In the mid-90s, I heard a rather mean-spirited French antiquaire state that Hubert de Givenchy was a better interior decorator than haute couturier. The occasion for this backhanded praise was the nearly synchronous retirement of “Le Grand Hubert” from fashion and the exhibition by Paris’s Kugel gallery of Givenchy’s spectacular 17th-century Boulle “Apollo” cabinet alongside the designer’s equally sensational collection of Renaissance Limoges enamels. These rare objects were of such phenomenal quality that the enamels were quickly snapped up by Pierre Bergé for his Rue Bonaparte apartment and the cabinet promptly dispatched to a notorious American financier for his Park Avenue triplex. READ ON

In 1986, in The New York Times, the art critic John Russell offered a word of warning for visitors to the Alex Katz retrospective at the Whitney Museum. “The paintings look easy, the way Fred Astaire made dancing look easy and Cole Porter made words and music sound easy,” he wrote. “But don’t let’s be fooled.” The problem for many was—and still is—that the simplicity of Katz’s paintings belies their innovation. “Art that conceals art” is how Russell put it. READ ON