On the subject of Rome, here’s another photo I made there with my digital camera. I think it’s in front of the Museo d’Arte Antica in the Palazzo Barberini. The way they’ve worded the days the museum is open seems kind of bizarre. It says that it’s open every day, but closed on Mondays. I guess my question is: how can it be open every day if it’s closed on Mondays?
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On the subject of benefit auctions, I went to one last night at Sotheby’s here in New York. It was a fundraiser for the New York Academy of Art, called “Take Home a Nude.” Most of the artworks were paintings, with most of them not being nudes. (The volunteers working there each wore a small sign saying “Nude Staff,” leading me to believe that they were grossly overdressed.)

I even heard a man say to his female companion, “So where are the nudes?” I told him that most of them were in the next room. Plenty of beautiful women were there, all dressed up, with quite a few six footers. (Well, in heels, anyway.) I also spoke briefly with the actor Liev Schreiber.

This was the first time I’d been to an auction that wasn’t all photographs, though there were some, including one by Ralph Gibson. Unfortunately, while the medium for the other works was fairly well described (ex, oil on canvas, lithograph, pen and ink on paper), the descriptions of the photos were fairly lacking. The Gibson was described as a “black and white print,” another was called a “photographic print,” and yet another was only described only as “archival paper.” Somehow, that’s not enough if I’m going to bid on something. (I mentioned this to one of the volunteers, and he told me that they can use only what each contributing artist gives them by way of description.)

Otherwise, the auction was extremely well handled in an exemplary manner. Each of the four rooms for the silent auction had a designated closing time for bidding on those items, and someone went around to each item and asked if anyone had any final bids, with a little live auction ensuing if there were. I didn't stay for the live auction at the end.

I didn’t want to spend much – and I didn’t – but I did get a couple of inexpensive, nicely framed drawings from recent graduates of the school. (Well, at least one of the artists was.) In fact, I was the only bidder on them, so I get them each for the minimum. One is a pencil drawing of a nude woman, very classically done. The other is a pen, ink and wash drawing a classical sculpture court at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Who says that only photos are worth having?

Still, I didn’t get my favorite drawing there. (Nobody did, as it surprisingly had no bids on it.) For me, the minimum bid was more than I wanted to spend, and with its frame it was much too big for me to put on a wall here. Titled “The Two Passions,” it showed a nude young woman, seated – with her right foot resting on a baseball.