Over a seven-decade career, Hockney explored and reimagined classical portraiture, landscape painting and pop art, working in painting, collage, photography and digital drawing.

Hockney was born in the north of England but lived much of his life in Southern California, making its sun-drenched suburban views a major motif. …

Historian Simon Schama said it’s no mystery why the appeal of his work endures.

“His work is admired — loved is not too strong a word — by the millions who, worldwide, flock to see it because it presupposes an expectation of pleasure,” Schama wrote in an essay accompanying a 2025 Hockney exhibition in Paris.

I was not a big Hockney fan, but his work seemed pleasant enough. However, having lots of friends and in-laws in Southern California, I was and I remain exceptionally familiar with those “sun-drenched suburban views” in real life.

But I must say that this quote from that article endears Hockney to me:

In 2019, he moved to Normandy, where during the 2020 coronavirus lockdown he produced joyous iPad drawings of springtime for his friends. His message — “Do remember they can’t cancel the spring” — was emblazoned in neon across the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris when it hosted a huge Hockney exhibition that opened in April 2025.

RIP.

The post David Hockney dies at 88 appeared first on The New Neo.

Johann Sebastian Bach is one of history’s three greatest composers (along with Beethoven and Mozart), but his fame didn’t really blossom until the mid-19th century—75 or 80 years after his death. That fact contains both sadness (that he never enjoyed the fame he deserved) and joy (that his name rings out around the world and across the centuries). … I’ll share the stories of a handful of mid-20th century folk/pop musicians whose fame (in selected circles) was similarly deferred—along with some clips of their music.

That started me thinking about other arenas and other examples of late fame. I think the quintessential one is Van Gogh, who struggled tremendously in his life (from some unspecified and episodic mental illness, among other things like poverty) and sold very few paintings, although more than the one painting of legend:

We don’t know exactly how many paintings Van Gogh sold during this lifetime, but in any case, it was more than a couple. Vincent’s first commission was from his uncle Cor. He was an art dealer and wanted to help his nephew on his way, so he ordered 19 cityscapes of The Hague.

Vincent sold his first painting to the Parisian paint and art dealer Julien Tanguy, and his brother Theo successfully sold another work to a gallery in London. The Red Vineyard, which Vincent painted in 1888, was bought by Anna Boch, the sister of Vincent’s friend Eugène Boch.

Without the help of his brother Theo, Van Gogh would have been even worse off. But things were bad enough, and he killed himself at the age of thirty-seven in 1890. Now Van Gogh is one of the most popular artists ever, whose work fetches astronomical prices at auction.

But I think it’s somewhat of a myth that he was a complete failure in his lifetime. From his Wiki entry, I was surprised to see that he did have more recognition during his lifetime that I’d previously known, plus he was acknowledged with at least some praise and acknowledgement shortly after his death:

After Van Gogh’s first exhibitions in the late 1880s, his reputation grew steadily among artists, art critics, dealers and collectors. In 1887, André Antoine hung Van Gogh’s alongside works of Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, at the Théâtre Libre in Paris; some were acquired by Julien Tanguy. In 1889, his work was described in the journal Le Moderniste Illustré by Albert Aurier as characterised by “fire, intensity, sunshine”. Ten paintings were shown at the Société des Artistes Indépendants, in Brussels in January 1890. French president Marie François Sadi Carnot was said to have been impressed by Van Gogh’s work.

After Van Gogh’s death, memorial exhibitions were held in Brussels, Paris, The Hague and Antwerp. His work was shown in several high-profile exhibitions, including six works at Les XX; in 1891, there was a retrospective exhibition in Brussels. In 1892, Octave Mirbeau wrote that Van Gogh’s suicide was an “infinitely sadder loss for art … even though the populace has not crowded to a magnificent funeral, and poor Vincent van Gogh, whose demise means the extinction of a beautiful flame of genius, has gone to his death as obscure and neglected as he lived.”

Van Gogh’s fame and reputation started to build in the early years of the 20th century and he became quite famous in mid-century. So it did take a while for him to reach his present mega-fame.

Another example of a very different kind that comes to mind is Ignaz Semmelweis, who’s not really what you’d call a household name even now. But he was disgraced in his lifetime and rehabilitated only after death:

In 1847, he proposed hand washing with chlorinated lime solutions at Vienna General Hospital’s First Obstetrical Clinic, where doctors’ wards had thrice the mortality of midwives’ wards. The maternal mortality rate dropped from 18% to less than 2%, and he published a book of his findings, Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever, in 1861.

Despite his research, Semmelweis’s observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time and his ideas were rejected by the medical community. He could offer no theoretical explanation for his findings of reduced mortality due to hand-washing, and some doctors were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands and mocked him for it. In 1865, the increasingly outspoken Semmelweis allegedly suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to an asylum by his colleagues. In the asylum, he was beaten by the guards. He died 14 days later from a gangrenous wound on his right hand that may have been caused by the beating.

His findings earned widespread acceptance only years after his death, when Louis Pasteur confirmed the germ theory of disease, giving Semmelweis’s observations a theoretical and scientific explanation, and Joseph Lister, acting on Pasteur’s research, practised and operated using hygienic methods with great success.

Another extremely well-known example of the “late fame” genre is poet Emily Dickinson, reclusive and nearly unpublished in life but now considered one of the greatest American poets:

Although Dickinson was a prolific writer, only 10 of her nearly 1,800 poems were published during her lifetime.Today her poems are widely regarded as groundbreaking with their use of short acerbic lines, lean descriptions, and slant or off-rhyme. Her poetry primarily deals with nature and mortality.

One thing all three – Van Gogh, Semmelweis, and Dickinson – had in common was that their work was unconventional for the times, trailblazing even. It took the passage of time for them to be appreciated. I’ll let Dickinson have the last word:

Success is counted sweetest,
By those who ne’er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purpose Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory

As he defeated – dying –
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

The post The phenomenon of late fame appeared first on The New Neo.

My favorite:

The lunar surface fills the frame in sharp detail, as seen during the Artemis II lunar flyby, while a distant Earth sets in the background. This image was captured at 6:41 p.m. EDT, on April 6, 2026, just three minutes before the Orion spacecraft and its crew went behind the Moon and lost contact with Earth for 40 minutes before emerging on the other side. In this image, the dark portion of Earth is experiencing nighttime, while on its day side, swirling clouds are visible over the Australia and Oceania region. In the foreground, Ohm crater shows terraced edges and a relatively flat floor marked by central peaks — formed when the surface rebounded upward during the impact that created the crater.

The post More photos from Artemis appeared first on The New Neo.

The differences in color between the two photos stem from the settings used to take them, and where in space they were taken from.

NASA’s Flickr page, where the Artemis II crew’s photos live, shows the type of camera and the settings used to take the picture. Most of the settings are usual for taking photos, except for one. The ISO setting, which controls the camera’s sensitivity to light, is set to a staggering 51,200. For context, a common ISO setting for pictures taken on Earth is around 200.

The reason Wiseman had to use such a high ISO was that his spacecraft was on the opposite side of the Earth from the sun, meaning to the astronauts’ naked eyes, the Earth appeared much darker than it does in the photo. The sun is actually what’s causing the bright light on the bottom right of the Earth.

And here’s a post of mine from February of 2005, very early in my blogging career, on the subject of first seeing photos of earth from space:

I’m not so very old, but when I grew up and artists or scientists drew conceptual drawings of the earth from outer space, the globe was always pictured as just that–a globe like those spinning ones in school, tethered to their metal stands (only, of course, without the metal stands). No clouds at all. Despite the fact that we all should have known better–all we had to do was look up at the sky most days to see those voluminous clouds–no one did seem to know better.

I still remember the shock of seeing those first photos …

By now we’ve incorporated the clouds into our mental image of the earth. Here’s one of those early photos, though – the “Big Blue Marble” one:

And here’s my very favorite so far, the “Earthrise” photo taken in 1968:

If you’d like to see a history of photos taken of earth, please go here.

The post Big blue marble appeared first on The New Neo.

And now for some music on the theme:

The Bee Gees wrote so many songs about loneliness that it’s hard to pick just one. But here’s my choice from their early years:

And I’ll close with this:

The post Only the lonely appeared first on The New Neo.

And so I’ve recently taken a bunch of apple selfies in order to come up with an acceptable one for the blog. You’d be surprised how hard it is, and strangely enough, selfies are the only way it can be done. That’s because I have to be able to see what I’m taking as I’m taking it. It’s surprisingly difficult to get all the elements in place. The apple has to be held just so: non-blemished side forward, not crooked, the right distance from the face and covering more or less the same features as previous photos, and the hand at least somewhat relaxed rather than a tense claw. There are many outtakes, but there would be even more of them if I had someone else take them. And who would have the patience?

Oh, and there’s the lighting, too, which has to be decent. It doesn’t really work well outdoors – I’ve tried – and indoors I don’t have the right kind of lighting. But I make do. And one can adjust the lighting with editing, although I don’t do much other editing except getting rid of the background if necessary and substituting something simple instead. For the photo that’s been on the blog since 2018, I did adjust the lighting (darkened it), but I think the new one will be more natural in lighting. The camera on my phone is better.

You might be amused by some unpublished outtakes from previous efforts. This one is from 2022:

And here’s one from 2017:

The post The march of time – and my neo photo appeared first on The New Neo.

New York City’s Times Square installed a statue of a 12-foot-tall Black woman in casual clothing that its creator hopes will encourage people to reflect on “greater cultural diversity.”

New York-based Times Square Arts recently put up the new statue display, titled “Grounded in the Stars,” by artist Thomas J Price, along with his “Man Series” animated billboards, both of which are temporary, but causing a stir online.

The Times Square website states, “Price’s multi-channel presentation on the screens and sculptural installation on the plaza below forms a two-part takeover in Times Square that foregrounds the intrinsic value of the individual and amplifies traditionally marginalized bodies on a monumental scale.”

Note the style of the writing. It’s a very typical Newspeak that originated in academic circles and functions as a sort of “I’m highly educated and oh-so-virtuous” tell.

The statue is neither attractive nor heroic, which is the point. It happens to be of a black woman or “woman of color” – another point. But if the race of the person depicted had been white, it certainly would not have been any more attractive. Is this the current urban Everywoman? I suppose. Her gaze is either blank or slightly defiant, but she looks like anyone you could see walking on the street. The statue’s only raison d’etre seems to be its anti-heroic and woke nature – that, and to conjure up controversy.

It reminds me somewhat of a trend I’ve noticed in advertisements and even some store mannequins that feature models who are not the least bit remarkable and only of very ordinary and average (or less than average) attractiveness. The only thing different about this woman is that she’s not in a store advertising anything; she’s supposed to be purely art plus politics.

By “traditionally marginalized bodies,” the author of that deathless descriptive prose I quoted can’t possibly mean “women who are a bit heavy.” There’s a lengthy art tradition for that, and even a more recent one. As a native New Yorker, I immediately thought of the Nadelman-inspired sculptures in the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center. I’ve always liked them, although I wasn’t sure why. Here’s one:

These women are also of the overweight variety. They’re white because the stone is white, but to me at least they seem beyond race and time. They’re supposed to be circus performers, but they certainly don’t look like any circus performers I’ve ever seen. There’s something monumental about them, something that isn’t political.

Speaking of old traditions, the image of the overweight ( that is, fat) woman has enormous antiquity. In fact, such sculptures are among the oldest art we have. I bring you as an example, the Venus of Willendorf, thought to be about 30K years old. The sculpture is only about four inches tall:

Then of course the overweight woman has a prominent place in painting of yesteryear from the Renaissance to Renoir and beyond, almost a cliched place. But none of these images have anything like the aura of the Times Square sculpture, which is anti-art or perhaps art as pure politics. As such, it’s emblematic of our times.

The post Art for non-art’s sake: the Times Square monument to our age appeared first on The New Neo.

So therefore:

?NEWS: The photographer (Doug Mills) who took the image on the left just received a Pulitzer, not the one (Evan Vucci) who captured the most iconic shot on the right. pic.twitter.com/r08mforOro

— The Gas Stove ? (@TheGasStovee) May 5, 2025

The post The Trump assassination-attempt photo wins a Pulitzer appeared first on The New Neo.

I especially loved the leotard-clad Dancer, who namelessly and hopefully danced her interpretive dances to Spring, to Love, to whatever. I found this one – not necessarily his best, but at least it’s of the character:

Feiffer had reached the formidable age of 95 when he died. I know next to nothing about his later works, but it sounds like he kept pretty busy:

Meanwhile, back at the Voice, Feiffer still wasn’t drawing a paycheck — and wouldn’t for his first two decades there, even as collections like 1958’s Sick, Sick, Sick and 1965’s The Unexpurgated Memoirs of Bernard Mergendeiler made his style immediately recognizable across the country. Those collections introduced Feiffer to adult readers, but for the younger set he was the magical artist behind 1961’s The Phantom Tollbooth. More than 30 years after illustrating Norton Juster’s cult kids’ book, Feiffer returned to the genre as an author, with books like 1993’s The Man in the Ceiling (eventually adapted into a musical with Tony Award-winning producer Jeffrey Seller) and his 2010 re-teaming with Juster, The Odious Ogre. Recent years saw him return to razor-edged grownup satire in 2014’s Kill My Mother and 2016’s Cousin Joseph. His most recent book was a graphic novel for kids published in Sept. 2024, called Amazing Grapes.

Here’s one that’s still timely; I don’t know when it was published:

RIP.

The post RIP Jules Feiffer appeared first on The New Neo.

The bold portrait, painted by British artist Jonathan Yeo, is the first official portrait of the 75-year-old king since his May 2023 coronation. It was unveiled inside Buckingham Palace on May 14.

The portrait, drenched in the color red, depicts Charles wearing the red military uniform of the Welsh Guards, as he sits with his hand on his sword, amid a vibrant red background. A monarch butterfly hovers over the king’s right shoulder.

Everything looks red except the king’s face, and that is painted realistically and showing every line and sag.

The artist says:

… [M]uch like the butterfly I’ve painted hovering over his shoulder, this portrait has evolved as the subject’s role in our public life has transformed. I do my best to capture the life experiences and humanity etched into any individual sitter’s face, and I hope that is what I have achieved in this portrait.

Count it achieved.

I actually think if the artist had painted the rest of the portrait in that same style and with realistic colors, it would have been fine. But then it wouldn’t have been talked about so much. It would have have in line with tradition – although I suppose that tradition dictates a more flattering and softening look, particularly for the face.

I remember Charles as a little boy, when I was a little girl. ‘Nuff said.

The overwhelming redness of the painting gives the whole thing an otherworldly and creepy air. It also reminds me of Lewis Carrol’s queens. There’s the Red Queen (the metaphor being a game of chess):

And the Queen of Hearts (the metaphor being a card game):

The post King Charles’ portrait: the Red King or the King of Hearts and Butterflies? appeared first on The New Neo.