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  • “The News Industry In the Digital Realm Is No Longer In Control of Its Own Future”

    The state of the US news media improved in 2010, at least in comparison with a dismal 2009. Newspapers were the only major media sector to see continued ad revenue declines, down 6.4%. (After the report was published, the Newspaper Association of America released its final tally and put the drop at 6.3%.) But as online news consumption continues to grow — it surpassed print newspapers in ad revenue and audience for the first time in 2010 — a more fundamental challenge to journalism also became clearer. The news industry in the digital realm is no longer in control of its own future, according to the State of the News Media report from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

    Online, news organizations increasingly depend on independent networks to sell their ads, on aggregators and social networks to deliver a substantial portion of their audience, and now, as news consumption becomes more mobile, on device makers (such as Apple) and software developers (Google) to distribute their content. And the new players take a share of the revenue and in many cases, also control the audience data.

    “In a world where consumers decide what news they want and how they want to get it, the future belongs to those who understand the audience best, and who can leverage that knowledge with advertisers,” said PEJ Director Tom Rosenstiel. “Increasingly that knowledge exists outside of news companies.”

    These are some of the conclusions in the eighth annual State of the News Media report, which takes a comprehensive look at the health and status of the American news media. This year’s study includes detailed looks at the eight major sectors of media. The special reports this year include a survey about the role of mobile technology in news consumption and the willingness of people to pay for their local newspaper online, a look at emerging economic models in community news and astudy of how the US newspaper business is faring compared with other nations.

    The Who Owns the News Media database allows users to compare companies by various indicators, explore each media sector and read profiles of individual companies.  And in the Year in the News Interactive, users can explore PEJ’s comprehensive content analysis of media performance based on 52,613 stories from 2010.

    Among the study’s key findings:

    • Mobile has already become an important factor in news. Nearly half of all Americans (47%) now get some form of local news on a mobile device, according to a new survey in this year’s report, produced by PEJ with Pew Internet and American Life Project in partnership with the Knight Foundation. As of January 2011, 7% of Americans reported owning some kind of electronic tablet, nearly double the number four months earlier. But the movement to mobile doesn’t guarantee a revenue source. To date, even among early adaptors, only 10% of those who have downloaded local news apps paid for them.
    • Online outpaces newspapers. Fully 46% of people now say they get news online at least three times a week, surpassing newspapers (40%) for the first time. Only local TV news is a more popular platform in America now (50%).  In another milestone, more money was spent on online advertising than on newspaper advertising in 2010: Online advertising overall grew 13.9% to $25.8 billion in 2010, according to data from eMarketer. While eMarketer does not offer a print ad revenue figure, we estimate the newspaper took in $22.8 billion in print ad revenue in 2010. (We estimate online ad revenue at newspapers to be about $3 billion.)

  • States Advance Abortion Legislation and An Analysis of the Politics At Work

    The Kaiser Health News’ Daily Report which is  a summary of health policy coverage from more than 300 news organizations, has published this summary:

    In Arizona, legislation was signed into law to outlaw sex- or race-based abortions. In Kansas, a “fetal pain” measure has been sent to the governor for his signature.

    The Arizona Republic: Arizona Outlaws Abortions Based On Race, Sex
    Arizona is the first state in the nation to make sex- or race-selection abortions a crime. Gov. Jan Brewer on Tuesday signed into law House Bill 2443, which makes it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion based on the sex or race of the fetus. Opponents of the measure have questioned whether such a practice was really occurring. Republican supporters had said that statistics show a high percentage of abortions are being sought by minority women and that abortion clinics intentionally locate in minority areas (Rough, 3/30).

    McClatchy/The Wichita Eagle: Kansas ‘Fetal Pain’ Abortion Bill Goes To Gov. Brownback
    A bill to strictly limit abortions after 22 weeks based on disputed research that fetuses can feel pain is on its way to Gov. Sam Brownback, who has indicated he will sign it into law. A second bill to require consent of both parents for minors to get an abortion and to require doctors to provide the state with more detailed records for abortions also is headed to the governor (Fertig, 3/30).

    A few days previously, Salon weighed in with more of a political analysis:

    What’s really driving the GOP’s abortion war; The economy is reeling and we’re in three wars, but Republicans across the country are focused on … abortion?

    By Amanda Marcotte …

    But what seems to have thrown everyone — save for a handful of embittered and neglected pro-choice activists — for a loop is the way Republican lawmakers at both the national and state levels have focused so intently on the uteruses of America. Republicans appear to believe that the women of America have wildly mismanaged these uteruses in the four decades since the Supreme Court gave them control over them — and now that Republicans have even a little bit of power, they’re going to bring this reign of female tyranny over uteruses to an end.

    After all, the Republican House speaker, John Boehner, has identified limiting women’s access to abortion and contraception as a “top priority” — this with the economy is in tatters and the world in turmoil. Boehner’s and the GOP’s abortion fixation raises an obvious question: Why now, when there are so many other pressing issues at stake?

    There isn’t just one explanation. The assault on reproductive rights is intensifying now because of a convergence of several otherwise unrelated events that have created the perfect moment for the anti-choice movement to go for the kill.

    Maybe this is all surprising. After all, haven’t we heard for the last two years that the Tea Party is more libertarian and less socially conservative? If you bought that line, congratulations — you’re ensconced in Beltway wisdom. The truth is that a new name for the same old conservative base hasn’t changed the nature of that base. Just as before, the “small government” conservatives and the religious right have a great deal of overlap. With gay rights waning as a powerful wedge issue, keeping the religious right motivated and ready to vote is harder than ever. Reproductive rights creates new incentives for church-organized activists to keep praying, marching, donating and, most important, voting for the GOP.

    Fasten your seat belts and read the rest of the article at the Salon site.

  • Health For Sale: Ars Medica and Cheret’s Lithographs Explore Medical Posters From 1846 to Present

    French Tonic
    Boldly claiming cures for all manner of ailments, posters have long been a favorite form of advertising for manufacturers, pharmacies, and quack doctors alike. Bright colors and punchy slogans captured the public’s attention, using humor, satire and caricature to sell products, promote pharmacies, or to warn against social evils including alcoholism, marijuana, and venereal disease.

    Health for Sale: Posters from the William H. Helfand Collection (April 2 – July 31, 2011) presents some 50 health-related posters, their subjects ranging from medical conferences, good hygiene, and pharmaceuticals to spurious cures. The advertisements are drawn from the personal collection of William H. Helfand, who has been amassing fine prints, drawings, caricatures, trade cards, posters, and ephemera depicting medical subjects since the mid-1950s. The exhibition is drawn from the many generous gifts that he has made to the Philadelphia Museum of Art over the course of more than four decades.

    “Bill Helfand, a longstanding member of our Prints, Drawings, and Photographs Committee, has donated more than 1,600 works to the Museum,” said Timothy Rub, the George D. Widener Director and Chief Executive Officer at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. “We are deeply grateful for his generosity, for these gifts have provided a cornerstone of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s collection of Ars Medica — prints, drawing, photographs, posters, illustrated books, and ephemera — which is the only one of its type in an art museum in this country.”

    “The posters on view span the widest possible range of subjects, and are a tribute to Mr. Helfand’s tireless passion for collecting,” said John Ittmann, The Kathy and Ted Fernberger Curator of Prints. “Many of the graphic images used in these posters seem humorous to us today, but their potency and effectiveness in promoting medical products and health-related agendas was undeniably persuasive at the time of their production.”Ayes Cherry Pectoral

    Arranged thematically, the posters range in date from an 1846 — 47 poster advertising quinine bitters recommended for treating dyspepsia, to a 1985 poster promoting a benefit concert to raise money for AIDS research.  Helfand’s passion took him from the Print Club on Latimer Street in Philadelphia, to New York print shops, to the rue de Seine in Paris, where he found many of the posters now in his collection.

    One of the most striking posters is Man as Industrial Palace, a diagram of the human body as an industrial factory, dreamed up in the 1920s in Germany by Dr. Fritz Kahn.

  • Upstairs Downstairs Revisited: Dame Eileen Atkins and Jean Marsh Comment on the New Series

    Eileen Atkins and Jean Marsh, the originators of the original series comment on the making of the new series including “the monkey.”  “Laugh and be touched. We always feel that PBS does all the best work” say the pair of intriguing, talented women.

    Watch the full episode. See more Masterpiece.

    It’s not too late to order from your local library, Amazon or subscription service episodes of the original Upstairs, Downstairs in order to prepare for watching new episodes. Those original episodes mount up to a startling 68 in total. Image from Amazon

    Upstairs, Downstairs: The Complete Series – 40th Anniversary Collection has just been released by Acorn Media consisting of a 21-disc collection that contains all five series, in addition to a behind-the-scenes documentary and 24 episode commentaries.

    Hugely popular in the US, and watched by some eight million in the United Kingdom at the end of last year, three new episodes  should appeal to an interested and, for our readers, a nostalgic audience in the US when it returns on April 10th. It was well received enough to commission another six hour-long episodes next year when, as advertised,  a ‘huge shock’ will be served up to both British and, presumably, American audiences.

    Keeley Hawes (BBC’s Ashes to Ashes), Ed Stoppard (Brideshead Revisited), Anne Reid, Claire Foy (Little Dorrit), Adrian Scarborough and Art Malik  (whom many of us will recognize from Jewel in the Crown) will be entering through the doors of the iconic 165 Eaton Place.

    Set in 1936, the three, hour-long episodes, to be broadcast on PBS, will take viewers, old and new, back to the lavish world of Belgravia, London.

    A new set of occupants will reside at the iconic address and viewers will see how external and internal influences of the tumultuous pre-war period shape and mould the lives of this wealthy family and their servants.‬

    ‪Upstairs, Keeley Hawes is Lady Agnes Holland, the beautiful, spirited and socially ambitious woman who plans to take society by storm. Her husband and master of the house, diplomat Sir Hallam Holland, has his work cut out keeping the peace between his wife and mother and will be played by Ed Stoppard.

    Dame Eileen Atkins will play Maud, Lady Holland — the straight-speaking mother-in-law who causes sparks to fly as soon as she arrives. And Claire Foy plays Lady Persephone — the beautiful, younger sister of Lady Agnes who refuses to adhere to the rules of 165 Eaton Place.

    Downstairs, Jean Marsh reprises her role as Rose Buck — and is now the reliable housekeeper. Anne Reid will play Mrs Thackeray, the resident cook, Adrian Scarborough plays the highly strung, teetotal butler, Mr Pritchard and Art Malik plays Mr Amanjit, loyal servant to Maud.

  • A Connoisseur Reviews and Critiques White House Protests

    by Jo Freeman

    Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House was the place to go last Saturday to see the flags of some of the Middle East countries, or at least those whose people are protesting their rulers. Demonstrators from Yeman, Syria, Bahrain, and Libya were all waving flags and signs while trying not to get in each other’s space. The “usual suspects” who come all the time were almost lost in the crowd.

    As a connoisseur of street demonstrations with fifty years of experience, instead of a report, I’m going to write a review and critique. Think of these demonstrations as the term papers for “Protest 101.”

    Keep in mind that the primary purpose of protest is to get your message out. Expressing yourself is all well and good, but it’s secondary. Far too many demonstrators let “expression” obscure “message.” The message is conveyed with signs, flyers, and photogenic props. Chants can reach a listening audience, but speeches are rarely heard by anyone not part of the demonstration.

    Yemeni protestors were the most numerous, about 200, most of whom, I was told, came from Detroit, Chicago and New York. They were  standing in a circle chanting to each other. A very large circle to be sure, but if you wanted to read the signs, let alone photograph them, you had to get inside. How many passers-by do that? Reporters do that, as do aggressive amateurs, but not the general public. From the outside you could see the flags, but if you didn’t recognize the Yemeni flag you would have no idea who these people were.

    From the inside, however, the message was clear: “No More Dictatorship. Power to the People of Yemen.” There were plenty of signs and they were varied. “People Want to Overthrow the Regime.” Some showed graphic photographs with the heading “Crimes of this morning.”

    Many of the signs looked homemade. “Saleh … Please just leave.” Most had good thick letters that were easy to read but some were done with a single-stroke of a magic marker, which isn’t thick enough. The slogans were direct and to the point, in both English and Arabic, presumably the two publics the protestors were trying to reach. “Obama: Stop Saleh from Killing Innocent People”

    In addition to the Yemeni flags, the Yemeni protest displayed half a dozen American flags. This is good if you are appealing to the American people, though the one upside down flag was a little confusing.

    The chant leader had a large megaphone, but he walked in front of the photographers far too often. Too often chant leaders forget that it’s the signs that carry the message. Some of the participants were also taking each other’s photos, which is fine except that they were always walking in front of every one else trying to take photographs.

    A reporter kept asking for someone to interview who spoke good English. The Yemenis weren’t organized enough to have such a person readily available. The biggest Yemeni omission was that no one was passing out explanatory flyers. I finally got one but it took several requests from different people. I also asked who had organized this demonstration, but no one could or would tell me. The flyer said “Rally presented by the Yemeni-American Community.”

    The Syrians were back, but in fewer numbers than last week. They stood in an ever-changing half circle, which made their signs much easier to see than the Yemeni ones. They didn’t have any flyers, but the message on their signs was loud and clear: “Bashar is Criminal,” “Democracy for Syria,” “ASSAD YOU MUST GO.”

  • Lemme Just Say, “Thanks, Geraldine Ferraro!”

    By Nichola GutgoldGeraldine Ferraro

    When I heard of Geraldine Ferraro’s death, I remembered her generosity when I asked her if she would write the foreword for a book I wrote that chronicles the lives and communication styles of five women who ran for president. At first she declined, but we traded a few emails and I expressed to her that when I graduated college in 1984 her vice-presidential bid made me feel as though the world would be wide open for me. Before long she graciously agreed to lend her significant name to my book project.

    In her foreword to Image from Amazon Paving the Way for Madam President (Lexington Books, 2006) she marveled that the “choices are unlimited” for women. No doubt we owe Geraldine Ferraro for expanding our opportunities. She courageously campaigned — and held her own — as the first woman on a major party ticket in 1984. Never shy or retreating, she often directly confronted her critics. Once she phoned the Archbishop of New York directly to explain her position on abortion. Her fast-spoken statements were often accentuated with slang phrases “Lemme tell ya” and “Lemme just say.”

    If elected, she promised to protect women’s rights. As a vice-presidential candidate she said, “Women are not better off with a president, an administration, and a party united against the Equal Rights Amendment. When I take my oath of office for my second term as vice president, I want to swear to uphold a constitution that includes the ERA. Name a program that helps women. This administration has tried to slash it. Name a policy that treats women fairly. This administration is against it. This administration is for the gold standard for the economy and the double standard for women.”

    On the campaign trail she repeatedly reminded voters that Eleanor Roosevelt was thirty-six before she was allowed to cast her first vote. She would add, “Not only shouldn’t she have been barred from choosing public officials, she should have been one.”

    She felt encouraged that women no longer had to live in “either-or” situations. In the foreword for my book she wrote: “We could be whatever we choose to be. We can win Olympic medals and coach our daughters’ soccer teams. We can walk in space and help our children take their first steps. We can negotiate trade agreements and manage family budgets. We can be corporate executives and also wives and mothers. We can be doctors and also bake cookies with our six-year-old future scientists.”

    Her own life was evidence. She was an elementary school teacher, a lawyer prosecuting criminals in the District Attorney’s Office in Queens, New York a three-term member of Congress, Vice Presidential candidate, a candidate for the US Senate and CEO of a consulting firm. She was also a wife, mother and grandmother. She always said that politics is not a spectator sport.

    She enjoyed the rough and tumble of fighting for the things she cared about. She believed that “becoming president isn’t an impossible dream for women. It isn’t a matter of if; it is a matter of when.”

    Lemme just say: Thank you, Geraldine Ferraro for showing us the way.

    ©2011 Nichola Gutgold for SeniorWomen.com

     

  • Engineering and Couture: Fashioning Apollo

    Science Friday on National Public Radio is a must for us. Ira Flatow and Joe Palca take us to other universes while explaining ideas, theories and innovations with the help of articulate scientists.

    This morning was a trip with the makers of bras and girdles, Playtex, companions of many a girl and woman decades ago as well as present day. Here is a book by Nicholas de Monchaux, Spacesuit, that describes the journey the first spacesuits undertook to manufacture, test and use by United States astronauts.

    When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the lunar surface in July of 1969, they wore spacesuits made by Playtex: twenty-one layers of fabric, each with a distinct yet interrelated function, custom-sewn for them by seamstresses whose usual work was fashioning bras and girdles. This book is the story of those spacesuits. It is a story of the Playtex Corporation’s triumph over the military-industrial complex — a victory of elegant softness over engineered hardness, of adaptation over cybernetics. 

    Playtex’s spacesuit went up against hard armor-like spacesuits designed by military contractors and favored by NASA’s engineers. It was only when those suits failed — when traditional engineering firms could not integrate the body into mission requirements—that Playtex, with its intimate expertise, got the job.

    In Image from Amazon
    Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo by Nicholas de Monchaux    , the author tells the story of the twenty-one-layer spacesuit in twenty-one chapters addressing twenty-one topics relevant to the suit, the body, and the technology of the twentieth century. He touches, among other things, on eighteenth-century androids, Christian Dior’s New Look, Atlas missiles, cybernetics and cyborgs, latex, JFK’s carefully cultivated image, the CBS lunar broadcast soundstage, NASA’s Mission Control, and the applications of Apollo-style engineering to city planning.

    The twenty-one-layer spacesuit, de Monchaux argues, offers an object lesson. It tells us about redundancy and interdependence and about the distinctions between natural and man-made complexity; it teaches us to know the virtues of adaptation and to see the future as a set of possibilities rather than a scripted scenario.

    Nicholas de Monchaux is Assistant Professor of Architecture at the College of Environmental Design, University of California, Berkeley. His work has appeared in the architectural journal Log, the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, Architectural Digest, and other publications.

  • Age Differences In Job Displacement, Job Search, and Reemployment

    by Richard W. Johnson and Corina Mommaerts, Working Paper, Center for Retirement Research, Boston CollegeWomen riveters

    Job loss is an inevitable consequence of a dynamic economy. Employers must be able to shed jobs in response to changing market conditions, and their ability to do so at relatively low cost encourages them to hire more employees. Although job creation and destruction help distribute resources efficiently and promote economic growth, job loss can impose significant costs on displaced workers, who often forfeit wages for extended periods.

    The consequences of job loss may be especially serious for older workers, who may encounter more difficulty finding jobs than their younger counterparts. As the population ages, the employability of older adults is becoming increasingly important. Adults age 50 and older made up 31 percent of the labor force in 2010, up from 20 percent in 1995. Working longer is often hailed as the best way to increase retirement incomes, yet this strategy depends crucially on seniors’ ability to find work and hold on to their jobs. Being out of work is especially serious for older workers who are too young to qualify for Social Security retirement benefits, which provides an important lifeline for nonworking adults age 62 and older.

    This study examines how the incidence and consequences of job loss vary by age. Data come primarily from the 1996, 2001, and 2004 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, a nationally representative longitudinal household survey conducted by the US Census Bureau. The panels follow respondents for up to 48 months, and our data span the years 1996 to 2007, covering the 2001 recession but not the 2007 – 2009 recession. Respondents are classified as displaced workers if they report separating from their employer because of layoff, slack work, or employer bankruptcy, or because the employer sold the business. Discrete-time hazard models estimate the likelihood that men and women lose their jobs and the likelihood that displaced workers become reemployed. We also compare earnings and other job characteristics before and after job loss for displaced workers who become reemployed. Final tabulations compare job search activities by age, sex, and education for unemployed workers in the March, April, May, and June 2010 Current Population Surveys.

    Key Results

    Our results show that older workers are less likely than younger workers to lose their jobs, but only because they generally have spent more time with their employers.

    • Between 1996 and 2007, men ages 50 to 61 are 21 percent less likely than those ages 25 to 34 to become displaced from their jobs each month, and men age 62 or older are 23 percent less likely.

    • The story is similar for  women: compared with those ages 25 to 34, women ages 50 to 61 are 30 percent less likely to lose their jobs, and those age 62 or older are 13 percent less likely.

  • Notting Hill Decorative Hardware

    Even though we didn’t build a *Storybook cottage, we do find  Notting Hill Decorative Hardware more than appealing, actually jewelry-like:                        Carnelian knob

    “Notting Hill Decorative Hardware was established by Kathy Dustman in 1996. Recognizing a void in the marketplace, she worked closely with a well-respected fine arts foundry to develop the initial designs. Her goal was to create a line of highly-decorative classic motifs, handcrafted primarily in pewter and bronze with unmatched clarity of detail and outstanding depth of relief.”

    Some of the inventory  includes handcrafted decorative knobs for cabinets and furniture which remind us of the kind of button we always seek out at knitting conventions and small stores that, invariably, are only open for limited periods of time or, like Buttons and Bows in San Anselmo, CA, disappear.

    Period-inspired designs from Art Nouveau to Art Deco knobs, Prairie, Traditional and Victorian knobs, Lodge, Nature and Rustic knobs, Leaf and Flower knobs and more. Here is a sampling of the knobs we found: Oak Leaf knob

    Oak Leaf Pull

    One section of Notting Hill’s site features their complete array of matching hardware sets. Key escutcheons, decorative tiles such as the Autumn Squash tile shown below,  hinge plates, back plates,  and magnets are other specialty hardware items produced.  This year’s newest design features the stylized elements of the peanut plant. This ‘Hope Blossom’ design is described  as  reminiscent of the work of the artist Henri Rousseau. Another new item is the Acanthus appliance pull. All of the hardware is made in the United States, and the company is headquartered in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.Autumn Squash decorative tile

     

    *Book:

    Storybook Style: America’s Whimsical Homes of the Twenties by Arrol Gellner: Image from Amazon

  • DeYoung Style: Balenciaga and Spain

    Balenciaga fuschia cocktail dressYou can feel the pulse of Spain beat in every garment in Balenciaga and Spain at the deYoung Museum in San Francisco. A dress ruffle inspired by the flourish of a flamenco dancer’s bata de cola skirt; paillette-studded embroidery that glitters on a bolero jacket conjuring a nineteenth-century traje de luces worn by a matador; clean, simple, and technically perfect lines that extrapolate the minimalist rhythms and volumes of the vestments of Spanish nuns and priests; a velvet-trimmed evening gown aesthetically indebted to the farthingale robe of a Velázquez Infanta.

    Balenciaga and Spain is curated by Hamish Bowles, European editor at large of Vogue, and features 120 haute couture garments, hats, and headdresses designed by Cristóbal Balenciaga (1895–1972). The exhibition illustrates Balenciaga’s expansive creative vision, which incorporated references to Spanish art, bullfighting, dance, regional costume, and the pageantry of the royal court and religious ceremonies. Cecil Beaton hailed him as “Fashion’s Picasso,” and Balenciaga’s impeccable tailoring, innovative fabric choices, and technical mastery transformed the way the world’s most stylish women dressed. The exhibition closes on July 4, 2011 at the de Young.

    The exhibition was conceived by Oscar de la Renta, who began his career in fashion working at Balenciaga’s Madrid couture house in the 1950s. For the de Young Museum, themes include objects drawn from museum and private collections around the world and including a loan of 30 pieces from the House of Balenciaga in Paris. The ensembles featured include garments commissioned and worn by some of the world’s most iconic tastemakers, among them Doris Duke, Baroness Pauline de Rothschild, Countess Mona Bismarck, Gloria Guinness, Ava Gardner, Thelma Chrysler Foy, Claudia Heard de Osborne, Eleanor Christensen de Guigne and Elise Haas.black silk and gazar wool

    About the Exhibition

    As legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland vividly described him, “Balenciaga was the true son of a strong country filled with style, vibrant color, and a fine history,” who “remained forever a Spaniard … His inspiration came from the bullrings, the flamenco dancers, the fishermen in their boots and loose blouses, the glories of the church, and the cool of the cloisters and monasteries. He took their colors, their cuts, then festooned them to his own taste.” Bowles notes, “Balenciaga’s ceaseless explorations and innovations ensured that his work was as intriguing and influential in his final collection as it had been in his first.”

    Balenciaga and Spain begins with an introductory gallery featuring three decades of Balenciaga’s signature silhouettes, all in tones of black, that demonstrate his mastery of volume, his sophisticated use of fabric and embellishments, and his supreme technical innovations. The exhibition then unfolds in six areas of focus:Balenciaga portrait

    Spanish Art — Balenciaga drew inspiration from the great artists of Spain: the atmospheric color palette of Goya, Velázquez’s portraits of courtiers and royalty, and the draped volumes of fabric in El Greco’s and Zurbarán’s haunting seventeenth-century images of saints. Included in the exhibition is Balenciaga’s iconic 1939 Infanta dress, a modernist interpretation of the dresses worn by the Infanta Margarita in Velázquez’s celebrated portraits — an inspiration that he revisits in a smart lace-trimmed day suit of 1938. Late in his career, Balenciaga turned to contemporary Spanish art and was inspired by the abstraction of Joan Miró’s paintings and the modernist, monumental sculptures of Basque countryman Eduardo Chilida.