Time was, when the Farm's animals rivaled its people for press coverage: It was the late 1870s, and Leland Stanford's racehorses were subjects of eccentric genius Eadweard Muybridge's revolutionary experiments to photograph motion. Those photographs are among 300 works featured in a show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., through July 18. Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change then moves to Tate Britain in London from September 8 through January 16, 2011, and on to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from February 26 through June 7, 2011.
Azim Premji, '67, built his father's vegetable-oil business into Wipro Technologies and became one of India's wealthiest multibillionaires. For the past decade, he's also focused expertise and resources on improving the country's primary schools through programs touching more than 2 million children.
Next step for the Azim Premji Foundation: Azim Premji University, focused on elementary education, research and management. Legislative approval came in March, building plans are under way at a site outside Bangalore, and master's-level programs are scheduled to open within two years.
As with many a Tinseltown celebrity, the years haven't always been kind to the landmark Hollywood sign. Luckily, fans have always rallied to underwrite reconstructive surgeries and other fixes for the ravages of time and fame—and no one more so than Chris Baumgart, MBA '76, chairman of the Hollywood Sign Trust since 1993, whose caretaking we covered in 2007. Recently, 138 acres that provide the 87-year-old sign's backdrop atop Mt. Lee went up for sale—prompting another mission: to raise $12.5 million and purchase the property (originally listed at $22 million). The entertainment industry and its stars stepped up—so did people around the globe, some sending proceeds from bake sales—and in late April, Playboy's Hugh Hefner donated the final $900,000.
When we started following the acting career of Arija Bareikis, '88, she'd progressed from spells living on oatmeal and credit cards to respectably steady work on stage and screen. Now she plays LAPD officer Chickie Brown in TNT's Southland, starting its third season in January 2011.
