It Was the Biggest Job of His Life. Was He On Target, or Off by Half?
The New York Times
An antiques shop owner in Maine was hired by a friend to value the collection of the artist Robert Indiana. His verdict was $85 million. A second appraisal says that’s way too much.
Whenever a worthy cause needs help in Rockland, Maine, this town of 7,000 overlooking Penobscot Bay, people reach out to Bruce Gamage Jr., an auctioneer who runs an antiques shop downtown.
Regularly, he drops what he’s doing to drum up bidding at charity auctions organized for, say, the historical society or an injured child, displaying the professional expertise he’s honed for years while selling off silver sets and scrimshaw from dusty attics and the estates of the recently deceased.
French Gothic cabinets? Amethyst rings? Walking sticks? An oil portrait or gouache?
Gamage is as established an expert on such items as you’ll find around Rockland, a working-class town once known for its quarries and fish canneries. Many in town say he is just as self-sacrificing a spirit.
“It’s almost all we need to do is send him the date, he is just so generous with his time,” said Amie Hutchison, executive director of Trekkers, a local nonprofit that mentors young people.
Gamage’s expertise was tested, though, in 2018 when he was given what he called “the most important job I’ve ever had.”
In the months leading up to the election, Donald J. Trump sat for a slew of casual and unconventional conversations with podcasters and streamers. We watched them all.
In the last year, museums, book festivals, arts journals and other organizations have experienced bitter discord over what qualifies as tolerable speech about the conflict and its combatants.
John Krasinski may not have the raw energy of Glen Powell, but a collaboration with the stylist Ilaria Urbinati has paid huge dividends.
The star of Jacques Audiard’s showy new musical about a trans Mexican crime boss, Karla Sofía Gascón, adds soul to the melodrama. Zoe Saldaña also shines.
The powerhouse soprano, already a company stalwart at 37, still seems to be figuring out a character whose moods change on a dime.
The artist’s works are the subject of two New York shows, at the Metropolitan Museum and the Jack Shainman Gallery.
The YouTube star has a coffee company, a podcast and a new collaboration with Warby Parker. One thing she isn’t doing much? Posting.
The FX series strives to capture the complexity of its subject: the long sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles.
Nora Holt was a pioneer of Chicago’s Black classical music scene. A friend of Josephine Baker, she later became a blues singer in Parisian nightclubs.
In the film “Conclave,” the costume designer Lisy Christl clothed an army of catty cardinals, from their miters down to their quirky glasses.
The sprawling PST festival of more than 70 exhibitions doesn’t quite live up to its theme of art and science colliding. But there is a handful of impressive entries.