Master Drawings New York, on the Upper East Side (through February 7): Timed to New York’s winter auctions—Masters Week at Sotheby’s, Classic Week at Christie’s—Master Drawings New York comes as a highlight of highlights. Rather than a single venue, this decentralized fair presents thirty-six dealers partnering together in a weeklong presentation spread across New York’s specialized Upper East Side galleries. Over the last decade, this loose confederation has transformed into a must-see destination for curators as well as a singular access point onto the Old Masters for scholars and collectors. This year’s fair is presented along with a host of collateral events, such as Tuesday’s Master Drawings Symposium 2026, taking place at Villa Albertine in partnership with The Drawing Foundation. Meanwhile, this Thursday, the Friends of The New Criterion will be meeting up for their own gallery tour with Marty de Cambiaire. Whatever route you draw out, just be sure to print out the fair’s gallery map to take along with you. —JP
“Caravaggio’s ‘Boy with a Basket of Fruit’ in Focus,” at the Morgan Library & Museum (through April 19): Caravaggio’s Boy with a Basket of Fruit (ca. 1595), an extraordinary loan from Rome’s Galleria Borghese now on view at the Morgan Library, is a revolutionary painting. As explained by John Marciari, the Morgan’s director of curatorial affairs, this early work is a “linchpin between the naturalism of Caravaggio’s sources and his radical interventions in exposing the artifice of painting.” In addition to its art-historical significance, the work’s timeless appeal stems from a provocative, haughty eroticism: the boy’s drapery is slipping off his exposed shoulders, and the meticulously rendered fruit convey both sensuality and decay. The Morgan is displaying the masterpiece with a small selection of drawings and paintings that situate it within the Mannerist and early Baroque traditions. The chance to see one of the quintessential “beautiful boys” of the Western canon should not be missed. —AG
Budapest Festival Orchestra at Carnegie Hall (February 6–7): This week, the Hungarian maestro Iván Fischer brings the Budapest Festival Orchestra, an ensemble he founded and has led since 1983, for two nights at Carnegie Hall. Friday’s program comprises Arvo Pärt’s Summa, Brahms’s Symphony No. 2, and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with Maxim Vengerov. All culminates Saturday with a marathon performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, the composer’s longest, in which he attempted to create “a work of such magnitude that it actually mirrors the whole world.” (Mahler’s working title for the piece—simply “Pan”—is rich with meaning.) Fischer’s keen understanding of Mahler’s score (give his delightful primer a watch) portends a knockout evening. —IS
“Gleaming Glamour: American Art Deco Metalwork in Architecture and Design of the Roaring 20s,” presented by the Art Deco Society of New York (February 10): New Yorkers can count themselves fortunate that one of the great Art Deco interiors, that of the Chrysler Building, is open to all. But those hankering after a more intimate Deco experience should seek out the design expert Sarah Coffin’s February 10 lecture, “Gleaming Glamour: American Art Deco Metalwork in Architecture and Design of the Roaring 20s,” which will be presented at Dominican Academy, a girls’ school on East Sixty-eighth Street housed in a mansion built for Colonel Michael Friedsam in 1922. A relatively plain exterior belies a rich interior, and Coffin will not only survey Art Deco metalwork throughout New York but also offer insights on the particular charms of this fine house. —BR
TNC Events:
Gallery visit to Master Drawings New York
Thursday February 5
Join the Friends and Young Friends of The New Criterion here.
Dispatch:
“The case of the red-soled shoes, etc.,” by Jay Nordlinger. On a concert of the New York Philharmonic.
By the Editors:
“The deep-state vampire”
Roger Kimball, The Spectator World
From the Archives:
“Camus today,” by Renee Winegarten (March 1993). On the writer’s nihilism.
