The lawsuit included a copy of the copyright for the sculpture, which was created in 1989 and was registered with the copyright office in 1998.
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
WASHINGTON (AP) – Neighbors say the large northwest Washington home destroyed by fire Wednesday night belonged to Peggy Cooper Cafritz, a community activist and former D.C. Board of Education president.
Neighbor Peter Gillon tells WTOP-FM that Cafritz’s “priceless” art collection was destroyed in the blaze. The collection was featured recently in Oprah Winfrey’s O magazine.
One firefighter suffered a minor injury while fighting the blaze, which burned for hours. Firefighters had problems with the water supply, forcing them to draw water from neighboring areas and attack the fire from the exterior.
Fire Chief Dennis Rubin says it took nearly two hours to find a steady stream of water. He says the department will be talking with the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority about the problem.
Rubin says it will likely be a week before the cause of the fire is known.
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Auguste Rodin cast three originals of his bronze The Thinker. This closeup shot is of the sculpture ensconced at Musee Rodin in Paris. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
PHILADELPHIA (AP and ACNI) – The iconic sculpture The Thinker will be doing its pondering in a different location this summer in Philadelphia.
The massive bronze sculpture is a fixture at the entrance of the city’s Rodin Museum. But since last Friday it has been on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art as its permanent home undergoes renovations.
The Rodin Museum’s limestone facade is currently being restored and two new flights of limestone steps leading to the museum entrance are being replaced with identical versions coming from France.
The Thinker is also getting a fresh application of a protective coating. Museum officials say the work is necessary to clean the pollution and grime that have built up over the past 80 years.
There are three originals of Rodin’s The Thinker (1880-1882), although several others were cast later.
At one time, visitors to Philadelphia’s Rodin Museum entering the institution passed through a cast of The Gates of Hell. This massive 18ft.-tall bronze doorway was originally created for the Museum of Decorative Arts (which was to have been located in Paris but never came into existence). Rodin sculpted more than 100 figures for these doors from 1880 until his death in 1917. This casting is one of the three originals; several others have been made since. Several of Rodin’s most famous works, including The Thinker, are actually studies for these doors which were later expanded into separate works.
Auction Central News International contributed to this report. Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-ES-07-31-09 0523EDT
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
The Thinker, one of three originals cast by Rodin, shown in situ at the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia. Photo courtesy Bobak Ha’Eri, Wikimedia Commons.
Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) – The Museum of the Rockies has sued a Bozeman developer, alleging the failure to pay a $2 million endowment promised in return for the developer using the museum and its top paleontologist, Jack Horner, in a marketing campaign.
The lawsuit was filed Friday in District Court in Gallatin County. It seeks to enforce a 2007 contract between the museum and developer Wade Dokken.
Dokken is the former chief executive of the insurance company American Skandia. He more recently founded the Ameya Preserve, an 11,000-acre luxury development in the Paradise Valley south of Livingston.
The lawsuit claims Dokken used Horner’s name and that of the museum to market Ameya, but never held up his end of the bargain with the $2 million endowment.
“This is not a case of a donor unable to fulfill a pledge, but rather a businessman who took advantage of the Museum’s goodwill to try to sell real estate in a commercial development and then refused to pay,” the museum said in a statement issued by its attorney, James Goetz.
Dokken did not immediately return telephone messages left by The Associated Press.
According to the lawsuit, his marketing efforts on behalf of Ameya included publicizing Jack Horner as the leader of fossil digs at the preserve. Also, Horner’s position at the museum was renamed the “Ameya Preserve Curator of Paleontology.”
In April, Dokken gave notice that he was abandoning Ameya and could not meet the terms of his contract, according to the museum.
Separate from the endowment, Goetz said Dokken gave the museum a total of $120,000 in 2007 and 2008 – part of a pledge to pay more than $1.2 million over 15 years toward the museum’s field research. He said no payment has been received this year.
In 1957 the Museum of the Rockies was born as Dr. Caroline McGill’s gift to the people of Montana. Today, the museum stewards nearly 300,000 objects and 500 million years of history. One of the finest paleontology collections in North America is found under the museum’s roof, along with strong core collections in western history, textiles, Native American artifacts, and photography.
The museum’s permanent exhibitions, which tell the story of development in the Northern Rockies over the past 4 billion years, are augmented by changing exhibits representing various facets of cultural and natural history. Indoor exhibitions are complemented by a fully operational, on-site 19th century farm that helps preserve the state’s agricultural traditions.
The Museum of the Rockies is both a college-level division of Montana State University and an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit institution. Accredited by the American Association of Museums, MOR is one of just 750 or so museums to hold this distinction from the more than 16,000 museums nationwide. The Museum is also a Smithsonian Institution affiliate and a federal repository for fossils. ___
Auction Central News contributed to this report. Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
HONOLULU (AP) – Gov. Linda Lingle’s office is seeking items from the public for placement in time capsules that are to be opened in 25 years.
The capsules are part of the celebration for the 50th anniversary of Hawaii’s statehood, which is on Aug. 21.
Fifty capsules are to be prepared by the 50th Anniversary of Statehood Commission. Seven of them will contain memorabilia contributed by the public and will be buried on the grounds of the state Capitol.
They are to be opened on the 75th anniversary of statehood, on Aug. 21, 2034.
The other 43 will be distributed to neighboring islands, where they will be stored until the 75th anniversary.
The public can stop by the governor’s office to drop off small items during regular business hours.
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Statues collectively known as The Petrified, at entrance to The International Red Cross Museum in Geneva. Photo by Julia Lukmanova. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
GENEVA (AP) – This city on Lake Geneva with a view of snowcapped Mont Blanc is one of the world’s most expensive cities, with famous shops selling exquisite jewelry and luxury watches. But window-shopping is not the only option for those on a budget. Explore the medieval center of “the city of peace,” its parks and the lake. Take advantage of free transit passes offered to visitors. And enjoy the city’s international ambiance, with residents from 180 countries drawn by the U.N. and other organizations.
GETTING AROUND: Just before leaving the baggage claim area at Geneva airport, look for a machine that dispenses free passes for area buses, trams and trains. The pass is valid for 80 minutes from the time you get it. The train to the city center takes six minutes.
Hotels, hostels and camp sites give guests another free pass for the duration of their stay. You can take unlimited rides on city buses, trams, taxi boats across the lake and return to the airport by train.
Geneva is relatively small – population 188,000 – and most sights are within walking distance of Lake Geneva and the city center. Bikes can be borrowed free at different locations – http://www.geneveroule.ch/en. You only need to show your passport or ID card and leave a refundable deposit of $18.65 (20 Swiss francs).
A pleasant way to cross the lake is in the romantic little yellow taxi boats called Mouettes that stop at five lakeside docks – http://www.mouettesgenevoises.ch/en/index.php.
CHEAP STAYS: The cheapest Geneva hotels start around $93 (100 francs) for a single. The Youth Hostel – on 30 rue Rothschild close to the lake – provides a dormitory bed for $27 (29 francs). Book early because demand is high, particularly in summer, http://www.genevahostel.ch/en/index.html.
At the City Hostel Geneva – on 2 rue Ferrier, near the main train station – dormitory rates are $30 (32 francs). A single room is $61 (65 francs) and a double $81 (87 francs). Book in advance at http://www.cityhostel.ch/english/.
For information on bed and breakfasts on the outskirts, starting at $56 (60 francs) a night, or for camp sites outside Geneva, visit http://www.geneve-tourisme.ch/ and click on “English” and “Accommodation.”
CHEAP EATS: At Geneva’s street festivals you find grilled Swiss sausages and a variety of Latin-American food under $10 (10 francs). There are many options walking distance from the main train station. The popular Lebanese cafe Au Parfum de Beyrouth at 18 rue de Berne near the train station has good kebabs and vegetarian falafels for less than $8 (8 francs).
The Paquis Baths at the small lighthouse on the lake has a cafeteria with a lake terrace that offers a menu of the day for $11-$13 (12 or 14 francs) at lunchtime and 6 p.m.-9 p.m. Try homemade cakes and fresh juice. It’s also the most popular swimming spot in the clean lake water. It’s free after 8 p.m., otherwise a little under $2 (2 francs).
Mandarin, 1-3 rue de Chantepoulet, offers dim sum delicacies on Sundays 12 p.m.-5:30 p.m. for about $4.60-$6.50 (5-7 francs) a small dish.
Mosaique, 31 rue du Mole, is a small Eritrean restaurant. The meat dish is $15 (16 francs) and the vegetarian dish $12 (13 francs). Eat with your fingers.
Across the Mont Blanc bridge over the Rhone River leaving the lake, you’ll find Au Big Sandwich, also called Chez Raffaele, at 10 rue des Eaux-Vives, with various sandwiches around $6-$8 (6.80-8.80 francs), homemade salads, pasta dishes and other Italian delicacies to take away.
Chez Ma Cousine at 6 Bourg-de-Four in the heart of the Old Town serves mouthwatering chicken dishes at less than $14 (15 francs).
Les Armures, 1 rue Puits-St.-Pierre, near the cathedral, is one of the most popular places for the famous fondue cheese dish and other traditional Swiss food. The restaurant is reasonably priced as Geneva goes. Fondue is $23-$26 (25-27.50 francs) per person.
Near a large open area known as Plainpalais back down in the city, there is Feuille de banane at 29 rue de Carouge, an Asian fast food restaurant where you can enjoy good Thai and Chinese specialties, if you can stand the occasionally rude waiters. Plates are $12-18 (13-19 francs).
MUST-SEES: Lake Geneva, or Lac Leman, is a good starting point. Families stroll along the esplanade, picnicking amid the flowers in the adjacent gardens. There’s even free wireless Internet access.
Walk past Geneva’s signature Jet d’eau, the towering fountain rising 460 feet (140 meters) from a jetty in the lake.
Don’t miss one of the city’s best ice cream shops, the Arlecchino on rue du 31 decembre, right across the street, offering 30-40 flavors of homemade ice cream at $3.25 (3.50 francs) a dip.
Farther along Quai Gustav Ador you’ll find free lawn chairs close to the Baby Plage beach where you can walk into the water. There are no changing cabins, but admission is free.
Sailing fans should see the America’s Cup trophy on display at the nearby Societe Nautique de Geneve, home to champion Alinghi.
Back at the Jardin Anglais (English Garden) you can see the flower clock _ a symbol of Geneva’s famous watch industry.
Cross the Mont Blanc bridge and take a right along Quai du Mont Blanc past the Paquis Baths to find Palais Wilson, once headquarters of the U.N.’s predecessor League of Nations. Named for U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, who advocated for the league’s creation, the palais now houses the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.
From there on a clear day you can look across the lake to the white peak of Mont Blanc, at 15,780 feet (4,810 meters) the highest mountain in the Alps.
Back on the other side of the Rhone, St. Peter’s Cathedral (Saint Pierre) tops the Old Town in charmingly tangled cobblestone streets. Religious reformer John Calvin, whose 500th birthday is being celebrated this year, made the cathedral his home base. On days with good visibility, you can climb the towers of the cathedral for $3.75 (4 francs) and overlook the city toward the Alps and the Jura mountains.
Stop for a drink in a sidewalk cafe in the Bourg-de-Four, a trading center in ancient times and popular meeting place today. Bastions Park, a short walk from the Old Town, features the Reformation Wall _ a monument backed against part of the city’s ancient defensive walls, that boasts 16-foot (5-meter) high statues of Calvin and three other major leaders in the Protestant Reformation.
Across town you can see the United Nations’ Palais des Nations, which hosts peace, disarmament and other international talks. Take tram 15 or 13 from the train station to Nations. A giant three-legged chair symbolizes the tragedy of injuries and deaths from land mines. Opposite is the new 196-foot (60-meter) long mural by 100-year-old Swiss artist Hans Erni. Uphill to the left is the international Red Cross museum and the entrance to the U.N., both of which charge $9.35 (10-franc) entrance fees.
Walking down from the square along Avenue de la Paix, you’ll find the city’s free Jardin Botanique (botanical gardens).
Geneva’s museums offer free admission the first Sunday of the month. Most are closed Mondays.
CRUISES: Lake Geneva, the biggest lake in western Europe, is known for strong winds ideal for sailing and sailboarding.
Paddlewheel steamboats regularly cross the lake, including stops both in France and elsewhere in Switzerland. Tickets are pricey but the boats are included in Eurail passes. InterRail holders pay half price; http://www.cgn.ch/eng.
CONCERTS and FESTIVALS: In summer, open-air concerts and festivals revive the quiet city. Fetes de Geneve, the annual street festival on the lakeside running July 30-Aug. 9, offers numerous free concerts, dance floors with disco and Latin American music, rides (for a fee) and a big fireworks show Aug. 8.
Park La Grange hosts free summer concerts ranging from rock music to French chanson on Wednesdays and Fridays. Bring a picnic; http://www.ville-ge.ch/culture/musiques/.
Free jazz concerts are offered on Mondays in the courtyard of Geneva’s historical town hall:
Listen to free organ concerts in St. Peter’s Cathedral, Saturdays at 6 p.m.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: Details on these and other attractions can be found at http://www.geneve-tourisme.ch/. Click on “English,” then “Discover,” “Culture,” or “Events.”
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-CS-07-29-09 2115EDT
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
Panoramic view of Geneva. Image by MadGeographer. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
An outstanding example of German Expressionist art is Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s (German, 1880-1938) 1912 oil on canvas titled Nollendorfplatz, currently displayed at Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin. Public domain image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – A major family collection of rare German Expressionist art has found a permanent home at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
The gift-purchase of the Ludwig and Rosy Fischer Collection brings to the museum more than 200 pieces of art from the most creative years of German Expressionism.
Museum Director Alex Nyerges, who deemed it “almost indescribable,” says the collection is of “not just national but international importance.”
“It is a statement of an era, a statement that cannot really be duplicated. It’s a snapshot of time taking us back 100 years to look at one of the most important artistic movements of the 20th century. … This collection represents it so marvelously.”
Works by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Emil Nolde, Wassily Kandinsky and August Macke, among others, were collected from 1905 to 1925 by Ludwig and Rosy Fischer in Frankfurt, Germany.
Half of their collection escaped the Nazis when a son fled to the United States in 1934 before World War II.
Dr. Ernst Fischer moved to Richmond, bringing his art with him, and became chairman of the physiology department at the Medical College of Virginia.
His brother stayed in Germany about a year longer. Max Fischer’s half of the collection was “partly sold, partly confiscated and partly lost,” Nyerges said.
“That is the typical route for German collections – and Polish collections and Czech collections – that were subjugated to the Nazi regime. It’s amazing, absolutely amazing,” he said.
Dr. Fischer’s wife, Anne Rosenberg Fischer, children and grandchildren agreed to the giftpurchase arrangement 14 years ago.
The plan took effect last year when Anne Fischer died at age 105, after a career in social work and community activism that earned lifetime achievement and humanitarian awards from the Jewish Welfare Campaign, Jewish Federation, Beth Sholom Home, the National Conference of Christians and Jews, and the YWCA.
The value of the art has increased significantly since the agreement was reached, to the point that “the most valuable painting in the collection is probably worth as much as we paid for the entire collection,” said John B. Ravenal, the museum’s Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. The amount paid was not disclosed.
“The depth, breadth and quality of the Fischer collection is among the most important in the museum’s history, along with the Mellon, Lewis, McGlothlin and Gans collections,” Nyerges said.
No state funds were used for the purchase of the art, but upon purchase it becomes property of the state.
In November 2006, a Kirchner painting of a street scene sold at auction for more than $38 million. The art market, along with the rest of the economy, since has cooled, but a smaller Kirchner street scene sold in London in March for about $8.9 million.
The collection includes 21 Kirchners, five of which are oil paintings on canvas. The other Kirchners include woodcuts, a pastel on paper, and a lithograph.
“We have a few works from this period of German Expressionism,” Ravenal said. “This in one fell swoop will completely transform our holdings in this area from minor holdings to among the top in the United States.”
Kirchner was the leader of an Expressionist group that called itself Die BrOcke, or The Bridge.
“They saw themselves as a bridge, away from tradition toward the future,” Ravenal said.
“It’s not just a minor local movement. It is a very important counterbalance to what was going on in Paris with Fauvism and Cubism. It starts out as a fierce rejection of tradition and the establishment, and a desire to reunite with nature, and then during World War I, it takes on a different tone of urban anxiety and alienation.”
The attention-getter, Ravenal said: “I think it’s the bright colors, the strong emotion and the bold vision.”
Nyerges sees German Expressionism as a precursor to modern art.
“It really does become an inspiration for other kinds of expressionism, which becomes the root for so many of the other artistic movements of the 20th century and now,” he said.
A few pieces of the collection will be showcased when the VMFA reopens May 1 in its newly expanded building at the corner of the Boulevard and Grove Avenue. The last part of the building project will be the renovation of the 1970 wing, which will reopen in January 2011 with the Fischer collection prominently displayed.
“It’s going to be a cornerstone of 20th-century modern art,” Nyerges said. ___ Information from: Richmond Times-Dispatch, http://www.timesdispatch.com
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