Mark Lamster

Mark Lamster|Essays

Access Denied

In putting together the images for Master of Shadows, my publisher placed a permissions request to use a painting from the collection of the Norton Simon Foundation, in Los Angeles, only to be denied.

Mark Lamster|Essays

Splendor on the Grass

What makes a great tennis match great? I started asking myself this question while I was putting together a review of A Terrible Splendor, a new book hooked on a 1937 Davis Cup.

Mark Lamster|Essays

Seattle PI: RIP

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer was founded 146 years ago, when that city was an industrial backwater on Elliot Bay, a timber town with more logs than people.

Mark Lamster|Essays

The Best of NY: Yours Truly

What I've always known is now established fact, as certified by the weekly record of this great city.

Mark Lamster|Essays

Save the Library Redux

Could it be that the sour economy is the best friend of the good old library?

Mark Lamster|Essays

After Peter Paul Rubens (Long After)

Perusing the Christie's website a few days ago, I noticed a print attributed to William Pether "after Peter Paul Rubens."

Mark Lamster|Essays

Save the Library

These are tough times for those of us who care about books. The publishing industry is in a tailspin; electronic readers and the Internet are challenging the primacy of the printed page.

Mark Lamster|Essays

Planet M

My friend Gideon Lewis-Kraus's beautifully written Harper's piece on the last Frankfurt Book Fair is the talk of the publishing world.

Mark Lamster|Essays

Defending Alice

The new Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center opens on Sunday — it looks great — and the reviews are starting to flow in. The response has been overwhelmingly positive and fairly dismissive of the original hall, by Pietro Belluschi and Eduardo Catalano.

Mark Lamster|Essays

Michael Jackson, Automotive Designer

I know, Michael Jackson has done some terrible things. Tax evasion. Absconding with the Beatles catalog. Child molestation. We Are the World. But this — is design even the word for it?

Mark Lamster|Essays

Annals of Branding, Redux

The design elves over at Pepsico have been very busy of late, as noted here last week regarding the (awful) new logo for the corporate flagship and the (much hated) new packaging for Tropicana.

Mark Lamster|Essays

Roid Rage

The baseball world is up-in-arms over the revelations that Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroid use a few years ago. My suggestion: move along, folks.