Christopher Menz
Christopher Menz is a former Director of the Art Gallery of South Australia. He has published on the design work of William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, and is a regular contributor to ABR.
Formerly only known to historians and specialists, either in the original German or the author's abridged translation, Friedrich Gerstäcker's Australian travelogue (1854), based on his 1851 journey, is now available in a modern and complete translation, edited by Peter Monteath. It is well worth reading, both for its account of colonial Australia and for the author's engaging style.
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Australia's newest museum – one that focuses on the decorative arts – was launched by Paul Keating on Friday, 3 June. (It is open to the public, by appointment only, from 7 June 2016.) Positioned in North Adelaide, The David Roche Foundation is home to a superb collection of European eighteenth- and nineteenth-century objects and paintings. David Roche (1930–2013) was a passionate collector ... (read more)
Los Angeles – city of freeways, studios, hotels, and endless sunshine – is also home to some great art collections and notable architecture, the latter spanning much of the twentieth century. Several of the art museums, taking advantage of the climate, are built as a series of separate pavilions, creating a most congenial experience for visitors.
The best way to see LA's museums, architecture ... (read more)
Food in history is a tantalising thing. Although we may have recipes, firsthand descriptions, and images, we can never be sure how things really looked or tasted. Much of the work of food historians has been focused on creative use of available sources, not to provide facsimile meals, but to gain insight into the cultural role of food of the past. Two recent books explore different aspects of food ... (read more)
Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus (Twenty Contemplations on the Christ Child) was written in 1944 by Olivier Messiaen (1908–92) for his muse, subsequent wife, and dedicatee of the cycle, the pianist Yvonne Loriod. The cycle consists of twenty works of varying length for solo piano, each illustrating different mysteries of the Christ child. A complete performance takes about two hours. Vingt Rega ... (read more)
In an age of blockbusters and ever bigger and grander exhibitions, The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland puts a compelling case for 'less is more'. This model exhibition demonstrates how satisfying a relatively small exhibition can be when the right works are chosen and installed handsomely. The Greats – comprising forty-one paintings and fewer drawings – feels much ... (read more)
In a program spanning two hundred years of violin playing – from Bach to Ravel via Beethoven, Ernst, Paganini, and Ysaÿe, with encores by Brahms and Massenet – Maxim Vengerov enthralled his Melbourne audience with incomparable musicianship and an often dazzling technique. Demonstrating his command of the repertoire with an engaging program, he played with stylistic appropriateness that showed ... (read more)
The National Gallery of Australia's summer exhibition, opened by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on 2 December, is devoted to one of Australia's finest and most popular artists, Tom Roberts. This major retrospective, under the curatorship of the NGA's Anne Gray, brings together all the major paintings, many of them extracted from the permanent displays of our state and regional art galleries, as w ... (read more)
As if to make the point that Richard Wagner's shadow looms over all the classical music that followed him, this Sydney Symphony Orchestra concert entitled Thus Spake Zarathustra began and ended with him. Preludes to Acts I and III of Lohengrin bookended more substantial offerings by Joseph Jongen – Symphonie concertante for organ and orchestra – and Richard Strauss, the latter with his famous ... (read more)