Working with an editor on my memoir taught me to appreciate how rapidly language changes. Like floodwaters, it flows, alters course and refuses to be controlled. The French have tried to apply rules to their native tongue, hoping to preserve its purity, but snippets of English breach

“What kind of a woman are you?” Henri Matisse screamed at his model as he stood before his canvass.  He and dozens of other Parisian painters in the 1920s, Chagall, Cocteau and Braque among them, would never find out.  Only Picasso refused to paint Mari Lani, a model who became

Mattel, the maker of Barbie dolls, is changing the toy’s image.  Today, instead of the anorexic model of the past, she’s manufactured in different body shapes and varying skin colors.  Also added to the line is Barbie’s Inspiring Women, likenesses of accomplished w

Using wealth to build monuments to oneself isn’t easy.  A person has to work to spend with panache, because bragging rights are becoming  competitive.  Recently, a Saudi Prince spent $450.3 million at Christie’s for Leonardo da Vinci’s, Salvador Mundi. (Click)

For the very rich, collecting art isn’t for love but for money.  (Blog 2/20/17)  In today’s world, investors are looking for guarantees.   (Blog, 6/20/17)  They want a fixed price for a famous work they put up for sale.  Otherwise, they risk lowering