Putin-Xi meet
The meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing is emblematic of a deepening relationship that extends far beyond the realm of traditional diplomacy.
Altina Schinasi was an American sculptor, filmmaker, businesswoman, window dresser, designer, and inventor who lived from August 4, 1907, to August 19, 1999.
She was recognised for creating the cat-eye glasses, often known as the “Harlequin eyeglass frame.”
She was the youngest among all the Schinasi children.
Altina had home tutoring before attending Horace Mann School. At the age of twelve, she moved out to board at Wellesley, Massachusetts’s Dana Hall School. She went to Paris to study art and then moved back to the US and worked as a window dresser for several stores on Fifth Avenue. This provided her the chance to work for Salvador Dali and Geroge Grosz. After this, she designed the Harlequin cat-eye glasses.
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In the 1940s, Schinasi travelled west to Los Angeles with the intention of spending more time on her work. She first expanded her business before selling it. A new level of dedication to her art was made possible by her decision to leave her business and New York.
In the 1960s she produced a documentary called George Grosz’ Interregnum which was applauded. Schinasi was later drawn to Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington, the film to which she acquired the rights.
She published her memoir in 1995, ‘The Road I Have Travelled.’
Even today, about a century after the Harlequin cat-eye glasses were designed, these are the most famous design for women’s sunglasses.
Schinasi persisted in her artistic endeavours, settling in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she spent her final years of life with her fourth husband, painter Celestino Miranda. In 2014, Altina, a documentary about her life, was released.
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