Meanwhile, at the Mar-a-Lago Club

Meanwhile, at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, noted art collector and gallerist Dominic Taglialatella gave a lecture about 8 hrs after the club's most famous member did his rant 7,000-8,000 km away in Davos, Switzerland. Taglialatella, owner of Palm Beach's finest art collection that includes Picassos, Warhols and Banksys, spoke for a little over an hour from 5 pm (3.30 a.m. IST) on 'Van Gogh & Gauguin: Two Months of Turmoil in Arles'. With the lecture event also open to guests ($50 per entry), Taglialatella engaged a rapt audience on what was billed as 'a captivating look into one of art history's most dramatic chapters - the brief but intense period when Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin lived and created together in the South of France'.

The White and Gold Ballroom event with a 'jacket' dress code was a much more arty affair than the hoi polloi talk splashed all over by the international media from Switzerland. But no doubt, the two great Post-Impressionists' 63 days in 1888 as roommates were a far more thrilling episode in world history for those with wealth and taste. Gauguin's painting, 'Vincent van Gogh Painting Sunflowers', is what would now be called 'meta'. While Van Gogh's 'The Yellow House' is, well, Vincent at his height. It's a pity that no media outlet covered Taglialatella's talk, which must have been riveting.