sandr020

The Early Years Richard Bruno Heydrich  was director of  Halle Conserv­atory of Music and Theatre which he had founded in 1901. He comp­osed and performed choral works, songs, orchest­ral works and operas a la Richard Wag­ner. Heydrich’s wife Elisabeth taught piano at the Halle Conservat­ory and Elisabeth’s father had been the director of the  Dresden Roy­al Conservatory . Clearly the Heydrich family was a very culturally and financially import­ant family! Reinhard Heydrich  (1904-42) was born in Halle NW of Leipzig, son of Richard and Elisabeth. Music was an integral part of family life; the young lad dev­eloped a passion for the violin and cello. He excelled in science and athletics at the Reform-gymnasium. But he was whipped by his mother and bullied by children for his high voice and possible Jewish ancestry. Too young to fight in WWI, Heydrich got lucky. WW1 ended with Ger­m­any's defeat in 1918. In Feb 1919, strikes and clashes between left and right-wingers to...

Nigel Caw­th­orne ’s  book Sex Lives of the Kings and Queens of England (Carlton Publishing, 2004) proposed that there was more to fascination with royal sexual antics than mere prur­ien­ce. Throughout history, the sex­ual part­ners of royals could be a matter of life or death. Pol­itical alliances were often made on royal marriages, so the suc­cess of a marital relat­ion­ship could influence the nation’s foreign policies. Yes the British royal family no longer enjoys the power it once did, given that the constitutional monarchy is only a Head of State. Yet he also proposed that gross sexual mis­conduct by any of them could seriously undermine the position of the monarchy. How could those views compatible? I would have loved the author to provide his sources.                               Prince of Wales' great love affairs.    P hoto credit: Daily Mail I loved every chapter, but my favourite was ...

The Museum of Manufactures  and the  Government School of Design were located in Marlborough House, an impressive Pall Mall residence. When a new home for this Museum (later Victoria & Albert) had to be found in South Kensington, they used the estate bought by the Commissioners for 1851’s Great Exhib­ition . The Museum was established in 1852 with 3 founding principles i.e to make works of art available to all; to educate working people; and to inspire British designers and manufacturers. All plans had to be approved by Prince Albert, including approval for Sir Henry Cole (1808–82) to become first V & A Director. The financial surplus from the Great Exhibition went to the V & A! The South Kensington site architect was Captain Francis Fowke (1823-65), Inspector of Science and Art. Instead of Gothic architect­ure, Fowke proposed to focus on a North Italian Renaissance style, two storeys high, with a grand Lecture Theatre complex as centrepiece. In 1861 designe...

Brave New World: Australia 1930s is a special exhibition at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV in Melbourne until mid Oct 2017. The 1930s was a turbulent time in Aus­tralia’s history.  Major world events, includ­ing the Depression and the rise of totalitarian regimes in Europe, shap­ed our nation’s evolving sense of identity during this decade. See a multitude of art­istic styles, both progressive and reactionary, which were practised during the 1930s: fash­ion, commercial art, architecture, industrial design, film and dance. The exhibition presents a  detailed picture of this dynamic time and reveals some of the social and political concerns that were pertinent then. The life saver and the Sydney Harbour Bridge Celebrating the bridge's opening in 1932 The exhibition charts the themes of technological pro­g­ress and its antithesis in the nostalgia for pastoralism; the emer­gence of the New Woman; nationalism and the body culture movement; mounting calls for Indigenous rights and th...

Once Hitler came to power in 1933, Germany’s 572,000 Jews faced catastrophe as was made perfectly clear in Peter Nash's book Es­cape From Berlin (Impact Press, 2017). So how did some European Jews receive visas to the Far East? Just as the German industrialist Oskar Schindler saved the lives of 1200 Jews in Poland, three less-known diplomats helped Jews to get to Shanghai. In 1940  Chiune Sugihara was the Japanese consul general in Lithuania. He issued visas to 6000 Jews, against his Tokyo sup­eriors’ instructions, allowing Jews to transit through Japan. When he ran out of authentic visas, Sugihara threw signed sheets of paper stamped with his consular seal to the Jews as the train left Lithuania to take him back to Japan. Ho Feng-Shan was Chinese consul general in Vienna. After the Ansch­luss in 1938, the only way for the 200,000 Austrian Jews to escape was to get an entry visa from a foreign nation. Against the orders of his superior in Berlin, Ho issued thousands of visas for...

Melbourne has become renowned as Aus­tral­ia’s cultural capital. Note Southbank’s Arts Prec­inct located next door to Southgate, stretching from the Yarra to the end of Sturt Street. Over the years it has become home to perform­ing arts com­p­anies, venues and galleries. This pedestrian-friendly Arts Precinct includes Sid­ney Myer Music Bowl (1959), the newest National Gallery Victoria building (1968), the city’s premier con­cert venue  Hamer Hall (1982), Arts Centre Melb­ourne (1984) and its spire, Malthouse Theatre (1990), Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (2002), Melbourne Recital Centre (2009) and Melbourne Theatre Company’s Southbank Theatre (2009). The Melbourne Arts Precinct Blueprint 2014 is a co-ordinated app­roach to the future devel­op­ment of the precinct. The study has been co-ordinated by the key arts stakeholders: City of Melbourne, Arts Victoria and State Government. Whilst each individual org­anisation has its own plans for the future, the Blueprint ...

The Jacobites , supporters of King James II , were the original opponents of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 . The Act of Union in 1707 had led to the creation of Great Britain, with a single parliament at West­min­ster. Scotland did not adapt easily to this new relationship because, for many Scots, the union delivered misery and economic disadvantage. So half the nation want­ed to return to the independence of Stuart Scotland. For landed and business-minded Scots who had increased access to a new British trading empire, the Union was loved. And Presbyterian Scots, who were still fearful of popery, certainly did not want to see another Stuart king in Scotland. The Stuarts’ main strongholds remained in the Scottish Highlands and Islands . By the early C18th the Highlanders were not the only people looking to overthrow the British government; unhappy citizens on both sides of the border, including persecuted Irish Catholics and unhappy English Tories, shared the goal. And the Jacobite c...

Mark A. Landis (born 1955) was born in Virginia but was constantly on the move with his Navy father. At age 17, the young man suffered a schizophrenic breakdown when his beloved father died. Art therapy helped, so Mark enrolled in School of the Art Institute of Chicago and then San Francisco Art Institute . But neither lasted for long. Landis became a forger who tricked 50 unsuspecting museums across 20 American states. He covered the USA, donating counterfeit art to museums, but not to enrich himself or to ridicule the establishment. Instead his goal was to be viewed as a philanthropist, gaining family respect. I must admit that to be a convincing forger, Landis must have been a talented artist in his own right . He "created" works in oil, watercolour, pastels, chalk, ink and pencil, making most of his copies from museum or auction catalogues that provided dimensions and information on the originals. Associated Press said that Landis, who has occasionally dressed as a Je...