#Artful lodgers full#
#Artful lodgers free#

They could show their work at the Roswell Museum, if they wanted. He invited creatives from all across the nation to spend a year on his dime pursuing contemporary art, right there in the remote expanse of the Staked Plains. Anderson, a painter and arts booster who had made his bones in the oil fields, fostered one of the nation’s first artist-in-residence programs. (The other is the South Side Chicago Art Center.) Today it serves as the core gallery of the much-expanded Roswell Museum and Art Center, making it one of only two centers to last the decades. Built in classic Pueblo Revival style, it gave paid work to trained artists and nurtured the careers of people like Hondo Valley native Peter Hurd and his wife, Henriette Wyeth. The story started 80 years ago, when architects of WPA programs placed one of the nation’s 100 federal art centers on Roswell’s main drag.

Seriously: Some of the best contemporary art of the past half-century sprang from a bit of federal startup money and the benevolence of a local hero in a town of but 48,000 souls.

And though an oft-disputed alien encounter may get all the attention, Roswell is also a minor star of the art world, thanks to a Depression-era twist of fate. The region might well have eked it out on ranching and farming alone, but the unlikely discovery of oil thoroughly changed its fortunes.

#Artful lodgers free#

You can easily ponder why its earliest residents would have bothered to settle there on the western edge of the Llano Estacado-a land so vast and free of formations that, legend has it, Coronado’s men had to pound stakes into the ground to distinguish point A from point B. Run by Roux’s grandson François, the hotel also retains its link to simpler times by taking bookings only by phone or snail mail.Above: The newest residences give artists places to live, work, and gather.ĬURIOUS THINGS HAPPEN in Roswell. The pool, in a sunlit leafy courtyard, is watched over by an Alexander Calder sculpture, and the rooms have a rustic charm. The dining room, decorated with still lifes by Picasso and Braque, celebrates traditional Provençal dishes. In the picturesque village of Saint Paul de Vence, his hotel became a meeting place for artists, who often left their work behind as payment. Picasso, Matisse, and Chagall number among the guests to have stayed at Provence’s La Colombe d’Or since Paul Roux switched from farming to hospitality in 1920. The ground floor’s Cafe Boulud serves contemporary French cuisine to a cool, artsy crowd, and the rooftop is the perfect spot for cocktails and delightful views.Ģ0 E 76th St, New York, NY 10021, United States Its 189 room options include the spaciously lavish Penthouse and Presidential suites, which have access to the hotel’s private roof garden. The hotel, on the corner of Madison Avenue and 76th Street, is just a short walk from the Met, the Guggenheim, and other galleries. A Jimmie Martin cabinet scrawled with graffiti and a William Kentridge video installation are two more treats in store for art lovers. Past guests include Winston Churchill and Elizabeth Taylor.Ī large Chuck Close tapestry of Kate Moss greets guests arriving at The Surrey, an Upper East Side retreat that feels like the private townhouse of a billionaire art collector.

#Artful lodgers full#

The hotel boasts the city’s only two-Michelin-starred dining room, The Restaurant, where works by Dalí, Richter, and Pissarro complement chef Heiko Nieder’s modern take on European cuisine. Suites in the original building are traditionally styled with hand-painted wallpaper and white marble bathrooms, while those in the new wings have floor-to-ceiling windows that take full advantage of the panoramic views of the Alps and Lake Zurich. Two wings designed by Foster & Partners opened in 2008, joining the fairy-tale spires and gables of the original 1899 building.

Works by Keith Haring, Damien Hirst, Henry Moore, and Anish Kapoor, among others, are spread around the 178-room Zurich icon. The spa’s Moroccan-style treatments include a body mask of clay from the Atlas Mountains.īrown Hart Gardens, Mayfair, London W1K 6TFĪndy Warhol’s 11-metre masterpiece Big Retrospective Painting, which hangs over the reception counter, gives arrivals at the Dolder Grand a taste of things to come.

It features murals by San Francisco artist John Mattos and offers a 1920s-inspired menu of delectable comfort food. The hotel was opened last year by Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, the restaurateurs behind The Ivy and The Wolseley, so its own restaurant, The Colony, is a must-visit. At The Beaumont, you can sleep inside a cuboid sculpture, Room, a multistorey work created by British artist Antony Gormley as an extension to the hotel. From the outside it resembles a crouching man. The 72 art deco-style rooms have lots of polished hardwood and vintage art, and are a stone’s throw from Oxford Street and Selfridges.