Abbey Lincoln, a singer whose dramatic vocal command and tersely poetic songs made her a singular figure in jazz, died on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 80 and lived on the Upper West Side.Her death was announced by her brother David Wooldridge. Ms. Lincoln’s career encompassed outspoken civil rights advocacy in the 1960s and fearless introspection in more recent years, and for a time in the 1960s she acted in films, including one with Sidney Poitier. (The New York Times: “Abbey Lincoln, Bold and Introspective Jazz Singer, Dies at 80” by Nate Chinen, August 14, 2010)

About photographer Roberto Polillo:

From 1962 (when I was 16) to 1974 I was lucky to photograph the most important jazz musicians of the time. These images have been almost hidden for many years, but recently I have made an outing… A selection of these images have been recently shown in personal exhibitions in Milano, Roma, Torino, Siena, Napoli, Genova, Verona and other places, and collected in a big photographic book, “Swing, Bop & Free” , which also cointains texts by my father Arrigo , who was a well known jazz critic and historician. (more)

Wikimedia Commons: “Destruction of Leviathan”, 1865 engraving by Gustave Doré.

The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles paid Sotheby’s in London GBP 29.7 million ($45 million) on Wednesday for a sweeping, hazy view of 19th-century Rome by British master J.M.W. Turner.

The sale broke the auction record for Turner four years after the artist’s Venetian seascape “Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio” sold for $35 million at Christie’s.

The Getty beat out five other bidders for “Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino.” The auction house had priced the painting sell for between $18 million and $27 million.

Turner, a Romantic artist known for painting wispy clouds and roiling waves, painted “Modern Rome” in 1839, a decade after he visited the city for a final time. Eschewing any telltale signs of modernization, Turner presents an ethereal view of the Italian capital as seen from atop Capitoline Hill. Women in blue and yellow skirts herd goats in the rocky foreground as the city’s ruins fan across the sun-drenched expanse below. The Coliseum, painted in cappuccino colors, even appears to glow. (more)

Previously on Skandalon

Poster design by Mark Weaver inspired by the book Moby Dick by Herman Melville (1851). The poster was designed for the Kitsune Noir Poster Club.

Follow the link to read an interview with Cody Hoyt about his creative process.

Previously on Skandalon : Mark Weaver, Kitsune Noir

Previously on Skandalon.