One of the most acclaimed photography shows to open last year was The Radical Camera: New York’s Photo League 1936-1951 at New York’s Jewish Museum. Billed as the first major Photo League retrospective in 30 years, and accompanied by a catalogue, it prompted keen, renewed interest in the subject.   

A printed news source I can’t do without comes unfailingly in the mail: seed catalogs.  Forget Hindu, Jewish, Chinese or Gregorian new years. Delivery of the first seed catalogs starts my new year before Thanksgiving.     

Columbus’ Wexner Center for the Arts makes a bold statement in its current retrospective of David Smith’s work: He’s the greatest American sculptor of the 20th century. If Smith, who died in an auto accident in 1965 at age 59, is ahead of Alexander Calder, Isamu Noguchi or Richard Serra, I’m not sure the general public knows it.   

Having recently seen a retrospective of Romare Bearden’s artwork at Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, N.C., his hometown, I wasn’t expecting the Taft Museum’s current and smaller Impressions and Improvisations: The Prints of Romare Bearden to be as impressive as it is.