In 2009, Houston painter Cheryl Kelley scored a Harper's Magazine cover and caught the attention of the Bernarducci Meisel Gallery, co-owned by Louis K. Meisel and Frank Bernarducci, New York dealers who are the kingmakers of the photorealist movement. Kelley's successful debut in a four-person show this February at their West 57th Street space garnered her gallery representation. The Texas artis...

"He has an apartment with pure white walls and a living room with about 4,000 watts worth of R-30 spotlights encased in white cannisters [sic] suspended from ceiling tracks and a set of Corbusier bentwoods, which no one ever sits in because they catch you like a karate chop in the small of the back but which remain on the premises because they are in the permanent design collection of the Museum ...

A couple of months ago, I blogged about Andrew Lloyd Webber's sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, Love Never Dies. Time has really flown, as the musical is now in previews on the West End. It's too soon to know what the critics (and, more importantly, diehard fans of the original) think, but from what I've heard thus far, the music is gorgeous. (I personally can't wait for the CD to be released o...

Houston’s Ensemble Theatre has teamed with Arlington-based Cool Jazz Forever and KPVU/Prairie View to improvise a Spring Break Jazz Celebration on Sunday, March 14, at Ensemble’s Performance Center (3535 Main Street). Expect stylings from jazz pianist Marcus Johnson, a 2010 NAACP Image award nominee from Washington, D.C.; Houston jazz saxophonist Dean James; and an opening act by...

You’ve probably seen South Pacific before — either a high school production or the classic 1958 film with Mitzi Gaynor, perhaps the 2001 TV movie with a curiously mature Nellie Forbush played by Glenn Close. You might’ve even caught the Carnegie Hall concert version starring Reba McEntire a few years ago on PBS. But unless you’ve been to Broadway’s Vivian Beaumon...

Our favorite designer of all things Palm Beach preppy, Lilly Pulitzer, has gone wild for wildlife this season. She’s dedicated her entire spring 2010 collection “Protective Prints” to endangered species (think colorful American crocodile print dresses and marine turtle emblazoned tunics) and has collaborated with The World Wildlife Fund on “Pandemonium!”, a smal...

It's hard to get better than Dominic Walsh and Mercury Baroque's staging of Shakespeare's tragic romantic classic, Romeo & Juliet, reprised in its second Houston run to coincide with Valentine's weekend. (The piece's world premiere was one of the highlights of the 2006 performing arts season.) Drama, cutting edge contemporary dance and a lush Vivaldi score set the stage at the Wortham Cullen ...

“This body of work is closely focused on my roots in the rural American Midwest,” reads painter Sarah William’s artistic statement, issued on the occasion of her second solo at McMurtrey Gallery. Described by professor Robert Jessup (who taught Williams at the University of North Texas, where the artist received her newly minted MFA last year) as “Edward Hopper meets ...

So I bundled up and set forth for Highland Park... Click on any thumbnail for a slide show. Photographs by Rob Brinkley.   

It looks like Vieux’s owner Marty Bratton, creative director Benton Lackey, manager DeWayne Formby have settled into their spanking new space at Timmons and West Alabama quite nicely. If you haven’t checked out their 7,000 square foot antiques and home accessories atelier yet, run there as quickly as you can. Twice the size of their former warehouse space in the Heights, design m...