Eliana Willis

The origin of Elephantine Island’s name remains murky. Some spy the mammal in its hulking granite rocks, or conjure the specter of some long-extinct herd. Others point to the lucrative ivory trade it once supported.
It’s a sliver of rock at the Nile’s southern extreme, a mile long and half that across, but the size belies its importance.
It began as a garrison town, a first line of defense against Nubian raiders, but it was commerce that saw the island flourish on-and-off for roughly 4,000 years, with a population that exhibited an array of languages, cultures, and religions.
This cultural diversity struck the pith-helmeted Europeans who began excavating the island at the turn of the 20th century. In addition to well-preserved sites such as a step pyramid and a structure that measured the Nile’s fluctuations, archaeologists uncovered a litany of writings, not only in hieroglyphics, but hieratic, demotic, Aramaic, Greek, Coptic, and Arabic.
Today, these innumerate Elephantine texts are scattered across 60 collections in two dozen countries. The primary holders are the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, the Louvre in Paris, and the Brooklyn Museum. A monumental project led by Berlin’s Verena Lepper, however, is unifying the texts by archiving, digitizing, and translating them.
Hieratic document about legal disputes regarding property and inheritance. Photo: Berlin State Museums / Sandra Steiß.
Work began seven years ago when Lepper received a European Research Council grant to gather a team that could translate the manuscripts and shed light on Elephantine’s multiculturalism, societal structure, and religious development.
The public-facing output of this painstaking research is an exhibition held at two sites on Berlin’s very own island of culture, Museumsinsel. At the James-Simon-Galerie, the focus is on time, while at the Neues Museum, it’s on space—big questions for a site that has provoked great imaginings.
“Elephantine Island of the Millennia” brings together newly translated texts, artifacts, and interactive “activity stations” to tell the story of a place unlike any other in ancient Egypt. The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities is involved and the island’s spirit of multilingualism is reflected in an exhibition (through October 10) that uses Arabic, German, and English.
Hieroglyphic magical papyrus fragment from Elephantine. Photo: Berlin State Museums/ Sandra Steiß.
Written texts on Elephantine were primarily recorded on two materials: papyri and shards of clay known as ostraca. Clay was the cheap, everyday writing substance of choice. Pieces were used for making notes, calculations, and receipts—the substance’s resilience has made deciphering them relatively easy.
Papyrus, on the other hand, was expensive and reserved for recording the likes of official business, religious texts, and magical incantations. The material is extremely brittle, however, and when researchers began opening archival boxes that hadn’t been opened in a century they found piles of thousands of pieces. A system was devised to clean, flatten, sort, and digitize the fragments, one replicated in Berlin, Paris, and Brooklyn, rendering the papyri accessible to Egyptologists around the world.
In total, 10,745 were documents indexed and uploaded onto a database. These letters, contracts, wills, receipts, and notes give a view into the society developed on Elephantine from the third century B.C.E through the Arab conquest in 642 C.E.
Aramaic contract for a large silver loan. Photo: Berlin State Museums/ Sandra Steiß.
The picture painted is of a place built on codified laws and customs. There’s a papyri for a large loan of silver and the record of a civil trial for a property dispute in the 3rd millennium B.C.E.—the exhibition suggests it might be Egypt’s oldest legal document. Elsewhere, there’s an Aramaic marriage contract from the first century B.C.E. that stipulates the amount owed to the woman in the event of divorce. Nearby, there’s a parallel document from nearly a thousand years later, written in Arabic and witnessed by 77 people.
Elephantine may have been at the far fringe of Egyptian society, but it remained very much connected to the broader world, through trade as well as its culture. The Story of Ahikar, for example, is the tale of a wise chancellor to Assyrian kings in the seventh century B.C.E. On show in Berlin there’s the earliest surviving record of the story, from the fifth century B.C.E. and written in Imperial Aramaic, thus pointing to Jewish mercenaries stationed on the island.
So, a Mesopotamian story written in the Imperial language of Persia for Jews living in Egypt. This, perhaps, is what Lepper is gesturing towards when she said that the “knowledge of Elephantine is global.”
“Elephantine Island of the Millennia” is on view at James-Simon-Galerie, Bodestraße, Berlin, Germany, through October 27.
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Salvador Dalí’s oeuvre was never just made up of ants, eggs, spiders, and melting clocks painted against dreamy, sometimes nightmarish, landscapes. In his later years, the Surrealist turned his hand to a surprising subject: florals.  
Beginning in the late ’60s, Dalí created three series—1968’s “Flora Dalínae (FlorDalí),” 1969’s FlorDalí (Les Fruits),” and 1972’s “Florals (Surrealist Flowers)”—that put a whimsical spin on botanical studies. Quite literally: he would draw his own otherworldly fruits and flowers onto illustrations by 19th-century botanists Pierre-Joseph Redouté and Pierre Antoine Poiteau, before populating the pieces with his beloved motifs such as keys and clocks. The illusionary effect is a delightful one. 
Salvador Dalí, Rose (Rosa papilio), from “Flora Dalínae (FlorDalí)” (1968). Collection of The Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, © Salvador Dalí. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí (Artists Rights Society), 2024; Photo: © Joseph Siciliano USA, 2019.
For the first time in 20 years, the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, is bringing together these three suites in an exhibition titled “Reimagining Nature: Dalí’s Floral Fantasies.” Accompanying the drawings are other artworks and archival material in which Dalí’s interest in flowers can be located. 
“Dalí’s long-standing fascination with botanical evolution profoundly influenced his achievements as one of the great 20th-century masters of illusionism,” said curator Peter Tush in a statement. “For him, nature was a source of not only beauty, but also of his singular approach to visual transformation.”
Salvador Dalí, Three Young Surrealist Women Holding in Their Arms the Skins of an Orchestra (1936). Collection of The Dalí Museum; ©Salvador Dalí. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí (Artists Rights Society), 2024.
While not a focus, botany has indeed shown up in Dalí’s earlier works. Three Young Surrealist Women Holding in Their Arms the Skins of an Orchestra (1936) and Anatomies (1937) feature figures with flowers for heads, later echoed in the female forms on his June 1939 cover for Vogue. In 1958, his Meditative Rose would bring a psychological tension (Dalí was a Freud fanboy) to a surprisingly realistic depiction of the titular bloom. 
Salvador Dalí, Illustration for “Tres Picos” (1955). Collection of The Dalí Museum; ©Salvador Dalí. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí (Artists Rights Society), 2024.
The artist’s fascination with botany can of course be traced to his Surrealist approach, in his Dalían attempt to explode the standard field of vision by leveraging dreams and metamorphosis. “I see the human form in trees, leaves, animals. I see animal and vegetal characteristics in humans,” he once said. “Human beings create and change. When they sleep, they change totally—into flowers, plants, trees.” 
Salvador Dalí, Cerises Pierrot, from “FlorDalí (Les Fruits)” (1969). Collection of The Dalí Museum; ©Salvador Dalí. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí (Artists Rights Society), 2024; Photo: © David Deranian, 2023.
But the museum also noted that Dalí’s floral series emerged at the height of Pop art, after he grew acquainted with Andy Warhol (who sat the Surrealist down for a screen test). His botanical creations don’t just reflect the movement’s bold colors and provocative energies, but its techniques, marking Dalí’s growing foray into printmaking. 
“Dalí’s botanical series,” said Hank Hine, the museum’s executive director, present “a Surrealist collage to make a new phylum of beings, a new species of perception. Dalí seems to predict the marvels of genetic engineering, pressing the boundaries of what is imaginable and inspiring new ways of seeing the world.” 
Salvador Dalí, Tiger Lilies and Mustache, from “Florals (Surrealist Flowers)” (1972). Collection of The Dalí Museum; ©Salvador Dalí. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí (Artists Rights Society), 2024; Photo: © David Deranian, 2023.
“Reimagining Nature” arrives as Surrealism celebrates its first century. The occasion is also being marked by the major exhibition “Imagine! 100 Years of International Surrealism” at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (later traveling to the Centre Pompidou in Paris), as well as retrospectives on artists including Remedios Varo, Lee Miller, and Dora Maar. 
“Reimagining Nature: Dalí’s Floral Fantasies” is on view at the Dalí Museum, One Dali Blvd., St. Petersburg, Florida, through October 20. 
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An exhibition of work by Dora Maar, the Surrealist photographer immortalized as Pablo Picasso’s “Weeping Woman,” is going on view at the reopening Amar Gallery in London in June amid growing popularity of her work and the reframing of her career.
The show will feature Maar’s photograms and photographs, including her pictures of Picasso and his celebrated anti-war mural Guernica—of which she was the official photographer.
Dora Maar. Virgin and Crucifix II (ca. 1980.) Photo courtesy of Amar Gallery
“As a photographer, she was a pioneer admired by the likes of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Man Ray. Her position as Picasso’s lover clouded over her undeniable artistic talent which extended far beyond photography and included writing, poetry and painting,” gallerist Amar Singh said in a statement.
The exhibition, “Dora Maar: Behind the Lens,” coincides with the upcoming July 4 release of author Louisa Treger’s historical fiction The Paris Muse, published by Bloomsbury, about the relationship between the two artists and the theatrical production Maar, Dora that will perform at Camden Fringe in August for its third run.
“I’m so glad it seems like her work is finally getting its moment in the spotlight,” said the artist Nadia Jackson, who wrote the play—which is produced by Amar Gallery.
Dora Maar. Picasso Under The Trees—Hotel Vaste Horizon, Mougins (ca. 1936). Photo courtesy of Amar Gallery
Antoine Romand, who acted as an intermediary between the gallery and the Dora Maar Estate, called the exhibit a “fantastic event and a great way of highlighting her work,” noting that it will include iconic images from the photographer as well as some “unusual” photograms rarely seen on the market.
“Generally speaking, Dora Maar’s works are very rare because her photographic production was fairly limited over time,” Romand said. “Another reason is the unique nature of the photograms. This exhibition will show works that have never been seen before.”
Maar was born in 1907 and came of age as Surrealism was taking hold in the French capital. Beginning in the 1930s, she ran her own photography studio, producing fashion editorials and advertisements that nonetheless bore a surrealist edge. On assignment on the set of Jean Renoir’s film The Crime of Monsieur Lange, Maar met Picasso, commencing an affair that lasted almost a decade. During that time, Maar served as muse and model for a number of the Spanish painter’s works, including his 1937 Portrait of Dora Maar, while Picasso treated her (and Marie-Therese Walter, who was also his lover) with unabashed cruelty.
After leaving Picasso, Maar commenced a painting practice, creating figurative then abstract works that were shown in various exhibitions through the 1940s and ’50s. In her latter-day career, in the 1980s, Maar would return to photography with her photograms—the technique of creating images without a camera—that once again drew out her surrealist bent. Maar died in 1997 aged 89.
Dora Maar. Virgin and Crucifix (ca. 1980). Photo courtesy of Amar Gallery
Treger said she felt compelled to put Maar at the forefront of her book because she is among many other women who have “often been overshadowed” by their male counterparts. However, she said “there’s a promising shift” towards recognizing and amplifying such female voices.
“This renewed interest in her reflects a broader movement towards viewing iconic male artists like Picasso in a more nuanced way, from the perspectives of the women who shared their lives,” Treger said. She pointed out that Françoise Gilot, whose career Picasso allegedly tried to suppress when she left him, is having her own exhibition at the Musée Picasso Paris.
Jackson likewise said it was fascinating that the photographer “seems to be acknowledged only in conjunction with Picasso,” but warned that erasing him from her legacy would do her a disservice because it would be erasing an important part of her story.
“It was a theme we explored a lot in our play actually—how, as much as Dora would’ve perhaps wanted her work to outshine her relationship with him, it fundamentally couldn’t have existed without him,” Jackson said. “Unfortunately, you have to acknowledge Picasso in order to respect Dora’s legacy in its entirety, but it is also possible to recognize her artistic career and talents without it being overshadowed by him.”
Dora Maar. La Sagrada Familia (ca. 1933). Photo courtesy of Amar Gallery
In talking about the photographer’s artistic talents, Treger said a piece in Amar Gallery’s exhibition that particularly stood out to her is Virgin and Crucifix (ca. 1980), which she said showcases Maar’s mastery of the photogram technique.
“Through the use of tight framing, and dramatic light and shadows, the Virgin and crucifix materialize from an inky background, radiating magic and mystery,” Treger said. “The juxtaposition of sacred and eerie elements prompts contemplation of the deeper layers of meaning within the image.”
“Dora Maar: Behind the Lens” is on view at Amar Gallery, Kirkham House, 12-14 Whitfield Street, London, June 16–August 18.
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The new show, “Rialto,” at the Ukrainian Museum in New York spotlights the first formative decade of Peter Hujar’s career. It’s an apt venue: the late photographer was raised by his Ukrainian grandparents on a farm in New Jersey before moving to the city, where he lived in an old theater less than a block from the museum. Hujar became an East Village fixture, one familiar to Peter Doroshenko, the institution’s director.
“I met Peter at a dollar-slice pizza when I was a student in 1985, and it was a two-minute encounter,” he told me. “Then I saw him six months later on St. Marks when I was walking down the street and he said hello. I realized who it was and I thought, well, I’ll contact him later. But he passed six months later, so there was never a later.”
Installation view of “Rialto” at the Ukrainian Museum. Photo: Min Chen.
Doroshenko believes Hujar must have visited the museum, even if the Ukrainian diaspora was perhaps unaware of his work or presence. An exhibition, he said, made sense, particularly one that centered on Hujar’s earliest body of work, from 1955 through 1969, which is likely lesser known. 
“Rialto,” which means meeting place, alludes to Hujar’s Second Avenue studio, at which his fellow artists and downtown denizens often congregated. But it also befits an exhibition of some 75 photographs showcasing Hujar’s range and roving eye. Though the photographer is now recognized for his images of New York’s gay and downtown subcultures, the show is a reminder that he also captured children and animals, street scenes and country roads, famous faces and nameless corpses.
Peter Hujar, Drag Ball, Hotel Diplomat (1) (1968). Courtesy the Ukrainian Museum, New York. © The Peter Hujar Archive – Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.
At the heart of the exhibition are three series of original prints: Hujar’s images from his 1957 visit to a Southbury, Connecticut school for children with learning difficulties; his 1958 trip to Florence, Italy; and his tour of the Capuchin Catacombs in Palermo in 1963. The settings vary, but the photographer’s tender gaze runs throughout. None of the human subjects, Doroshenko pointed out as we walked through the show, wear a “photo face.”
Peter Hujar, Girl on Swing, Southbury (1957). Courtesy the Ukrainian Museum, New York. © The Peter Hujar Archive – Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.
“Peter was very good at capturing that moment,” he said. “But to catch that moment, he was also very good at making people feel comfortable where they forget that he’s taking their picture. It was very much about creating an atmosphere or a dialogue and then getting that particular picture.”
Also included in the show are Hujar’s spontaneous shots of street scenes—a cat in a bodega, a crowd on Times Square—and portraits of artists including Iggy Pop, Jackie Curtis, and his partner Paul Thek.
Peter Hujar, Paul Thek on Zebra (1965). Courtesy the Ukrainian Museum, New York. © The Peter Hujar Archive – Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.
While Hujar’s later work from the 1970s and ’80s may be better known, Doroshenko locates a seed in these early pieces. He noted Hujar’s strict Ukrainian upbringing (he didn’t speak English until he entered kindergarten), as much as how he entered the field of photography without any formal training. These experiences, he said, “created those vectors of series and control” and influenced “how he positioned himself as a photographer.”
“This exhibit shows that throughout his work processes, his interests and his engagement with people and different situations, there were things that people would never expect,” he added. “Photographers like Diane Arbus had a particular kind of hyper-focus; Peter had that but not this tunnel vision. There were always surprises.” 
“Rialto” is on view at the Ukrainian Museum, 222 East 6th Street, New York, through September 1. 
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If New York City Tourism is in need of inspiration, it would do well to stop by Poster House. A new exhibition at the Chelsea museum, “Wonder City of the World: New York City Travel Posters,” shows how the city’s image has been made and marketed over the past 120 years.
Today, New York is best-known as “The Big Apple” or “The City That Never Sleeps,” but an earlier sobriquet was “Wonder City,” as deployed in the show’s title. Coined by marketers in the final decades of the 19th century, it aptly described a city that had shot miraculously skyward following the completion of the Erie Canal. Other nicknames, such as “American Cosmopolis” or “The Foremost City in the World,” never quite caught on.
D.N.A., New York/Anchor Line (ca. 1910). Courtesy Poster House.
The attraction of the city itself may seem eternal and obvious, but as mid-19th-century railway advertisements make clear, New York was once seen more as a gateway to the Hudson Valley. This included the towns of Ballston Spa, Sharon Springs, and Saratoga Springs, which by the 1870s was the leading recuperative (and gambling) destination of choice for the country’s elite.
Joseph Pennell, That Liberty Shall Not Perish from the Earth (1918​). Courtesy Poster House.
Major landmarks erected at the turn of the century shifted the focus. First, there was the Brooklyn Bridge, opened in 1883, when it was the world’s longest suspension bridge. Then came the Statue of Liberty in 1886, which was briefly America’s tallest structure. Third came an electrified subway in 1904.
David Klein, New York/TWA (1956). Courtesy Poster House.
These architectural marvels dominated cruise ship advertisements, encouraging Europeans to travel from the Old World to the New. An Anchor Lines poster from 1910 shows New York’s downtown golden early morning light with a ship passing the Statue of Liberty. Similarly, a naturalistic effort from French Lines in 1920 captures the scale of the city, with the likes of the Singer Building and the Woolworth Building peeking above the SS France.
Tomoko Miho, Wall St. (1968). Courtesy Poster House.
In the time between these posters, the First World War took place and New York’s icons became stand-ins symbolizing the nation. The city’s backdrop was now blackened and used to cajole patriots to buy “war savings stamps.”
Designer unknown, War Savings Stamps (1918). Courtesy Poster House.
Bleaker still was Joseph Pennell’s 1918 scene of New York aflame with German bombers above and u-boats below. Lady Liberty is decapitated, and text at the poster’s bottom reads “That Liberty Shall Not Perish From The Earth.” Originally, Pennell had penned a blunter, less poetic refrain: “Buy Liberty Bonds Or You Will See This.”
Joseph Binder, New York World’s Fair: The World of Tomorrow (1939). Courtesy Poster House.
By the late 1940s, sea travel was slowly giving way to air. Accordingly, the city’s scale was presented from on high, as in TWA’s 1947 poster by Frank Soltesz, which shows the pink promise of the metropolis far below. The city also begins to be fragmented, its icons layered on top of each other, such as with Swiss Air’s “Over Night To The USA,” which smashes together Rockefeller Center, the Manhattan Bridge, and the downtown skyline. Many adopt a Star-Spangled Banner color theme.
Frank Soltesz, TWA/Etats-Unis (c. 1947). Courtesy Poster House.
The city abstracts further with the approach of the 1960s. Most notable are the color block images made by David Klein for TWA. Six are on show here, though not all were used. Lady Liberty features prominently, sometimes illuminating the names of the city’s landmarks, other times standing alongside similar icons.
Edward McKnight Kauffer, American Airlines to New York (c. 1948). Courtesy Poster House.
Klein’s work also shows the turn to celebrate New York’s nightlife, most vividly through depictions of Times Square, one of which is now in the Museum of Modern Art‘s collection. Accompanying nocturnal New York is the city’s sexy side, as shown in Pan Am’s collage poster cut from magazines, which shows young men and women living the good life.
Henri Ott, Swissair/USA (1949). Courtesy Poster House.
The exhibition closes with a group of Japanese-American designer Tomoko Miho’s minimalist posters from the late 1960s, which refigure New York’s landmarks. There’s a Verazzano Bridge shrouded in red fog and a Wall Street megalith made of blocks of glass marked with stock price listings, images so contemporary they might seem new.
David Klein, TWA Superjets (c. 1960). Courtesy Poster House.​
Peter Teubner, Harlem (1968)​. Photo: courtesy Poster House.
“Wonder City of the World: New York City Travel Posters” is on view at Poster House, 119 W 23rd St, New York, through September 8.
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