Dean Frey
banner
dean.bsky.social
Dean Frey
@dean.bsky.social
aka Deny Fear

🎨 Robert Longo
No Threat, 2018
charcoal on mounted paper

Profile:
Nicola D'Ascenzo's "His Master's Voice" stained-glass window

"And when you look along the way we've come, there are spirals of vultures wheeling."
- Bruce Chatwin
Pinned
Another cup of coffee? No thanks, I've had plenty... Ha ha ha ha ha! I'm just kidding. Keep 'em coming. ☕️☕️☕️

Lew Baxter in Her Own Money, 1922

This is a print from the great French photographer Roger Corbeau's silent Hollywood film collection.
Remembering Etta James on her birthday 🎂
📷 David Redfern, New Orleans, 1982

“James had one of the great voices in American popular music, with a huge range, a multiplicity of tones and vast reserves of volume.”
- Jon Pareles
January 26, 2026 at 2:47 AM
Reposted by Dean Frey
Marian Goodman, who has died at the age of 97.

What an extraordinary figure, and what a legacy.

Photograph by Thomas Struth, one of the artists she long represented.
January 25, 2026 at 8:56 PM
Reposted by Dean Frey
There's a great documentary about this photo.
57 great jazz musicians were included in Art Kane's 1958 photo "A Great Day in Harlem", for Esquire. With Benny Golson's passing in September 2024, Sonny Rollins is the last one standing. Stay well, Sonny!
January 25, 2026 at 6:57 PM
Remembering Benny Golson on his birthday 🎂
📷 Frans Schellekens, Amsterdam, 1997

"Golson’s mysterious solos seemed to start in the middle of one big idea and end in the middle of another."
- Ben Ratliff

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoXX...
January 25, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by Dean Frey
His album with Sinatra is a very personal favorite.
January 25, 2026 at 5:41 PM
Remembering Antonio Carlos Jobim on his birthday 🎂
My favourite Tom Jobim portrait is this one by Otto Stupakoff, taken at Ipanema Beach in 1964.

Heitor Villa-Lobos (his hero) once said to him:
"My son, the outer ear has nothing to do with the inner ear."
January 25, 2026 at 5:33 PM
Reposted by Dean Frey
Struggle with her snobbery and characterisation of Ulysses and Joyce: an "underbred" and "illiterate" book written by a "self-taught working man".
Remembering Virginia Woolf on her birthday 🎂
📷 Gisèle Freund, 1939

Larry McMurtry called Proust's Remembrance of Things Past & Woolf's Diaries "the White Nile & the Blue Nile of language." But Edith Sitwell said, "Virginia Woolf's writing is no more than glamorous knitting."
January 25, 2026 at 5:26 PM
Reposted by Dean Frey
I didn't realize that was McM! Love that description
January 25, 2026 at 5:20 PM
Remembering Virginia Woolf on her birthday 🎂
📷 Gisèle Freund, 1939

Larry McMurtry called Proust's Remembrance of Things Past & Woolf's Diaries "the White Nile & the Blue Nile of language." But Edith Sitwell said, "Virginia Woolf's writing is no more than glamorous knitting."
January 25, 2026 at 5:06 PM
Remembering Witold Lutosławski on his birthday 🎂
📷 Krysztof Gieraltowski

"In principle, I write music that I would like to hear, music that is an expression of my own tastes, wishes and desires. I am offering audiences my own internal truth."

Symphonic Variations:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=px7F...
January 25, 2026 at 4:59 PM
Reposted by Dean Frey
'Of Human Bondage' is indeed a towery work of staggersome genio.
January 25, 2026 at 4:39 PM
Reposted by Dean Frey
This has made my goddamn day

Possibly my month
Somerset Maugham shopping at Macy's
📷 Leonard McCombe, 1950
January 25, 2026 at 4:48 PM
Remembering Somerset Maugham on his birthday 🎂
📷 Slim Aarons, 1955

"He was a passionate, difficult man, capable of cruelty as well as of great kindness & charm, & despite all his worldly success he never found what he wanted."
- Selina Hastings
January 25, 2026 at 4:27 PM
Reposted by Dean Frey
Och aye.
January 25, 2026 at 4:18 PM
What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an' a that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine;
A Man's a Man for a' that

I'll be dining on hamely fare on Burns Night, & I always wear hoddin grey, an' a that. So I'm all set

🎨 Robert Burns by Alexander Nasmyth, 1828
January 25, 2026 at 4:06 PM
Reposted by Dean Frey
Monica Zetterlund sings Bill Evans’ “Waltz for Debby”, with Evans, Eddie Gomez & Alex Riel.

I didn’t know that the Swedish lyrics, by Beppe Wolgers, predate Gene Lees’ English lyrics, written for Tony Bennett.

One cigarette worth of beautiful, charming music.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTWA...
Bill Evans & Monica Zetterlund - Waltz for Debbie (1966 Live Video)
YouTube video by BillEvansArchive
www.youtube.com
January 25, 2026 at 2:45 AM
Monica Zetterlund sings Bill Evans’ “Waltz for Debby”, with Evans, Eddie Gomez & Alex Riel.

I didn’t know that the Swedish lyrics, by Beppe Wolgers, predate Gene Lees’ English lyrics, written for Tony Bennett.

One cigarette worth of beautiful, charming music.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTWA...
Bill Evans & Monica Zetterlund - Waltz for Debbie (1966 Live Video)
YouTube video by BillEvansArchive
www.youtube.com
January 25, 2026 at 2:45 AM
Reposted by Dean Frey
An exceptional movie, if you haven't seen it. Ruth Negga and Joel "Train Dreams" Edgerton star. MICHAEL SHANNON portrays Grey Villet (a great scene in the movie at the end when he stops by the Lovings' home). Highly recommend!
January 24, 2026 at 10:19 PM
Reposted by Dean Frey
I feel somehow that this is an image of anger and insurrection. Rise up.
Paolo Monti
Paris, 1981

#Caturday
January 24, 2026 at 10:27 PM
Reposted by Dean Frey
Interviews where he’s painting his ‘Elegy for the Spanish Republic’, climbing up and down the ladder with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth thrill me
Remembering Robert Motherwell on his birthday 🎂
📷 Horst P. Horst, Vogue, 1977

"Fidelity to what occurs between oneself & the canvas, no matter how unexpected, becomes central. The major decisions in the process of painting are on the grounds of truth, not taste."
January 24, 2026 at 10:42 PM
Reposted by Dean Frey
I love this cat's ownership of the sink.
January 24, 2026 at 10:46 PM
Reposted by Dean Frey
Fly in the wall stuff here with the friendship and collaboration between Motherwell, Frankenthaler and their friend David Smith. dedalusfoundation.org/programs/onl...
January 24, 2026 at 10:55 PM
Reposted by Dean Frey
Hoping you'd include the Lovings -- that final photo in the film starring -- Grey Villet, photographer. Film link to "Loving" (2016). www.imdb.com/title/tt4669... And the photo link:
archive.nytimes.com/lens.blogs.n...
The Heart of the Matter: Love
In 1965, Grey Villet photographed an interracial couple then embroiled in legal tangles. Rather than focusing on the controversy, he focused on the heart of the matter: love.
archive.nytimes.com
January 24, 2026 at 9:55 PM
A photo by Stanley Kubrick for Look magazine

Betsy Von Furstenberg holding a cat in a restaurant

This was in 1950, before the days of cat cafés.

#Caturday
January 24, 2026 at 9:51 PM
Paolo Monti
Paris, 1981

#Caturday
January 24, 2026 at 9:49 PM