Walters Art Gallery

Mission: The gallery, bequeathed to the city of Baltimore by Henry Walters, is steward of a distinguished permanent collection of Western and Asian art ranging from antiquity through the early 20th century. Permanent collections are frequently complemented by exhibitions of art from around the world.Latest accomplishment: Twenty-two paintings by French impressionist Claude Monet in his gardens at Giverny are on exhibit through May 31. Opening to critical acclaim, "Monet: Paintings of Giverny From the Musee Marmottan" already has attracted 20,000 visitors.

Gary Vikan, who has been a dynamic force at the helm of the Walters Art Museum for 18 years, will leave the post of director in June 2013, or when his successor is in place. "I really made the decision in November 2008, when I was 62," Vikan said, "but that's when the stock market was plummeting. So I picked 65. " The museum weathered the economic downturn successfully, thanks to Vikan's leadership, said Walters board chairman Douglas Hamilton Jr. "Gary has carried us through the economic downturn," he said.

The music fell silent at Louie's Bookstore Cafe on North Charles Street on Sunday as the 18-year-old restaurant loved for its string quartets and art exhibits closed because its owner wasn't paying the rent.But Jimmy Rouse, the owner of the building at 518 N. Charles St., said yesterday that he is close to a deal that would resurrect the hangout for students and writers in mid-October under the ownership of an Italian restaurateur.Biagio Scotto, owner of Scotto's Italian Bistro in York, Pa., said he plans to add Italian fare to the menu but keep the restaurant's name and bohemian look and continue to sell books.

Phoebe B. Stanton, a retired art professor who guarded Baltimore's architectural taste during 33 years of speaking her mind on the city's Design Advisory Panel, died Wednesday of complications from heart disease and emphysema at Union Memorial Hospital. The Roland Park resident was 88. A retired faculty member at the Johns Hopkins University, where she taught for 27 years, Dr. Stanton was a prolific writer, author and critic who was paid by the city to pass judgment on building projects.

Two shows on view at the National Gallery in Washington have major Baltimore connections, and they're both fine shows."Manet, Monet and the Gare Saint-Lazare" brings together 39 paintings, drawings and prints of the section of Paris known as the Quartier de l'Europe, where Manet and Monet and other artists of the period worked. The exhibit provides an excellent opportunity to see urban works by the two great masters and their colleagues. The show was organized around the National Gallery's famous Manet painting "The Railway" (1872-1873)

Across from the first page of his gospel is the picture of St. John. He sits writing the gospel with a red pen in red ink. He's dressed in robes of bright blue, yellow and red, a red and yellow halo encircles his head, and his huge black eyes stare out of the page with a penetrating gaze.It's a bold image that makes an indelible impression and typical of the rare Ethiopian Gospel Book from which it comes. This latest acquisition of the Walters Art Gallery will go on view for the first time during the Walters' First Thursday hours this week.

I was thrilled to hear Mayor Martin O'Malley has borrowed some paintings from the Walters Art Gallery to decorate his office at City Hall. Wonderful idea! I'd like to borrow a few things myself. When benefactor Henry Walters died in 1931, he left the gallery and his extraordinary art collection -- with its Greek and Roman objects; masterpieces by Raphael, El Greco, Degas and Monet; Chinese porcelains and illuminated manuscripts -- to "the mayor and city council of Baltimore, state of Maryland for the benefit of the public."

"A World of Foreign Lands" at the Walters Art Gallery celebrates 1492 by capturing the spirit of the age of discovery through maps and books that reveal man's growing knowledge of the world from the Middle Ages through the 17th century. It also shows that misconceptions about the nature of foreign lands and peoples persisted; there are pictures here of people with four eyes and six arms. Enlightening and fun, this is an exhibit demonstrating that while knowledge moves forward the defeat of ignorance is long and slow.

In medieval times, the nobility were a warrior class, and even in peacetime they honed their combative skills with hunting and warlike games. Among them was jousting, as shown on this ivory box lid from 14th-century France. It's one of the works in the Walters Art Gallery's exhibit "Medieval Games of Love and War," which brings together manuscripts and other objects to show the games people played back when. The show encompasses everything from chess to hawking to dancing.At the Walters Art Gallery, 600 N. Charles St., through Feb. 18. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays.

Actress Jada Pinkett, called away by Universal for a shoot, has canceled her appearance at the Walters Art Gallery on Sunday. She was going to read to children as part of "Lasting Impressions," a celebration of black history featuring an exhibit of children's book illustrations.The reading probably won't be rescheduled, the Walters says, but today at 2 p.m., pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Benjamin Carson will read. Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke will be on hand at 2 p.m. March 30 for another free reading.

The fat porcelain jar seems large enough to hold many secrets. It sits alone on a pedestal in the Walters Art Gallery, a colorful vessel just knee high and, if truth be told, rather stout. Bright orange enamel fish swoop and swirl on its sides, their curving bodies echoing the fullness of its shape. Henry Walters, who in 1931 bequeathed his art collection to the city, left barely a word about the jar's purchase, sometime between 1894 and 1908. Experts could have told him at the time that the jar dated from China's Ming dynasty, which ranged from 1368 to 1644, and was probably used on ceremonial occasions to hold wine.

Seeing "Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures: Orientalism in America, 1870-1930 " is one of life's guilty pleasures. The show, at the Walters Art Gallery through Dec. 10, includes works that are the oil-and-canvas equivalent of an Oriental carpet: saturated with opulent colors and made with meticulous detail and sumptuous materials. To step inside these galleries is to sink into the richness of painting at its sensual and decadent extreme. John Singer Sargent's 1880 work "Fumee d'ambre gris" alone is worth the price of admission.

In the 20th century, Latin American artists have played a unique role in the development of modernism, blending European formal invention with subject matter drawn from Latin American history, politics and religion. The result has been a striking multicultural embrace of the connections and discontinuities between both worlds. Osvaldo Mesa of Cuba and Soledad Salame of Chile are near-contemporaries whose works are featured in a show at the Harmony Hall Regional Center gallery in Fort Washington, Md., through Sept.

The 2000-2001 art season in the Baltimore-Washington region promises museum-goers and gallery visitors visually intriguing, intellectually stimulating shows that ought to offer a little something for everyone. Baltimore's two largest museums, the Walters Art Gallery and the Baltimore Museum of Art, have both scheduled ambitious exhibits calculated to make the most of their collections' strengths. In October, the Walters opens an eye-popping extravaganza, "Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures: Orientalism in America, 1870-1930," a show that frankly revels in the exotic, sensual images produced by European artists in response to the 19th-century's fascination with the "Orient," which in those days meant mostly the Middle East and North Africa.

The Walters Art Gallery recently announced good news about two of its staffers, associate director and curator of 18th- and 19th-century art William R. Johnston and Joaneath Spicer, the James A. Murnaghan curator of Renaissance and Baroque art. Johnston is the author of a new book, "Nineteenth Century Art: From Romanticism to Art Nouveau," showcasing the 19th- century paintings and sculpture purchased by William T. Walters and his son, Henry, which now...

The Walters Art Gallery, chagrined over the failure of its recent "Gold of the Nomads" exhibit to draw the crowds officials had anticipated, has been doing some serious soul-searching. The show, which closed May 28, was expected to attract at least 70,000 visitors over its 12-week run. But fewer than half that number showed up. As a result, the museum had to swallow a $200,000 shortfall in anticipated revenues, causing it to lay off four seasonal workers who had been hired specifically for the show and well as cut advertising costs.

Anyone who opposes a five-day waiting period on handgu purchases is a nut, crook, crime-profiteer or not very thoughtful about crime.The Maryland Court of Appeals has made it clear that incarcerating a murderer for life is cheaper than trying to execute him or her under law.Everyone is arguing the John Wayne Bobbitt case from ideological certitude, while all the poor jury had to go on was evidence, which was not very corroborative.The Walters Art Gallery risks proving that it runs better without a director.

Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and others are featured in "An Eye for Detail," an exhibition of 67 small Dutch and Flemish paintings from a private collector that opens Sunday at the Walters Art Gallery.The show is designed to allow visitors to enjoy these "small marvels" in an intimate setting. The tiny still lifes, landscapes, portraits and genre scenes, some no larger than a postcard, are crafted with a precision that is at once engrossing and pleasing to the eye.Also opening Sunday at the Walters is "Eureka!

Was everybody thin in those days? Where did they get the gold? Did everyone have a horse? A funny thing happens when you send three museum experts to a museum with instructions to comment upon what they see: They come up with at least a few questions that any of us could have asked. To some extent, that's the point. For the past 11 years, the American Association of Museums has asked a panel of professionals to visit an exhibition and critique it. The experts then report their findings at the association's annual convention.

NEW YORK -- After waiting in line to enter the Whitney Museum of Art's 2000 Biennial, hundreds of us lined up again: We wanted to arm ourselves with the recorded audio tour provided by the museum. There's something peculiar about museumgoers pausing at the entrance of an exhibit to gear up with listening devices. There were no audio tours when Vincent van Gogh was visiting the museums of Paris. And Picasso didn't hand out explanations when he finished "Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon." It makes one wonder if art has changed so much that it can no longer be appreciated without commentary.