In addition to painted finishes, he also mixes plasters that are attractive to designers working on contemporary homes.

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The museum is also home to a rotating collection of contemporary Italian and international artists, and working studio spaces.

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The five-piece experimented unsuccessfully with folk, and then in 1967, primary songwriter Mitch Margo (dazzled by the horizon-expanding works of The Beach Boys and The Beatles) began working on an attempt at contemporary pop.

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From her glass-walled office at Web retailer One Kings Lane, co-founder Alison Pincus has been working her contacts for San Francisco's Contemporary Jewish Museum, which recruited her for its board last year.

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The museum will display rotating highlights from the university's 10, 000-piece collection of African art, stretching from 16th-century Congolese pottery to contemporary works by William Kentridge, South Africa's most famous working artist and a Wits graduate.

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Nevertheless, his new relationship with Hublot sees him working with a strong, established company whose bold designs are both youthful and contemporary.

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But Mr Tanner is the kind of journalist who goes to see for himself, and his linking of the contemporary Irish scene to the topography of Irish history, with its churches, murals and working-class streets, is a fine example of how to read the past.

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