Anish Kapoor was born in Bombay, India (now Mumbai), to a Hindu father and a Jewish mother whose family immigrated from Baghdad when she was a few months old. According to Kapoor, his mother had an Indian-Jewish upbringing, her father being the cantor of the synagogue in Pune. At this time, Baghdadi Jews constituted the majority of the Jewish community in Mumbai. His father, from a Hindu Punjabi family, was a hydrographer in the Indian Navy. Kapoor is the brother of Canada-based academic Ilan Kapoor.
In 1957, when Pablo Picasso was in his seventh decade, he mused that x-ray technology might one day reveal a lost work underneath one of his early paintings. Today, that prediction became reality—although the technology involved goes far beyond x-rays. Using hyper-modern tools to peer into one of his Blue Period paintings, researchers have not only shown a hidden piece of art history in stunning new detail, they have revealed a striking amount of insight into Picasso’s creative process.
The recent eruptions from several volcanic vents in a residential neighborhood on Hawaii’s Big Island have prompted the evacuation of thousands of residents. The Hawaiian Volcanoes Observatory said eight lava fissures had opened under Leilani Estates over the past few days. The opening of the fissures and lava flow from Kilauea Volcano follow a series of earthquakes, including a magnitude-6.9 quake on Friday, and the earlier collapse of a nearby crater, emptying the lake of lava within. The unfolding disaster is unpredictable, and may take a very long time to calm down enough to allow residents to return.
Aretha Franklin, whose exceptionally expressive singing about joy and pain and faith and liberation earned the Detroit diva a permanent and undisputed title — the “Queen of Soul” — died Aug. 16 at her home in Detroit. She was 76.One of the most celebrated and influential singers in the history of American vernacular song, Ms. Franklin secured her place on music’s Mount Rushmore in the late 1960s and early 1970s by exploring the secular sweet spot between sultry rhythm and blues and the explosive gospel music she’d grown up singing in her father’s Baptist church.