IN COUNTRY

Rehoboth: Splendid OffSeason Get-Away

BY MARY ANN TREGER

When we heard an unruly plane passenger had been duct taped to his seat and days later a flight attendant lost two teeth in yet another air altercation, we opted to make our annual fall getaway a calming drive-to destination. These days, the friendly skies just don’t feel very friendly anymore.

We replaced crowded airports and the risk of air rage with an off-season trip to Rehoboth Beach. Cruising across the scenic Bay Bridge and moseying down Route 404 through farmlands dotted with fruit and vegetable stands made getting there simply nirvana.

The idea of a Delaware beach town getaway when temps are dropping may seem a little odd but the perks outweigh the need for a sweatshirt. Cooler temperatures are ideal for a brisk morning boardwalk stroll or bike ride along the coastline where you just might spot a dolphin frolicking in the Atlantic. Fewer tourists mean there aren’t queues at the best restaurants and thanks to off-peak rates there ideal for lingering is a beckoning place for an impromptu nightcap. A well-equipped fitness center plus full-service spa has enough indulgences to sway even spa skeptics. Other niceties include complimentary charging stations for electric autos and an indoor hot tub ideal for a chilly fall/winter night.

are savings at the best places to stay. And, you can embrace your inner child sans long lines for popcorn at Dolly’s, saltwater taffy at Candy Kitchen or Thrasher’s French Fries.

For the uninitiated, Rehoboth Beach isn’t your usual run-of-the-mill honky tonk beach town. Of course it has its share of Tee shirt and henna tattoo shops but this quirky mix of imaginative cottages, fine restaurants, bars, art galleries and unique shops attracts an eclectic mix of families, couples, singles, gay and straight visitors who all seamlessly blend together in one beautiful square mile.

STAY

Just two blocks from the Atlantic, the fivestar Bellmoor Inn and Spa exudes comfort. A bright sun room adjacent to the lobby offers a serene space for endless contemplation and is a welcoming sight after a three-hour drive. Nearby, a massive fireplace in the game room and library is a cozy retreat après exploring town. Awarded Best Designed Hotel in Delaware by House Beautiful, the plush property boasts 78 recently reimagined rooms and suites with every detail addressed including fine imported toiletries. A full complimentary breakfast with freshlybaked pastries and made-to-order omelets is served each morning and a lobby bar combinations of locally grown fruits and vegetables plus meats and seafood from regional markets. While the restaurant has a casual vibe, menu is a mix of expertise and playfulness. Choices range from Lobster Mac and Cheese to elegantly presented Florida Grouper. And, when was the last time you saw Beluga Caviar with house made potato chips on a beach town dinner menu?

DINE

A hearty breakfast on the boardwalk at Victoria’s offers the serenity of an ocean view while reminiscing over morning coffee. Or, savor a glass of wine (or two) at dusk while listening to the roar of the mighty Atlantic. Check out the quirky mix of Queen Victoria memorabilia and delightful teapot collection high up on a shelf.

Dining at Henlopen City Oyster House is worth the entire trip to Rehoboth. The food is that good! Menu offers imaginative Interior of the Bellmoor Inn and Spa

SHOP

No sales tax is another Delaware attraction. Pop into massive outdoor outlet shopping malls for bargains galore on dozens of name brands. Or, check out The Shops at Baltimore Avenue and Rehoboth Mews for fun boutiques with merchandise you won’t see coming and going. Home furnishing shoppers head to J. Conn Scott and Hunt & Lane. For unusual women’s clothes, Boutique W just may fit.

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Ingleside at Rock Creek is bursting with colorful opportunities this season. Experience the community’s natural splendor or take advantage of all the historical and cultural attraction of the nation’s capital. Enjoy daily programs, speakers, and entertainment, plus all the amazing amenities from the clubinspired fitness center to bistro-style dining. It’s all right outside your door, come see it for yourself.

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JASPER JOHNS AT THE WHITNEY

BY RICHARD SELDEN

Thanks to Andy Warhol, Campbell’s soup and Brillo pads hold an honored place in art history. Two years younger, Jasper Johns got there first with Ballantine ale and Savarin coffee, pointing the way to Pop Art as he had to Conceptual Art and Minimalism.

Like holy relics, Johns’s painted bronze casts of Ballantine and Savarin cans are centerpieces of the New York half of “Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror,” on view through Feb. 13 at the Whitney Museum of American Art. (The retrospective’s other half is at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.)

Dating to 1960, these sculptures of a notquite-identical pair of ale cans and a coffee tin crammed with paintbrushes shook the art scene the way Johns’s ironing-board-flat American flag paintings, on the walls of the Castelli Gallery, shook it in 1958. Wasn’t contemporary art supposed to be abstract yet expressive, the paint slathered over, poured onto or soaked into the canvas? Were the flags patriotic or anti-American? Were the cans some kind of a joke? Johns’s revelation, it is said, came in 1954, when he dreamed of painting an American flag with 48 stars (the number at the time) and, the following day, did so. He soon started depicting other “things the mind already knows,” familiar symbolic objects such as targets (his frequently reproduced “Target with Four Faces” of 1955 is here) and maps. While he made variation after variation, including drawings and prints — a large number of which are displayed — his signature medium was wax-based encaustic paint over collaged newspaper scraps.

Inspired by the Dada creations of Marcel Duchamp, philosopher of art and manipulator of the mass-produced, Johns and his older co-conspirators — artist Robert Rauschenberg, composer John Cage and choreographer Merce Cunningham — sought to redefine art, music and dance. Rauschenberg, Cage and Cunningham had begun to do so at Black Mountain College in North Carolina in the late 1940s, around the time the Georgia-born Johns arrived in New York from South Carolina. After Korean War service in Japan, Johns returned and, in 1954, met Rauschenberg.

Rauschenberg and Johns, who became lovers, designed store-window displays to pay the bills. In adjacent Lower Manhattan studios, they explored the border between painting and sculpture, toying with found objects and pop-culture material. Following their lead, Warhol painted his “Campbell’s Soup Cans” (32 in number) and silkscreened his stack of wooden “Brillo Boxes” in the early 1960s.

One gallery is devoted to Johns’s wonderfully Rauschenbergian “According to What” of 1964, a six-panel assemblage (the hinged panel at lower left hangs open, revealing Duchamp’s profile) accompanied by preparatory and related works. To the canvas surface, painted with rectangles of primary colors, Abstract Expressionist patches, a column of graduated gray and a traffic-light pillar of colored circles, he has attached a coat hanger from which a spoon extends on a wire, part of an upside-down chair and threedimensional letters reading (vertically): RED YELLOW BLUE.

Although in this work Johns shows a playful side, his mode is most often deadpan irony. The bitterness of the gray pieces he made when Rauschenberg left him in 1961 is therefore startling. On view from that year are the murky “Liar” (the word is stenciled under a flap), the smeared “Good Time Charley” (with an attached yardstick and inverted tin cup, on which the title is stamped) and the muddy “Painting Bitten by a Man” (defaced by a horrid tongue impression).

Johns’s friendship with Cunningham, Cage’s collaborator and lover, was a lasting one. He designed sets and costumes for Cunningham’s path-breaking dance company as artistic advisor from 1967 to 1980. His “Dancers on a Plane” of 1979, with a symmetric pattern of red, yellow and blue crosshatches (another Johns motif) and white plastic forks, knives and spoons embedded in the frame, is an homage to the choreographer. Jasper Johns, Moratorium, 1969. Offset lithograph, sheet: 22 1/2 × 28 11/16in. (57.2 × 72.9 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from Scott Rothkopf in honor of Leonard A. Lauder 2020.98. © Jasper Johns / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

“Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror” runs through Feb. 13 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort St., NY, NY 10014.

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