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Ex-Fed chairs condemn Trump’s bid to weaken central bank

Ex-Fed chairs condemn Trump’s bid to weaken central bank

Statement signed by 13 former senior officials condemns ‘unprecedented’ assault on Fed’s independence Every living former head of the Federal Reserve condemned an “unprecedented” attempt by the Trump administration to weaken the central bank’s independence, after the Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into its chair, Jerome Powell. Ex-Fed chairs Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen warned similar prosecutorial attacks in other countries had led to “highly negative consequences” for the cost of living – and argued they had “no place” in the US. Continue reading...

‘Her time has come’: did Mondrian owe his success to a crossdressing lesbian artist who lived in a Cornish cove?

‘Her time has come’: did Mondrian owe his success to a crossdressing lesbian artist who lived in a Cornish cove?

Piet Mondrian found fame, glory and fortune with his grid-like paintings filled with basic colours. But did many of his ideas came from Marlow Moss? Our writer celebrates an extraordinary British talent who died in obscurity In 1972, the mighty Kunstmuseum in the Hague bought three paintings by a little known British artist called Marlow Moss. The prestigious art gallery was keen to show the enormous influence of Piet Mondrian – the famous Dutch painter acclaimed for his black grids lit with bold blues and brash yellows – on such lowly also-rans as Moss. Yet, should you visit the Kunstmuseum today, you’ll find the Moss works positioned front and centre, while a similar piece by the great Mondrian, who would later become the toast of New York, is hidden behind a pillar. Why the volte-face? Because it is now widely recognised in the art world that it was as much Moss who influenced Mondrian as the other way round, at least when it came to the double or parallel lines he started using in the 1930s to add tension to his harmonious abstract paintings, one of which hammered last May for $48m . Continue reading...