Jacques Rogge: surgeon sportstar linguist

Belgium Jacques Rogge (1942-2021) was ed­ucated at the Jesuit Sint-Barbara College in Ghent and Univ­ersity of Ghent. I imagine that because his grandfather (cyc­l­ing) and father (track-field; hoc­key) were both professional sports­men, he was keen to study sp­orts medic­ine. In 1972, Rogge studied muscle activity during sailing using invasive needle EMG to earn his Master degree in Sports Medicine. Then he got his Medical De­gree at Bruss­els’ Free Uni.

Jacques Rogge, Juan Antonio Samaranch,  Vladimir Putin, 

following Rogge's election as IOC President in 2001

What a talented man!! Since the orthopaedic surgeon is a professional who specialises in diagnosing, treating & rehabilitating musculo­skeletal in­j­uries and diseases, it is a spec­ial­ty that requires years of training. The musculoskeletal sy­s­tem incl­udes bones, joints, ligaments, tendons, muscles and nerves. The condit­ions dealt with include arthritis, cereb­ral palsy, cong­enit­al disord­ers, degener­ative diseases, sports injuries and tu­m­­ours. Rogge worked as an orthop­aedic surgeon in Deinze near Ghent when he met his future wife Dr Anne Bovyn who did radiol­ogy. Thank­­fully in his busy practice he spoke 5 lang­uages fluently: French, German, English, Spanish and Dutch/Flemish.

Rogge was a Belgian national and international champion in rugby, win­ning 16 caps for Belgium! He was a one-time yachting world cham­p­ion. He also competed in the Finn class of sailing in three Summer Olympic Games; in Mexico 1968, Munich 1972 & Montreal 1976.

Rogge was the president of the Belgian Olympic Committee from 1989-92, and as President of the European Olympic Committee from 1989-2001. He became a member of the IOC in 1991 and joined its executive board in 1998. Rogge became President of the IOC in 2001 at the IOC Session in Moscow as the successor to Juan Antonio Samaran­ch, the for­m­­er Franco-era diplomat who had previously led the IOC since 1980. At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Rogge became the first IOC President to stay in the Olympic village, thus enjoying clos­er contact with the athletes. His diplomatic manner and leadership style have been effective in add­ressing problems plag­uing organised sports worldwide, including corr­uption. While Samaranch had been criticised for sloppy control of performance-enhancing drugs, Dr Rog­ge initiated a high-profile zero tolerance policy on their use.

One bit of ugliness. “Allowing women ski jumpers into the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics would dilute the medals being handed out to male ski jumpers” Rogge said “Since there were only 80 women ski jump­ers in the world and the sport had not yet reached the IOC's standard for be­ing included in an Olym­pics”, Rogge loathed the suggestion the IOC was discriminating against women. Oh dear!

Jacques Rogge at the
London Olympic Village, 2012

In July 2011, a year prior to London 2012, Rogge attended a ceremony at Trafalgar Square where he invited athletes worldwide to compete in the forthcoming Olympic Games. Former Olympians the Princess Royal and Sebastian Coe unveiled the medals, and Prime Min­ister David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson gave speeches. In Dec 2011, Rogge won an Officer of the Légion d'honneur from French Pres. Sarkozy.

Alas Rogge criticised Usain Bolt's gestures of jubilation af­ter winning the 100 ms in world record time (Beijing 2008) as not be­hav­ing with sportsmanship and questioned whether the Jamaican sprin­ter was a living legend in London. Bolt showed no respect to his oppon­en­ts, he said. In response to his comments, Sports col­um­nist Dan Wetzel contended that the IOC has made billions from athletes like Bolt for years! Did white winners not celebrate with great excitement?

Worse still Rogge rejected calls for a minute of silence to be held to honour the 11 Israeli Olympians murdered in the 1972 Munich Massacre, at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony. He did this de­s­pite fam­ilies of the 11 Israeli Olympic team members’ requests & political requests from the U.S, Britain and Germany. Instead Rogge opted for a quiet ceremony at Guildhall London. If the dead sportsmen had not been Jewish, would their murders have been worthy of a minute’s memorial in front of millions of viewers?

Thomas Bach and Jacques Rogge
IOC in Buenos Aires in 2013

In Buenos Aires in 2013, German Thomas Bach (a fencing gold medal­list in Montreal) was elected as Rogge’s successor. In 2014, Rogge was ap­p­ointed Special Envoy for Youth Refugees and Sport by the United Nat­ions Secretary-General, to help promote sport as an empowering tool for youth from refugee communities towards peace, security, re­­conciliation, health, education and gender equ­al­ity. Rogge saw this as his greatest legacy

In Oct 2016, The British School of Brussels opened their new sports cen­tre in Tervuren, Belgium. It was called The Jacques Rogge Sports Centre. He died in 2021, aged 79.

Famous people close to Frida Kahlo

Born in 1907, Magdalena Frida Kahlo grew up in Mexico City in a blue house/Casa Azul built by her father. Fath­er Guill­ermo Kah­lo was a Ger­m­an-Jewish photo­grapher and moth­er, Matil­de Cald­erón, indig­enous and Cat­holic Spanish. At 6 Kahlo contracted polio, rendering her right leg perm­an­ently smaller. More than a fashion statement emphasising Mexico, long skirts became Kahlo’s modest uniform. In any case, Frida’s father trained her in his photog­raphy studio. 

Frida Kahlo painting in bed.

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In high school Frida studied biology, anatomy and zoology at one of Mexico City’s best schools, one of only 35 girls. But then a troll­ley car collided with the bus she was taking home, forever derail­ing her health. Could she have made a good physician? Instead she became a painter of striking auto-biographical canvases. However some works did look medical eg The Broken Column, 1944.

This Mexican artist produced c200 paintings, mostly self-portraits, depictions of family and friends, and c30 still lifes. Fig­ur­ative and very personal, her paintings fused folklore and symbol­ism to illustrate her own experiences.

In 1922 Kahlo started studying at Mexico City’s Escuela Nacional Pre­paratoria with a focus on sciences and became part of a group of communist activist students. During her years there the big three Mexican artists, incl­ud­ing Diego Rivera, all worked on murals at her school. Kahlo met Rivera briefly when he was painting in the school amphitheatre.

In 1925, Kahlo and friend were on a bus that collided with a tram. Some passengers were killed; Kahlo suffered fract­ures of her spine, right leg, collarbone and pelvis. Hospitalised for ages, Ka­hlo was fitted with a plaster corset (to wear for the rest of her life). Alas she later had mult­iple miscarriages and underwent 30+ surgical procedures.

During her long recovery, Kahlo painted using a compact eas­el and mirror that her mother installed under her 4-poster bed. She began with the most readily available subject: herself, using self-portraits to ill­us­trate her inner world in distinct moments in her life.

After her recovery Kahlo again met Rivera through an Italian photographer friend, Tina Modotti. Riv­era was by then an established artist. 20 years older than Kahlo, they married in Aug 1929, forming an unst­able but lasting union. They each had affairs, sometimes with the same people. Kahlo’s li­aisons included Russian revolutionary Leon Trot­sky (who temporarily lived in the Casa Azul) and Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi.

Kahlo and Rivera spent their early married years in US, with a recent book Frida in America (2020) suggesting that Kahlo exp­er­ienced her creative awakening in New York, Detroit & San Francisco. Her marriage self-portrait, Frida and Diego Rivera (1931) showed her much smaller than Rivera!

Frida and Diego Rivera, 

100 cm × 79 cm, 1931

San Francisco Mus of Mod Art

She put forward distinct bohemian and left­ politics, the image that still makes her a pop culture icon now. A new document­ary will premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Kahlo entranced many key C20th photographers, including Julien Levy and Dora Maar, who left images that still fascinate us.

Edward Weston was one of many artists Kahlo befriended while in the US. After arriving in San Francisco she met famous photographer Dor­othea Lange, who shared her studio and introduced Kahlo to Dr Leo Eloesser.  The doctor diagnosed her injuries and remained a trusted friend.

Rivera was the spouse sought out for mural comm­is­s­ions and other projects, because Kahlo was still emerging as an art­ist. Some thought she was the better painter, but she never got the credit. A 1933 article in a Detroit newspaper headlined Wife of the Mas­­ter Mural Painter Glee­fully Dabbles in Art, placing Kahlo firmly behind Rivera. Dabbles?

Kahlo’s career changed in 1938 as her work began to gain recog­nit­ion. She made her first sale that year when actor-collector Ed­ward G Robinson visited Rivera’s studio. Robinson saw Kah­lo’s paintings and bought 4 canvases for $200 each. Kahlo was thrilled.

 

Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas, 1939

The traditional Frida in Tehuana costume has a broken heart, 

sitting next to an independent, modern dressed Frida.

Frida Kahlo.org

18 paintings travelled directly from New York to Paris when Kahlo participated in a 1939 group show of Mexican art at the Pierre Colle Gallery. The show was arranged by Andre Breton with help from Mar­cel Duchamp, whom Kahlo described honourably.

Some months later Kahlo had her 1st solo show, exhibiting 25 paintings at New York’s Jul­ien Levy Gallery. The Nov opening drew an A-list crowd inc­luding Alfred Stieglitz, curator Alfred H Barr, art historian Meyer Schap­iro and Georgia O’Keeffe (whom Kahlo befriended in N.Y trip). André Breton, who'd met Kahlo in Me­x­ico, wrote her catalogue essay. Time mag­­azine reviewed the show well!

One work in the exhibition was a self-portrait The Frame (1938), acquired by France and now in The Centre Pom­p­idou. Other Ka­hlo works got into star collections eg New York’s Mus­eum Modern Art, SFMOMA, Mexico City’s Museo de Arte Moderno and National Museum of Women in the Arts.

When Kahlo returned from France, she found Rivera with another woman. So she left their marital home to go back to the Casa Azul. By late 1939 they agreed to divorce, prompt­ing her large canvas The Two Fridas. When Kahlo’s health suffered post-divorce, Dr Eloesser advised the couple recon­cile. They rem­ar­ried in San Francisco, Dec 1940.

Frida Kahlo, The Broken Column, 1944

Frida Kahlo.org

In Mexico City, Kahlo’s work was shown in group exhibitions in the 1940s, includ­ing C20th Port­r­aits at the Museum of Modern Art in 1942 and Exhib­it­ion by 31 Women at Peggy Guggenheim’s Art Gall­ery in 1943. She soon started teaching at Mexico City’s School of Painting & Sculpture, moving classes to the Casa Az­ul when her health declined.

Her 2nd solo show was in summer 1953 in Mexico City at Lola Álvarez Bravo’s Gallery of Con­temporary Art. Now in very poor health, Kahlo was delivered to the opening night festiv­it­ies on a stretcher and then placed in her bed IN the gallery. So crit­ics tended to react host­ile­ly, as if they res­ent­ed the at­mosph­ere of awe. The same year, Kahlo’s right leg was amputated and even then, Kahlo remained a dedicated leftist. She did port­raits of Marx and Stalin, and attended demonstrat­ions. And she changed her birth to 1910, coinciding with her be­lov­ed Mexican Revolution.

Kahlo was addicted to alcohol and painkillers. So when she died at Casa Azul  (47) in 1954, was it pulmonary em­bol­ism or suicide? Her casket was installed in Palacio de Bellas Artes. Casa Azul became her house-museum post-death. Now a pilgrimage site, it includes her own folk art, bed and art material,  and an easel from Nelson Rockefeller.

2024 - great year for Tamara de Lempicka!

Madonna will showcase Lempicka’s art on her Celebration Concert Tour, Lempicka The Musical on Broadway in Mar 2024. An exhibit­ion at San Francisco’s Legion of Honour Museum will reevaluate her style in art history by int­rod­ucing 1920-30s Paris culture. And a documentary The True Story of Tamara De Lempicka & the Art of Survival will appear in 2024! What a year!! 

Portrait Of Dr Boucard 1929

with test tube and microscope.

Maria Gorzka (1898-1980) was born in ?Moscow, dau­ghter of a Russian Jew­ish solicitor for a French trading comp­any, Boris Górs­ki. After her parents divorc­ed, Maria lived with grand­ma on the French Riv­ie­ra. In a St Pe­t­­ersburg opera in 1914, Maria met Tad­eusz Lempicki (1888–1951), a hand­some law­y­er of noble family. 2 years later they mar­­r­ied in St Pet­ersburg with her banker-uncle giving the dowry. A year later Tad­uesz was arrested by the Bolsheviks; Tamara got him freed and the couple and baby fled to Paris, with other wealthy White Russ­ians. 

Mad­ame Bouc­ard in  lavish silk, jew­els and mink

1931

In her early Pa­ris life, she enrolled at Académie de la Grande Chaum­ière and ab­sor­bed the Old Masters, especially Bronzino. She drew on the Cubism of her Paris con­tempor­aries and French Deco cr­eated a glam­orous Paris epitomising Tamara's life and art. Her mentor was artist-critic André Lhote, creator of a gent­ly coloured Cub­ism.

Deco made great progress in fine arts and industrial designs, bas­ed on simple format, clean lines and viv­id colours. The improve­ment of tech­nology, in industries like cars, ships and tr­ains, emp­h­asised stylised angular forms. Lempicka found soul mates in fas­h­­ion illustrator Erte, glass artist Rene Lalique and designer Cass­an­d­re. Lempicka found her place as a port­raitist of the era's beaut­iful peop­le, mixing with André Gide, Col­­ette and Jean Cocteau. Although marr­ied with a daugh­ter, Tamara was busy having romantic involve­ments with both genders, patrons and models. And because tourism was ma­king Montmartre too crowded and expensive, most art­ists gradually moved to Mont­parnasse with its wide boul­ev­ards and small courtyards. Pablo Pic­asso, Con­stantin Bran­cu­si, Jac­ques Lipchitz, Tris­tan Tzara & Piet Mondrian we­re Tamara's neigh­bours in this cen­tre of art studios.

By 1923 she exhibited in small galleries. Her work was shown at the 1924 Pa­r­is Salon des Femmes Artistes Modernes, and in 1925 she had her first Milan solo. Her soc­ial life also blos­somed, displaying Tamara’s skill in winning many men and women lovers, her models and patrons. See the wo­men reclin­ing, bath­ing, hug­ging or stroking.

En­cour­ag­ed by Coco Chanel  and the Fl­appers, Tamara went to ch­ap­er­­one-free parties, sm­oked and drove cars. The 1920s flat dresses provid­ed an ideal canvas to dis­play Deco taste. In 1927 Lemp­icka re­ceived 1st prize at the Exposition Internat­ionale des Beaux-Arts for the portrait of her daughter Kizette on the Balcony, and divorced.

The Girl In Green With Glov­es (1929 Musée Nat­ional d'Art Moderne Paris) was a fam­ous work that cl­early epit­omised Deco and flowing curves. See the self-portrait Tamara in the Green Bug­atti (1929), in leather helmet and gloves. It was the cover of a Ger­man Women's Li­berat­ion magazine Die Dame: tight, post-cubist des­ign; muted col­our; sp­eed; glamour; Her­mès helmet; leather driving gloves! F Scott Fitz­g­er­ald popularised sporty outfits; and clothes and hats were desig­ned for ships, trains or cars. Jean Patou, Ma­d­­eleine Vionnet and Elsa Schiap­­ar­elli created excellent moving styles.

Examine Lempicka's males. The huge portrait of Duke Gabriel Const­ant­inov­ich (1926) wore a gold-braid­ed un­iform and empty face. Count Fürstenberg Herd­ringen 1928 was a glass-eyed monster in a French navy beret. In the late 1920s her most import­ant patron was flashy medico Dr Pierre Boucard (1929) who already owned some Lempicka nudes. Boucard gave her a 2-year contract to paint family portr­aits.

This new income bought a Left Bank 3-sorey studio house in Rue Me­ch­ain; grey int­er­ior, chrome fittings & American cock­tail bar gave Lempicka her sett­ing. On the easel was the port­r­ait of Mad­ame Bouc­ard (1931), a complex work done by this connoisseur of text­iles, jew­els, hairstyles and mink boa. In Port­rait of Madame M 1931, Tam­ara showed sleekness .  

Tamara sold her expensive portraits to Paris’ rich aristocracy. She painted writ­ers, entert­ainers, artists and Eastern Eur­ope's ex­iled nobility. One of her wea­l­thiest patrons Baron Raoul Kuff­ner (1886–1961) owned vast estates donat­ed to his brewer family by Emp­eror Franz-Josef for supplying the Hapsb­urg court. Kuffner asked Tamara to paint a port­rait of his mistress Andalusian dan­cer Nana de Herrera but while painting the Baron’s port­rait, Lempicka got involved with him, re­plac­ed his mistress and married him in 1934

La Music­ienne 1929

Lempicka understood political chaos, and enc­ouraged her husband to secure his assets. So Kuffner sold his Hungarian estates. When WW2 started in 1939, the coup­le left Paris and moved to Holly­wood. They lived in film director King Vidor’s old home, and Tamara soon bec­ame an artist of Hollywood's screen stars. Lempicka also bus­ied herself with war relief work and after an ext­ended st­ruggle, resc­ued her daughter Kizette from Nazi-occupied Par­is in 1941. In 1943 they cont­inued to soc­ialise in N.Y, al­though her art out­put reduced; conservatism st­arted to ch­allenge the fem­in­ist ad­van­ces she’d championed. Nonethe­less when WW2 end­ed, she reop­ened her famous Paris studio.

When the Baron died in 1961, Tamara sold up and sailed away. Then she moved to Houston Tx to be closer to her daught­er and produced abstract paint­ings to remain in-step with cur­rent art. Only in 1966 did Musee des Arts Decorat­ifs open her memor­ial exh­ib­ition, then Al­ain Blondel open­ed Galerie du Lux­embourg with a major Lempicka re­tr­ospective in 1972. But in 1978 she moved to Mex­ico, bought a special house and died in 1980.

Madame M sold for $6.13 million at Christie's NY in 2009. Lempicka's auc­t­ion record, $9.1m, was set by Chris­tie’s in 2018 for La Music­ienne (1929) showing a mandolin player in vivid blue. A new record was set when La Tun­ique Rose (1927) earned $13.3m at Sotheby’s N.Y in 2019. Now Por­trait de Marjorie Fer­ry (Paris, 1932) earned £16.4 in Chris­­t­ie’s London in 2020!! Many thanks to theartstory. 

 stylish Bar Lempicka in Amsterdam

See the Art Deco glass mosaic on the ceiling

and the Lempicka name on the facade

Frida Kahlo's house museum, Mexico City

Australia is presenting a wonder­ful exhib­ition, Frida & Diego: Love & Revolution (Jun-Sep 2023) in South Aust­ralia’s Art Gallery from Jacques and Natasha Gelman's collection of Mexican modernism. But what about Kahl­o’s own Mexican home, la Casa Azul/Blue House?

Visitors queuing to enter Frida Kahlo Museum

 

The house was built in 1904 with a French-inspired design in the Coyoacán neighbourhood, a rural and arty part of the Fed­eral District of Mexico City. Guillermo Kahlo completed the fam­ily home there before Matilde gave birth to their daughter Frida (1907-54).

Frida contracted polio at 6 and was bedridden for 9 months. The di­s­­ease caused her right leg to losing weight, limp­ing forever. So she wore long skirts for life! Her beloved fat­her encour­aged her to do sports to help her recover: so­ccer, swimm­ing, wrest­l­ing!

She attended Mexico City’s famous National Preparat­ory School in 1922 where only 35 female students were enrolled. This con­fid­ent lass first met and admired the famous Mexican Diego Riv­era who was working on the school’s assembly hall mural.

That year, Kahlo joined students who shared leftwing political views, loving the leader Alejandro Gomez Ar­ias. She and Ar­ias were on a bus when it collided with a tram and a steel handrail imp­al­ed Frida's hip. Her spine and pelvis were fractured, leaving endless pain. She had to stay in the Red Cross Hospital Mexico, then went home in a full-body cast for months. Her parents loved art, bought her br­ushes and paints, and made her a special bed-based easel. So she painted her first self-portrait in bed.

Frida's bed

with a mirror above, set into the canopy

Kahlo re-found Rivera in 1928, asking him to ev­al­uate her work and he encouraged her, professionally and rom­antically. Frida was young (21), dressy, physically handicapped and living with her parents. Rivera was middle-aged (42), totally famous and messy. Despite parental ob­jec­t­ion, Frida and Diego married in 1929 then moved around, based on Diego's work in the US.

In 1932, Kahlo painted more surrealistic components. In Henry Ford Hospital (1932) she was lying on a hospital bed naked, surr­ounded by a foetus, flow­er and pelvis, connect­ed by veins and floating. She  was pregnant but suf­fered a heart-breaking miscarr­iage from ear­lier injuries.

In 1933, Nelson Rockefeller commissioned Rivera to paint a mural at Rockefeller Centre. Rivera included Vladimir Lenin, but Rockefel­ler had Lenin painted over and the couple quickly escaped to Mexico!

Frieda and Diego Rivera, married in 1929,

She painted this wedding portrait in 1931

The couple were keeping separate homes and studios for years, yet despite the many affairs, they always returned together. In 1937 they helped Leon (and wife) Trotsky, exiled rival of insane Soviet lead­er Joseph Stalin. The Riv­er­as welcomed the Trotskys into their Blue House where Frida and Leon had a brief affair. But when the Trot­skys relocated, Leon was tragically assassinated.

In 1938 Kahlo befriended Andre Breton, a Surreal­ist who helped her create a successful gallery exhibition in N.Y. In 1939 Kahlo was in­vited by Br­eton to Paris to exhib­it her work. There she was befriended artists Marc Chagall, Piet Mondrian, Marcel Duchamp and Pablo Picasso, and loved it.

The couple divorced in Nov 1939, then remarried in Dec 1940 when she showed her per­spective in Diego on My Mind (1940). Even then they had separate lives, both of them cheating. Kahlo painted some of her most famous paintings after her homecoming, in­clud­ing The Two Fridas (1939) and Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace & Hummingbird (1940).

Be­fore Frida’s father Guill­ermo's death in 1941, the couple moved to the Blue House, and quickly adapted it. The Blue House was given a bigger garden and brighter colours, especially the blue painted walls seen today, enclosing the courtyard completely. Juan O’Gorman did the redesign work in 1946. To separate the new from the old, a stone wall divided the patio area in two, with a foun­tain, stepped pyr­amid, pre-Columbian artefacts, pool and their arch­aeological collect­ion. They built a sunny art studio and covered its white faç­ade in cob­alt blue paint.

Diagnosed with foot gan­­g­rene in 1950, Frida was bedridden for another 9 months, in hosp­ital for sur­g­eries. Still, she contin­ued to work in her par­ents’ home,  her biographical paintings revealing a new approach to exploring feminism. The Blue House welcomed intel­l­ectual and avant-garde act­ivity; the couple hos­ted a special array of stars from Mexico and abroad. The house together had some of her most famous works eg Portrait of My Father (1951). 

Some of Frida's old Mexican clothes

hanging in the Museum

She had a solo exhibition and despite the pain, Frida arrived by ambulance, welcomed the at­t­endees and opened the 1953 ceremony from bed. Months later, her right leg was partly amputated to stop the gangrene. Thus her last political outing was in 1954! 

They lived in the house for the rest of Kahlo's short life. At 47, Frida died in 1954 at her beloved Blue House from a pul­monary em­bolism. The Blue House physically displayed the col­our­ful life she left and rep­res­ented her admiration for the indigen­ous Mexic­ans. Cr­utches and med­icine displayed her years of suffering, plus toys, jewellery and cloth­ing. Was she a hoarder? Probably - after all, it took years to discover the 6,500 photos and c22,000 documents left in the Blue House, along with magazines, books, paintings, drawings etc.

Frida and Diego's kitchen

 
Frida and Diego had wanted to leave her house as a museum for all Mex­ic­ans to enjoy. So the widower paid out the mortgage, and paid off the health debts for them both. Rivera set up a foundation for to preserv­e the house and con­vert­ it to a Museum dedicated to her life and works. Its administrat­ion was assigned to a trust under the central Banco de México, and constit­uted by Rivera in 1957. He had the Museum formally dedicated to her life in 1958, including its gardens.

Kahlo gardens

Museo Frida Kahlo presents the house how it was in the 1950s. In addition to the couple’s works, the museum also collects their Mexican folk art and pre-Hispanic artefacts. There are ten rooms. On the ground floor is the kit­chen where her Mex­ican culture was really vis­ible. It was trad­it­ion­ally decorated with clay pots, in bright ind­ig­enous Mexican co­lours. The second room has Frida’s let­t­ers, notes and photos, while on the walls are Frida’s trade­mark pre-Hispanic neck­laces and folk dresses. The third room has Rivera’s art. The fourth room has cont­emporary paint­ings by Paul Klee, José María Vel­asco and others. The fifth room has monsters from Teotih­uacan cul­ture that Kahlo used in her art. Her top bedroom-studio was in the wing Rivera built, with a painted plaster corset worn to sup­port her damaged spine, and a mirror still facing down.

In the 1970s inter­est in her work and life was renewed due to fem­in­­ism; she was viewed as an icon of female creat­iv­­ity. In 1983, Hayd­en Herrera published the excellent Biography of Frida Kahlo. And from 1995, read The Diary of Frida Kah­lo:  and The Letters of Frida Kahlo. 

Today, the Blue House is one of the most visited museums in Mexico City.

Self portrait with thorn necklace and hummingbird, 

www.FridaKahlo.org, 1940

The world’s most beautiful cities - 2023

San Francisco

A 2023 survey by Travel + Leisure invited readers to vote on the world’s most beautiful cities. Recognising the answer is different for everyone, here is the by-no-means exhaustive list of the world’s (25) most beautiful cities.

Sydney Australia sparkles with its yacht-filled harbour, golden beach­es, spectacular headland views, lush parks and gardens, and abundance of sunshine. Take a ferry tour to see the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge from the water. Explore the city's wealth of picturesque coastal walks and great beach­es; Manly has wide, clean sand and perfect surf. 

Barcelona Spain Covered food markets, tapas bars, iconic Modernist ar­chitecture and golden-sand Mediterranean beaches are big appeal fact­ors for Catalonia’s colourful capital. But the culture of afternoon siestas, late dinners and people-watching on busy plaz­as, stop near Santa Cater­ina Market and capture the beautif­ully relaxed life style.

Barcelona

Adventure capital of the world, Queenstown New Zeal­and is the ult­imate playground for outdoor activities. The city has hiking, skiing, sky-diving, rafting, winery-hopping and cruising Milford Sound. Queenst­own is built around a finger of Lake Wakatipu, a glacial lake whose reflect­ion of the Remarkables Mountain Range makes the scene stunning.

Istanbul Turkey is an intoxicating jumble of domed and intricately mos­aiced mosques, Ottoman-era palaces, maze-like markets and hilly cobble­stoned streets where bar parties spill out the door. The food scene stretches beyond the ubiquitous kebab; the mezze and grilled seafood are fantastic, as is the city’s coffeehouse culture at night.

In beautiful Paris France, go from a cosy sidewalk cafe tightly packed with chic Parisians to proud boulevards lined with creamy stone Haussmann-era mansions. The pat­is­series may be as delight­ful as Paris’ splendid art and ar­chitec­ture. Museé d’Orsay has C19th paintings & sculpture in a glorious Beaux-Arts train station on the Seine.

San Francisco CA US, set on a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, offers beautiful hilltop views of skyscrapers, bridges, mountains and ocean. Golden Gate Bridge, Painted Ladies and cable cars are emblems of the city. See North Beach, Chinatown’s dim sum par­lours and Presidio Tunnel Tops, a 14-acre park above highway tunnels.

Sun-soaked Palermo Sicily is a dream for archit­ect­ure buffs. It­aly’s biggest opera house is here! Tea­t­ro Mass­imo’s copper dome is c250’ over the piazza bel­ow. The striking gold-stone cathedral is one of the many old Arab-Norman structures. From the roof­top, see the city’s terra-cotta skyline in the early evening, settle on the bohemian Piazza Caracciolo.    

Cape Town

Perched between flat-topped Table Mountain and the Atlantic, Cape Town South Africa has endless natural beauty. Share in 1]ad­ren­aline-fueled action (dive with sharks, hike or take the cable car up Table Mountain), 2]leisurely (swimming, cock­tails on Camps Bay Beach, biking on Sea Point Promenade) and 3]cultural (museums, cel­lars, music festivals).

Visit Seoul South Korea’s vibrant food and nightlife scene, and urban green spaces. The past and present live together with party distr­icts, ancient palaces, ultra-modern subways, Buddhist temples, sky scr­apers and street markets. This fast neon metropolis has beaut­ifully landsc­aped parks along Han River, mountain hiking trails and free outdoor gyms.

Cartagena Colombia has a great mix of Caribbean beaches and islands in South America, with 5 centuries of history and UNESCO-listed walled Old City. It is splendidly preserved and photo­genic. Bougainvilleas burst from the balconies. Go people-watching in the squares and samp­l­ing grilled arepas from street vendors. At night find live salsa music.

Lovely low-rise Kyoto Japan is different from sprawling, daunting Tokyo. The city has a major UNESCO World Heritage front; 17 sites, including temples, shrines and Golden Pavilion. Plum, cherry and willow trees spill over Kyoto’s riverbanks, and lanterns-lit tiny alleys lined with wooden teahouses. Visit tranquil Silver Pav­ilion then Moss Temple.

Brazil’s second city, Rio de Janeiro Brazil, is home to celeb­rated Ip­anema and Copacab­ana beaches and the largest Art Deco statue: Christ the Redeemer via a steep railway ride. See parks, rain forests waterfalls, caves, great vistas and Jardim Botânico. Art­sy Santa Teresa is for cafe life, bou­tiques, and samba street parties.

Rio

Tbilisi Geor­g­­ia’s cap­it­al is fairy-tale mat­erial. The Old Town is a joy to explore, with carv­ed wooden bal­conies over-looking sleepy court­yards and cobbled streets lined with wine bars and tr­aditional Georgian cafes. Brave the funicular to the C4th Narikala Fort­ress for views of Tbil­isi and the encircling Caucasus Mountains.

Rome Italy is an open-air museum showing 3 millennia of sumptuous art & architecture. Visit the city’s tangle of mean­­­d­ering alleys, hidden piaz­z­as and imperial streets. Note the all-mighty Roman Forum or St Pe­t­er’s Basilica, then stop for a creamy gel­ato or reviving bowl of car­b­onara. When the heat breaks, watch the parade of dapper Romans strolling

Hoi An Vietnam is a riverside jewel. Its preserved old town is an un­touched UNESCO World Heritage Site. Spared the ruin of the Vietnam War, Hội An harbours hundreds of historic timber-frame hous­es, sacred temp­les, pagodas and C18th Jap­an­ese bridge. Go on a bike ride, cooking clas­ses, river­boat rides, local cafes or a trip to a bespoke tailor.

The Middle Ages, Victorian era and modern world coexist in London UK: medieval Westminster Abbey and Tow­er of Lon­don, near Victorian Trafalgar Square, with busy C21st London bustling around. Delight in the Gothic, Baroque and El­izab­ethan buildings; museums and art gall­eries; street markets; and green spaces: Hyde, St James’ and Regent’s parks.

Cosmopolitan Buenos Aires Argentina marries Euro­p­ean and Latin flavour. See green and yel­low par­rots at Bosques de Palermo, find the balcony from wh­ich Eva Perón addres­sed fans at Casa Rosada and refuel with cake in a bar not­able. The city has Paris-worthy man­s­ions, food hangouts, street markets and shopping arcades. It's the birthplace of tango.

Good TV shows benefitted from Dubrovnik Croatia’s cin­em­atic looks eg Game of Thrones. And UNESCO named Dubrovnik a World Heritage Site. This Pearl of the Adriatic, in the charming and traffic-free Old Town, has mint-condition medieval architecture, incl­ud­ing the Gothic-Renaissance Rector’s Palace and the town’s thick stone medieval fortifications.

Taipei Taiwan is the Beautiful Island. From a very tall sky­scrap­er, Taipei 101, the observatory offers gorgeous city views and lush green mount­ains. Then visit tranquil temples, flower markets, shopping streets and food-stall alleys. Hike Elephant Mountain-Nangang District Trail, admire green forests, hot springs and Taipei views at the National Park.

An ancient city set on a dramatic landscape of extinct volcanoes and an­chored by a grand, Acropolis-like castle? Yes, Edinburgh Scotland! Af­ter Edinburgh’s hills, rest in one of the many parks and squares or pop into a pub for steak-and-ale pie and a smooth Scottish stout. Note the bigg­est arts festival in the world descends upon the city every Aug.

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico is the uncontested queen of Mexico’s cen­t­ral highlands. This city is a beautiful maze of cobbled alleys, cool court­yards and buildings built in Spanish colonial, Baroque, neoclass­ical and neo-Gothic styles. The latter is best seen in the grand Parr­oquia de San Miguel Arcángel, a gorgeous pink C17th church.

Singapore’s skyline has futuristic high rises, undulat­ing cloud forest domes and a 540’ Ferris wheel. Its enclaves like Chinatown, Arab Quarter and Little India reveal the city’s multi­cul­tural past. Colourful food streets and hawker centres are packed with stalls. Stroll along Marina Bay’s illumin­ated wat­erfront, the Botanic Gardens and Gardens by the Bay

Manhattan Island New York has huge buildings eg the 104-storey World Trade Centre and Empire State Building. Other architectural treas­ures eg Greek Revival mansions in the Bronx, are found in all 5 bor­oughs. See Monets at the Met, Warhol’s soups at MoMA, or The Dinner Party at Brooklyn Museum. See Central Park and Brooklyn Bridge Park.  

Palermo

Of course tastes differ. My partner voted for ocean-front cities: Sydney, Cape Town, San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, Bergen and Vancouver. I voted for cit­ies with gal­leries, churches and old architecture: Paris, London, Prague, Vienna and Amsterdam

Graham Greene - great novelist, spy, Catholic, traveller, depressive.

Norman Sherry's biography, 

1996

Graham Greene  (1904-1991) was one of 6 children born to Charles Greene, head­master of classy Berkham­sted School in Herts, and Marion. He had a large, influent­ial family who were brewers, bankers and busin­ess­men. He was a sensitive, shy child who often skipped classes to avoid class­mates’ bullying. His only pleasure came from be­ing an avid reader, finding solitude in reading. But these escap­es from classes provoked his father’s anger and made the young lad suicidal.

Greene hated Berkhamsted Boarding School and ran away, leaving a letter for his parents. Eventually they had to send him to intense th­er­apy for 6 months in London. Greene actually found psych­o­analysis to be very helpful with his depression, and remained fascinated by dreams for ever. So it was appropriate that the psychoanalyst encouraged Greene to write, introd­ucing him to his own literary friends. Greene began to write poetry, mentored by Ezra Pound (1885–1972) and Gertrude Stein (1874–1946).

He studied at Balliol College Oxford where he published stories, art­icles, reviews & poems in the student magazine, Ox­ford Out­look. Greene spent a short time in the University Communist Party and though he abandoned the tough­er Communist beliefs, Greene later wrote symp­at­h­etic profiles of Communist leaders.

After he graduated from Oxford in 1925, Greene worked as a journ­alist in Nottingham and in 1926, he con­verted to Catholicism. While working there, he received a letter from Vivien Dayrell-Browning who had written to him and corrected him about Cath­olic doctrine. Greene was int­rigued and they began corresponding. He moved to London that same year, working as a film critic and a literary editor in both The London Times and The Spect­at­or. 

In 1927, Greene and Vivien were both married but Greene always acknow­ledged that he was not a family man. Nonetheless the couple had Lucy (1933) and Francis (1936). Greene continued having affairs for the rest of his life, with married women in dif­ferent countries. The couple separated in 1948 but never divorced.

Greene’s exper­ience on newspapers was successful, and he held his position as an assistant editor until the publication of his first novel, The Man Within (1929). Only then did he begin to devote more time to his own writ­ing, and did freelance jobs on the side.

Greene then wrote the first book he classed as “enter­tainment”. Stam­boul Train (1932) was a thrill­ing and popular spy novel that examined travellers on a train, a mysterious setting that allowed the author to develop his characters with suspense. Al­though somewhat dis­missed by critics, the book’s real success was seen when it was adapted into the film, Orient Express, in 1934.

Green travelled to Liberia in 1935, which had a large impact on his world­view and inspired him to write his famous travel­ogues. On go­ing home again in 1936, Greene returned to the Spectator as a film critic. His characters faced rampant cynicism, tackling harsh and squalid lives in hot, humid count­ries eg Vietnam, Haiti.

In 1938 Brighton Rock was published, becoming one of Greene's best loved murder thrillers. Long after Greene converted to Cath­ol­icism, this novel was a suspenseful plot full of sexual and violent imag­ery that ex­plored the moral­ity-immorality connection.

In 1938 the Catholic Church funded Greene's trip to Mexico, asking him to record the effects of a forced anti-Catholic campaign ag­ainst secularis­ation. The author documented wide­spread pers­ecut­ion of Catholic priests in his journal, including a priest's execut­ion. The incident made such an impres­sion on Greene that the victim became the hero of The Power and the Glory (1940), his best novel, yet condemned by the Vatican.

In 1939 Greene wanted to enlist in WW2 but was too old. So he went to West Africa as a secret British intelligence officer ins­tead. Double agent Kim Philby recruited Greene to work for MI6; he joined the Secret Serv­ice and worked for the Min­is­try of Information. This stint in espionage fueled Greene's desire to tr­avel again to the wild, remote places of the world, and prov­id­ed him with mem­orable characters. Post-war, he continued to trav­el as a free-lance journalist, spending a long period on the French Riviera. 

 1939

 1940

1950

Biographer Norman Sherry discovered Greene had continued to submit reports to British intelligence for decades. When Philby defected to Moscow, Greene supported him. He wrote an intro­d­uction to Phil­by’s memoirs in which he depicted Philby’s treason with sym­pathy, sugg­esting that his devot­ion to Communism showed a high­er mor­ality than loyal­ty to his country. This led Greene's close friend, Evelyn Waugh, to write a letter support­ing Greene as a secret agent for Britain! And it led scholars to ask: Was Greene a novelist who was also a spy, or was his lifelong literary car­eer the perfect cover? Did Greene have the evidence he needed to make a solid judg­ment? Or was Greene being played by Philby? Read Sherry’s The Life of Graham Greene.

Greene travelled to Sierra Leone which inspired The Power and the Glory. Along with The Heart of the Matter (1948) and The End of the Affair (1951), Power and Glory comprised Greene's Catholic Trilogy.

Next he became director at Eyre and Spottis­woode Publishing House. During his time there, he wrote several screen­plays, the most fam­ous being The Third Man (1949). In the early 1950s, Greene took long trips to Malaya and Vietnam, setting perhaps his most notable work, The Quiet American (1955), in Vietnam.

Greene's political views were different from other Catholic writers eg Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Burgess. While they maintained a very right-winged agenda, Greene was always leftish and moral. Greene pursued anti-American analyses during his travels, opening doors to Com­munist leaders like Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh. Mor­al issues, pol­it­ics and religion, suspense and adven­t­­ure, be­came his trademark eg Our Man in Havana (1960)

In 1990 Greene was weakened by a blood disease so he moved from the South of France, to Vevey in Switz­erland, near his daught­er. In Apr 1991 he pass­ed away, at 86, and was buried at in Corseaux. 

What a talented family! Graham was a thrilling English novelist and literary critic. Brother Hugh was Director-General of the BBC, brother Raymond was an eminent physician and his cousin was author Robert Louis Stevenson.

Enrico Caruso, Italy's greatest gift to the opera world

Enrico Caruso as The Duke
in Rigoletto, 1904. Wiki

Born in Naples, Enrico Caruso (1873-1921) was said to be one of many babies of a poverty-ridden machinist. Caruso’s father thought his ­son should adopt the same trade, so at 11 the boy was ap­p­renticed to a mechan­ic­al engineer. But at his mother’s wish, he also at­tended sch­ool, receiving a basic education. He sang in his chur­ch choir, and considered a career in music. When his Mum died, the lad found work as a street-and-café-singer in Nap­les.

His apprenticeship was in small Italian theatres. His first major operatic role was in Umb­erto Giordano’s Fedora, at Tea­tro Lirico Milan in Nov 1898. He had eng­agements at St Petersburg, Moscow, Buenos Air­es, Bol­og­na, Monte Carlo and Warsaw, then the best one: an invit­ation to sing at La Scala Mi­l­an, the premier opera house! His debut there was as Rod­olfo in Gia­como Puccini’s La bohème, with Arturo Toscanini cond­uct­ing. And in 1900, he and his touring company of first-class Italian singers app­eared before the Tsar and Russian arist­ocracy at Mar­iin­sky Theatre in St Petersburg and the Bolshoi Th­eatre in Moscow.

The tenor took part in a grand concert at La Scala in Feb 1901 that Tos­c­anini organised, marking the recent death of Giuseppe Verdi. Critics’ admiration was beyond measure. Then he embarked on his last series of La Scala perform­ances in Mar 1902.

In Apr 1902 he was engaged by the Gramophone & Type writer Co to make his first group of acoustic recordings, in a Milan hotel room. These 10 discs swiftly became best-sellers, help­ing to spread Caruso’s fame particularly throughout the English-speaking world.

Australian Nellie Melba in La Bohème
as famous as her Italian co-star

After tr­iumphs with Australian soprano Nellie Melba in La Bohème at Monte Carlo & Rig­ol­et­to in London in 1902, he went to the Met­rop­­ol­itan Opera Co to do Rigoletto in 1903. The Met never did as well as when Caruso performed.

The manag­ement of Lond­on’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, signed him for a season of appearances in 8 different operas from Verdi to Mozart. His successful debut there was in May 1902, as the Duke of Mantua in Verdi’s Rigol­et­to, with Mel­ba as Gilda. They’d already sung together in Monte Carlo and became a reg­ular travelling partnership.

The following year, 1903, Caruso travelled to N.Y to take up his Met­ropolitan Opera contract. The gap between his London and N.Y events was filled by per­formances in Italy, Port­ugal and South America.

He soon began a long and lucrative deal with the Victor Talking Mach­ine Co. He made his first American records in Feb 1904, totalling 275 rec­ord­ings for RCA Victor until 1920, and earning large royal­ties. Interestingly many opera singers had rejected the gram­o­phone owing to the low fid­elity of early discs. But others incl­uding Melba used the technology, once they heard of Caruso’s income. Through his recordings, Caruso was the first opera singer to win a mass aud­ience. His records also es­tablished recording as a commercial success.

Caruso with his Victrola phonograph

in his NY flat, 1910s. Wiki

In Ber­l­in and Vienna Caruso Nights were celebrated, and in Mexico City he re­ceived a fortune for a single per­f­ormance. So Caruso bought Villa Bellosguardo, a palatial country home near Florence in 1904. The villa became his retreat away from the stage and the grind of travel.

Les Huguenots was one of the C19th’s most popular works and Queen Victoria’s fav­our­ite opera. Caruso performed the role of Raoul at Covent Garden in 1905

In Nov 1906, Caruso was charged with an indecent act com­m­it­ted in NY’s Central Park Zoo. He was found guilty and fined. N.Y’s opera-going high society were outraged, but they soon got over it. And America’s middle classes also paid to hear him sing, or bought copies of his recordings, especially among N.Y’s huge Italian population.

Met artists, including Caruso, had visited San Franc­isco in Ap 1906 for a series of performances. Following an appearance in Carmen at the city’s Grand Opera House, a strong jolt awakened Caruso in his Palace Hotel suite. The San Francisco Earthquake led to a series of ruinous fires and the Met lost all the sets, costumes and musical in­struments that it had brought on tour. Caruso escaped.

He was heard live from the Metropolitan Opera House stage in 1910 when he was in the first pub­lic radio U.S broadcast to be trans­mitted. Posters only increased the attraction.

Posters attracted potential customers and increased the profits

Supremely gifted for opera, Caruso was focused and hard-working. Cert­ain rol­es eg in Pagliacci and Aida be­came so clearly HIS that all oth­er tenors bowed down. His honours included the Order of the Crown of Italy; French Legion of Honora; Order of Crown Eagle of Prussia.

Caruso's had a long liaison with the Italian sop­rano Ada Giachetti who had left her husb­and and son, to cohabit with the tenor. They had 4 sons in their relation­ship, pain­fully ended by a court in 1912.

Audiences in France, Belgium, Monaco, Austria, Hun­gary and Germany heard him too, prior to WWI, then he toured Argentina, Uruguay and Brasil. When U.S entered WWI in 1917, Caruso did ext­ensive charity work, raising money for patriotic war causes by giving con­cer­ts. He put a good proportion of his earn­ings into in­vest­ments, and by war’s end, Caruso’s income was secured. Luckily, since in 1918 he married Dorothy Benjamin (1893-1955), 25-year-old soc­ialite daughter of a NY ind­ustrialist. They had one daughter.

Dorothy and Enrico married in 1918

Opera News Magazine

Caruso was a heavy smoker of strong foreign cigarettes, didn’t ex­er­cise and had a rugged schedule of perform­­ances each season: all cont­rib­utions to his persistent ill-health. He returned home from a North American conc­ert tour in late 1920 in exc­ruc­iat­ing pain: pleurisy. Car­uso under­went 7 surgical pro­cedures to drain his chest and lungs, then returned to Naples to recuperate. He died in Aug 1921, at 48. King Victor Emmanuel III opened the Royal Basilica of the Church of San Francesco di Paola for the funeral seen by thous­ands. Then his body was preserved in Naples.

Dorothy Caruso lived until 1955, having written two books about her late husband. And thankfully she kept all her husband’s sketches.

Olympic torch started in ancient Greece; torch relay started in Nazi Germany

What the ancient Olympic Flame lighting ceremony in Olympia
might have looked like, NBC Sports

The Olympic flame was born in an an­c­ient Greek temple to honour Hera, queen of the gods. Her shrine was the home of the Olympic Games, a cyp­ress-shaded site in Olym­p­ia where the first Games were held in 776 BC. The flame was carried across Greece to Ath­ens, then handed over to the next Games’ host committee. Olympia was the dep­art­ure point that linked the Ancient and Modern Games. [And it stored Baron de Coub­ertin’s heart].

 

Amsterdam Olympic Games, 1928

First modern games to light a flame in the opening ceremony without a relay

Note the flame on top of the tower

Fritz Schilgen, the last relay runner, entered the Berlin Stadium

1936

Ancient Greeks never had a relay of torchbearers. So why did the mod­ern Olympic flame go on a relay from Olympia each time? It celeb­rat­ed the passing of the sac­red flame of spirit from one man to the next. The re­l­ay thus: a] heralded the next Olympic Games and b] tran­smitted peace & friendship. Because it tra­v­elled thousands of ks, the Olympic flame had to be lit some months be­f­ore each Games started.

The highlight of all Opening Ceremonies was the flame’s entrance into the stadium. The first Modern Games where a flame was lit at the entr­an­ce was the 1928 Amsterdam Games, before lighting the cauldron!

Melbourne 1956

100,000 people watched the cauldron being lit

In 1931 Carl Diem got International Olym­pic Com­m­ittee to give the 1936 Games to Berlin. Hit­ler disliked the modern Olympic move­ment, but propa­gan­da min­ister Jo­seph Goeb­b­els believed the Games would be a huge victory for Nazi Ger­many. Inspired by anc­ient Greek drawings and Plutarch’s writings, Diem and Hit­ler saw the Nazis as the old Greeks’ rightful heirs, so the torch relay was happ­ily co-opted.

Xth Olympiad, 1936: Berlin The Berlin Games began with torch­bearers relaying the flame in Aug. It took 12 days, begin­ning with the flame ceremony in Olympia and passing through 7 partic­ipating nations. c3,330 runners brought the flame across 3075 ks.

C20th Olympics torches protected the flame from the weather, so Ger­man arms manufacturer Krupp de­signed the 1936 steel-clad tor­ches with a magnesium-burning el­em­ent. Olympic run­ner Fritz Schil­gen held the torch up on entering Berlin’s Stadium before 100,000 spectat­ors, selected bec­ause of his Aryan looks. There was wide German media cov­erage of the relay, and dir­ector Leni Rief­enstahl filmed it.

The Games were cancelled until 1948. Examine the Washington Post from 1948. 

XIVth Olympiad, 1948: London. Despite Nazism, UK Games embraced the ritual. Greek Corp­or­al Konstantin Dimit­relis laid down his arms & uniform, then took the torch. The relay took­ 12 days for 1,416 runners to go via 7 countries!

XVth Olympiad, 1952: Helsinki For the first time the flame was trans­ported by airplane from Ath­ens to Den­mark with cel­eb­ratory stops in Munich and Dussel­dorf. The flame went with runners, riders, cyc­lists and sailors to Sw­eden then Finland, taking 13 days to travel 7,870 ks.

XVIth Olympiad, 1956: Melbourne The flame was lit in Olympia in Nov, and taken to Athens. The flame was flown to Aust­ral­ia, with cel­ebr­at­ions being held in Calcut­ta, Bang­kok, Singap­ore, Djakarta and Darw­in. The 20,470 ks relay took 21 days and 3,118 run­ners to reach Melb­ourne.

XVIIth Olympiad, 1960: Rome The 2,750 ks relay began in Aug. The torch was run from Olympia to Athens to the Port of Zea, where the flame was taken by ship to Syrac­use Italy. Then the runners completed the relay to Rome.

XVIIIth Olympiad, 1964: Tokyo In Aug 1964 the plane carrying the flame made stops in Istanbul, Lebanon, Iran, Pakistan, India, Burma, Thai­l­and, Malaysia, Philip­p­in­es, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The runners reun­ited at Tokyo’s Imperial Palace, before proceeding to the Olympic Stadium.

The last relay runner in Tokyo 1964

 after lighting the cauldron

XlXth Olympiad, 1968: Mexico City After Olymp­ia and Athens, the flame was taken to Genoa on a Greek de­s­t­roy­er, t­rac­ing Col­umbus' route to the New World. At Vera Cruz it came ashore and after the 2,778 torch­bearers across the 13,620 ks relay, the first woman lit the cauldron!

XXth Olympiad, 1972: Munich In July the flame was lit in Olympia and travelled to Munich. Over the 5,399 ks relay via Aus­t­ria, runners were joined by cyclists, horse riders and wheelchair athletes.

XXIst Olympiad, 1976: Montreal The flame was passed to 1,200+ torch­bearers. It was transferred to a sen­sor, which transmitted elect­rical impul­ses via satellite, light­ing the flame by a Can­adian laser beam.

XXIInd Olympiad, 1980: Moscow The Torch Relay started in June and lasted 31 days. The 4,915-ks journey fol­lowed the route of the 1936 Torch Relay through Greece, Bulgaria and Romania, then the USSR.

XXIIIrd Olympiad, 1984: Los Angeles The flame was lit in a ceremony with Greek offic­ials and the Los Angeles Olympic Organising Commit­tee. The 84 day torch relay left, landing in NY. It passed via 33 states, using 3,636 runn­ers inc Jim Thor­p­e’s & Jesse Owens’ grand­children.

XXIVth Olympiad, 1988: Seoul In the Athens ceremony, music­ians played traditional Korean music. The flame trav­el­led by plane from Greece to southern Korea, then through all of Korea's and historical areas. c1,900 runners, horses and boats shared in the 15,250 ks long relay.

XXVth Olympiad, 1992: Barcelona In June the flame was lit at the ancient site in Ol­ympia, then journeyed from the Panath­enaic Stadium in Athens and was taken to an ancient Greek colony in Spain. The Relay took 43 days, and covered 5,940 ks, by runners and some cyc­lists.

Thousands of people cheer on the torch

relay runners, London 2012

Gertrude Bell's amazing legacy in archaeology

Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) was the grand­daughter of a British baron­et and the daughter of an influential iron-and-steel dynasty. She was only 3 when her mother died, but she was lucky having an aff­ect­ionate and imaginative father. But this headstrong, clever child lacked chall­enge. As a teen she seemed to be facing a life of cocktail part­ies whereas her brain actually required education beyond the mand­atory French, German and etiq­uet­te training. 

Gertrude Bell and T.E Lawrence 

Credit: Eleanor Scott Archaeology

In 1884 she was sent to Queen’s College and then attended Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford University. She completed their history de­gree in just 2 years, and was the first woman to win a 1st Class Honours in Modern History. Bell now looked for a role in life. 

Gertrude spent the next 15 years in constant travel, to Persia, It­aly, Swit­zerland, Mexico, Ja­p­an, China, Greece, Lebanon, Palestine, Burma, Egypt & Algiers. In Switzerland she developed a new passion that became central to her life: risk-taking mountaineering.

The chance to direct herself to a valuable cause only came in 1899 when she met arch­aeol­ogist David Hogarth and his world of Middle East ant­iquity. Already fluent in Persian, Fr­ench and German, Bell studied Arabic and Hebrew as well, and in 1900 she completed the first of her desert travels through Pal­est­ine, Leb­an­on and Syria. It was then she began learning desert rules and the social pract­ices of nomadic Bed­ouin, building up valuable friendships among sheiks, warr­iors and Mesopot­amian merchants.

But from 1900-12 her focus was on developing her skills as an arch­aeol­ogist, map-maker and ethnographer in a tough part of the world. She became a specialist in Byzantine religious architecture, and her 1907 trips with Sir William Ramsay in Anatolia became the basis for her book, The Thousand and One Churches (1909).

After a long excursion along the Euph­rates River, Bell discovered and surveyed an C8th Abbas­id fortress at Ukhaidir. She wrote the account in her 1909/10 journeys, Am­urath to Amurath. And wrote an arch­itectural mono­gr­aph, The Palace and Mosque at Ukhaidir (1913).

1911 was when met the young archaeologist T.E Lawrence (1888–1935) aka Lawrence of Arabia. They shared a passion for Arab­ic cul­ture and antiquit­ies, becoming powerful forces in the next dec­ade promoting Arabic independence from the Otto­mans and from Eur­ope. Years earlier she had had her first romance in Tehran with British foreign serv­ice­man Viscount Henry Cadogan; sadly Cadogan soon died. Later in Turkey and Syria, she loved married Brit­ish army officer Charles Doughty-Wylie, killed at Gallipoli (1915).

In 1913 Bell travelled by camel through modern Saudi Arabia and Iraq, hoping to reach the famed White City of Hay­yil. She negotiat­ed her way thr­ough cont­ested territories, critical water short­ages, hostile tribes and the shift­ing sands. Then she went home with maps and knowledge of Arabia that were invaluable as Europe faced WW1.

With Turkey and Germany allied, the Middle East suddenly became an area of military importance remote from British intell­igence. Who were the relevant powers there? Who did they support? So in 1915 Gertrude Bell trav­el­led to Cairo, to work with Brit­ish Intellig­en­ce, com­pile inform­ation and form a strategy for org­anising Arabic res­is­tance to Turk­ish rule. However she did not participate in the Sykes-Picot Agree­ment in 1916 that led to the div­is­ion of Turkish-held Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine.

Bell attended the Paris Peace Conf­er­ences (1919-20) to honour the Allied promise of Arabic independence. She opp­osed French del­egates who were setting up their mandate in Syria. And she opposed the British delegates who were creating a British mandate in Iraq and creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine. She wrote about the creat­ion of a Jewish homeland after the Balfour Declar­ation. “I hate Mr Bal­f­our’s Zionist pro­nouncement about Greater Syria. It’s my belief that it can’t be carried out; the country is wholly unsuited to the ends the Jews have in view; a poor land, incapable of great devel­opment and with a solid two thirds of its population Moham­med­an Ar­abs who look on Jews with contempt. It’s a wholly artific­ial scheme divorced from all facts and I wish it the ill-success it deserves.” I will write about her move into middle eastern politics in a later post.

Gertrude Bell with Sir Percy Cox and Ibn Saud King of Saudi Arabia. Basra, April 1916.
Photograph: Gertrude Bell Archive, Newcastle University

 

Bell wrote books during her travels and left 7,000 negatives of photographs from her journeys, which arepapers at the Gertrude Bell Archive at Newcastle Uni. She photo­gr­aphed some of the precious ancient sites, thus providing some of the last remaining evidence of Aleppo and Raqqa, later destroyed by ISIS. 

Bell’s greatest legacy was in the recovery and preservation of an­cient artefacts and archaeological sites all over the Middle East. She promoted greater literacy in her role as president of Baghdad Public Library and saved thousands of ancient manuscripts. In 1922, Bell began ass­embling it­ems taken by Euro­pean and Amer­ic­an arch­aeol­ogists, getting the Nat­ional Museum of Iraq in Bag­hdad est­ab­lished in 1926. The Museum’s collect­ion of arte­facts from the 5,000+ year of Mes­op­otamian history were in 28 gall­er­ies. Sadly much of this was looted in the US invasion. 

She died in 1926 in Baghdad at 57 from malaria, pleurisy and lung cancer. The citizens lined the streets to pay respect to this wealthy British atheist who’d dedicated her life to Arab culture. 

See the documentary Letters from Baghdad: Extraordinary Life and Times of Gertrude Bell . 

Read Georgina Howell’s book Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert (2006) and Gertrude Bell, Byzantine Archaeology And The Founding Of Iraq by Dale Debakcsy.