Seraphic Secret

Robert J. Avrech: Emmy Award winning screenwriter. Movie fanatic. Helplessly and hopelessly in love with my wife since age nine.

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“The main problem in marriage is that for a man sex is a hunger like eating. If the man is hungry and can’t get to a fancy French restaurant, he goes to a hot dog stand. For a woman, what is important is love and romance.”
—Joan Fontaine

Mark Rothko b. Marcus Rothkowitz, 1903, Dvinsk, Russia; d. 1970, New York
Untitled (Violet, Black, Orange, Yellow on White and Red)
1949
Oil on canvas
81 1/2 x 66 inches (207 x 167.6 cm

 

Willy Ronis
Romance à Belleville, Paris, 1947

 

Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd., Sydney (manufacturer) est. 1913
AWA Radiolette ‘Empire State’ and cigarette box (green)
1934
Bakelite
(a) 28.0 x 27.0 x 15.0 cm (radio) (b) 8.0 x 8.0 x 4.5 cm (cigarette box)
Collection of Peter Sheridan and Jan Hatch
Photo © Peter Sheridan

 

Andrea Vaccaro,
Italian painter, Neapolitan school (b. 1604, Napoli, d. 1670, Napoli)
David with the Head of Goliath
1631-32
Oil on canvas, 145 x 114 cm
Private collection

 

Dennis Stock
Love Through the Curtains, 1952

 

Edward Hopper, People In The Sun, 1960
oil on canvas
101.98 x 152.78 cm

 

“In 1926, from Lowell, Massachusetts, came Ruth Elizabeth Davis, known as Bette, who was not beautiful, not tall and willowy, who had a tiny voice that couldn’t be heard past the first row of the theater. She didn’t know whether she had talent, but she did have drive and ambition…”
—Bette Davis in This’n That

 

Joseph Interpreting the Dreams of His Fellow Prisoners
Artist: Master of the Story of Joseph (Netherlandish, ca. 1500)
Oil on wood
Diameter 61 1/2 in. (156.2 cm)
New York Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976)
White Fence, Port Kent, New York
1916 (negative); 1945 (print)
© Paul Strand Archive, Aperture Foundation

 

Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant, Notorious, 1946, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedrin, The Birds, 1963, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

 

Cécile de Rothschild and Greta Garbo in Paris, 1981

 

Mark Rothko b. Marcus Rothkowitz, 1903, Dvinsk, Russia; d. 1970, New York
Red
1968
Oil on paper mounted on canvas
33 x 25 3/4 inches (83.8 x 65.4 cm)

 

1937 Delahaye 145 Chapron Coupe

 

“A square shooter if there ever was one.”
—Spencer Tracy, on Jean Harlow

 

Portrait of a Woman
by Quentin Metsys (Netherlandish, Leuven 1466–1530 Kiel)
ca. 1520
Oil on wood
19 x 17 in. (48.3 x 43.2 cm)

 

Charles Sheeler (American, 1883-1965)
Doylestown House – The Stove
about 1917
Photograph, gelatin silver print
© The Lane Collection
Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

Pablo Picasso and Brigitte Bardot, 1956.Picasso never painted Bardot.

 

Alternative movie poster for A Clockwork Orange, by Adam Rabalais

 

Robert J. Avrech
LAR 
Teaneck, N.J. 2017

 

The Astronomer
by Johannes Vermeer
c. 1668
Oil on canvas
51 cm × 45 cm (20 in × 18 in)

This painting, which is displayed in the Louvre in Paris, has a tragic imprint. The Nazis stole it from the Rothschild family in 1940 and stamped a swastika onto the back.

 

From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, New York, September 4, 1923.

 

 

Tatsuya Tanaka
Miniature Calendar

 

Lielle, Livia and Maayan wish all our friends and relatives a lovely and meaningful Shabbat.

 

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Comments

  4. Joan Fontaine (even though she is obviously made-up) is a classic beauty. There is some truth to her quote — although I would modify it a bit. I would say “For men, sex is a physical act with an emotional aspect to it, and for women it is an emotional act with a physical aspect to it.”

    I love the Empire radio design. Art Deco in Bakelite.

    Bette Davis was fortunate she had such unique eyes — otherwise she was not memorable in appearance.

    1937 Delahaye… they just don’t design cars like that anymore — Art Deco in steel.

    I think Pablo Piccaso looks like a dirty old man in this photo…

    I love the Edward Hopper painting, but I am amused that people appear to be sunbathing in suits.

    Jean Harlow was a beautiful woman and a talented actress. Every time I see a photo of her I think of William Powell and eventually my mind leads me to his wife, Mousie. I wonder how she competed with the memory of his “true love”.

    Your grand daughters are delightful.

    I hope you have a wonderful Sabbath, Robert.

    • Many felt that Bardot visited Picasso in the hope that he would be so smitten by her beauty that he would pick up his paint brushes. He didn’t, and she never again visited him. Have a wonderful weekend.

    • “…but I am amused that people appear to be sunbathing in suits. ”

      Many years ago when stationed in Germany a German woman I knew told me she did not like to go to Greece for vacation because, “The Germans wear their suits on the beach!”

      She was not amused; she thought most of her fellow Germans were too parochial.

      I think Hopper’s painting was supposed to be in the American West though…

  5. If Picasso had painted Bardot I doubt any of us would have recognized her 🙂

    OTOH a quote by him sticks in my mind:

    “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”

    O remember years ago going to the art museum in Melbourne and on one floor they had an exhibit from Australian school children around the country.

    And I liked a lot of their drawings better than the established artists.

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