The Norton Simon Museum is an art museum located in Pasadena, United States. It was known as the Pasadena Art Institute and the Pasadena Art Museum; the Norton Simon collections include: European paintings and tapestries. The museum contains the Norton Simon Theater which shows film programs daily, hosts lectures and dance and musical performances year-round; the museum is located along the route of the Tournament of Roses's Rose Parade, where its distinctive, brown tile-exterior can be seen in the background on TV. After receiving 400 German Expressionist pieces from collector Galka Scheyer in 1953, the Pasadena Art Institute changed its name to the Pasadena Art Museum in 1954 and occupied the Chinoiserie-style "The Grace Nicholson Treasure House of Oriental Art" building on North Los Robles Avenue until 1970; the Museum filled a void, being the only modern art museum between San Francisco and La Jolla in California at the time. It was renowned for progressive art exhibits and supported the work of local contemporary artists such as Helen Lundeberg, John McLaughlin, Sam Francis.

In 1962, curator Walter Hopps arrived from the Ferus gallery, organizing an early Pop art show in 1962 and a Marcel Duchamp retrospective in 1963, as well as solo shows of the work of Kurt Schwitters and Joseph Cornell. Hopps drew up a short list of California architects for a new museum building, including Richard Neutra, Charles Eames, John Lautner, Craig Ellwood, Thornton Ladd. Hopps insisted on a local architect because he expected a high level of interaction throughout the design process. A new Pasadena Art Museum building was completed in 1969, designed by Pasadena architects Thornton Ladd and John Kelsey of the firm Ladd + Kelsey. General contractor selected to build the museum was Del E. Webb Corporation; the distinctive and modern curvilinear exterior facade is faced in 115,000 glazed tiles, in varying rich brown tones with an undulating surface, made by renowned ceramic artisan Edith Heath. Hopps resigned. In the early 1970s, due to an ambitious schedule of exhibits and the new building project, the museum began to experience serious financial hardships.

By that time industrialist Norton Simon, who had risen to become one of the pre-eminent art collectors in the world during the 1960s, was searching for a permanent location for his growing collection of over 4,000 objects. He was first approached for financial assistance in 1971 by trustees of the museum. In 1974, the museum and Simon came to an agreement. According to the agreed five-year plan, Simon took over an $850,000 loan on the building and other financial obligations, including a $1 million accumulated operating deficit, in return for using 75% of the gallery space for his collection; the remainder was used to display the Pasadena museum's contemporary collection. A new 10-member board of trustees was formed, consisting of four members from Simon's group, three from the Pasadena museum board and three public members nominated by Simon. Simon became responsible for the collection and building projects; this move criticized by the local community as it represented the closing of the only contemporary art museum between San Francisco and La Jolla, led indirectly to the founding of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 1979, a project driven by Norton Simon's sister Marcia Weisman.

Simon died in 1993, the actress Jennifer Jones, his widow and chairwoman of the board, made corrective, conciliatory moves that have repositioned the museum and its two collections. In 1995, the museum began a major $5 million renovation with the architect Frank Gehry, a longtime trustee of the museum; the redesign resulted in a procession of medium-size, more intimate galleries with raised ceilings and improved lighting, increased rotating exhibition space, an entire floor devoted to Asian art, restored access to the gardens. The gardens were redesigned by Power and Associates to house the 20th-century sculpture collection in an engaging setting; the new Norton Simon Theater was the final element of the renovation, designed by Gensler & Associates, is used for lectures, dance performances and concerts. The Norton Simon Museum, which comprises more than 11,000 objects, contains a significant permanent collection, regarded internationally; the museum does not own the works. As of 2014, their public filings placed the combined fair-market value of the artworks at about $2.5 billion.

The museum makes little effort to expand the collection amassed by its founder, but it still receives gifts. However, no more than 800 or 900 of those pieces are on display at any one time; the museum mounts temporary exhibitions that focus on a particular artist, an art movement or artistic period, or art, created in a specific region or country. For more than three decades after it was founded in 1975, the Norton Simon Museum maintained a no-loans policy. In 2007, the board agreed to circulate select works to museums including the National Gallery in Washington, saying it wanted the museum to become better known. In 2009, it entered into a reciprocal loan agreement with the Frick Collection in New York City; the museum has a world-renowned collection of art from South Asia and Southeast Asia, with examples of this region's sculptural and painting tr

Old St Peter and St Paul's Church is a former Anglican church near the village of Albury, England in the care of The Churches Conservation Trust. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building; the church stands in Albury Park, to the northwest of Albury Hall, between the villages of Albury and Shere. The nave of the church may date from the Saxon era but has been altered from the 14th century onward; the tower, of which the lower parts contain pre-Conquest masonry, may stand on the site of an earlier chancel, but was extended outwards and upwards in the 12th century. During the following century the chancel and south transept were added; the south aisle was added in the 14th century, the north porch in the early 16th century. In 1819 the Albury Park estate was bought by a London banker. During the following year the spire on the tower was replaced by a cupola. Drummond became involved with the foundation of the Catholic Apostolic Church in the 1830s, built a church for this religious movement on his estate.

The residents of Albury village had been coming to worship at their parish church in the estate, Drummond proposed to close this church and to build a new Anglican church nearer the centre of the village. Building of both the new churches began in 1839. Drummond commissioned A. W. N. Pugin to convert the south transept of the old church into a mortuary chapel; the plan of the church consists of a chancel separated by a centrally-placed tower. The nave has a south aisle and there is a south transept projecting from the tower. There is a north porch towards the west of the nave; the tower is in three stages with a battlemented parapet, a small north window. In the chancel is an east window dating from the late 13th century, a lancet window in the south wall; the transept has two two-light windows in its east wall, a five-light south window. At the west end of the church are two gables, an arched window, a round window; the porch is gabled and has a bargeboard pierced with quatrefoils and tracery. The church is constructed in sandstone rubble.

The dressings are in Bargate clunch. Part of the north wall is rendered, the north porch is timber-framed; the nave is roofed with Horsham slabs, the aisle and porch with tiles, the transept with slates. The cupola is shingled with wood, has a metal finial; the nave is separated from the south aisle by a three-bay arcade carried on octagonal pillars. The timber nave roof dates from the 14th century. Around the walls are monuments dating from the 17th and 18th centuries. A 14th-century marble coffin slab is set into the floor of the aisle. In the west wall is a niche for a statue. Over the south door is a 15th-century wall painting of Saint Christopher. In the south wall of the aisle is a 14th-century piscina; the south transept contains Drummond's marble chest tomb. The walls of the chapel are painted in red and gold by T. Early, the windows contain stained glass by William Wailes; the ceiling is panelled, decorated in a quatrefoil pattern. William Oughtred, the mathematician who invented the multiplication sign, was buried in the church.

He was rector of Albury for fifty years. In the churchyard is a chest tomb inscribed "Tupper Vault", that commemorates the artists Arthur Devis and Anthony Devis; the tomb is designated as a Grade II listed building. List of churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust in South East England St Peter & St Paul's Church: The Churches Conservation Trust Walmsley, R. Charles The sage of Albury, the man mushroom: being the story behind the Devis-Tupper vault outside the west wall of the old parish church, Surrey

The Kirovograd Offensive was an offensive by the Red Army's 2nd Ukrainian Front against the German 8th Army in the area of Kirovograd in central Ukraine between 5 and 16 January 1944. It took place on the Eastern Front of World War II and was part of the wider Dnieper–Carpathian Offensive, a Soviet attack against Army Group South that aimed to retake the rest of Ukraine that fell to Germany in 1941. After crossing the Dnieper in September 1943, Army General Ivan Konev's 2nd Ukrainian Front pushed back German troops in fierce fighting, advancing between 30 and 100 kilometers on the left bank of the river while capturing Cherkassy and Aleksandriya by mid-December. On 20 December, Konev reported to Stavka that, as a result of the preceding fighting, Soviet troops had cleared the right bank of the Dnieper in his front's sector, he requested approval for his decision to temporarily switch the front's center and left flank to the defensive in order to receive reinforcements and replenish equipment pending an attack towards Krivoi Rog between 5 and 10 January 1944.

Stavka approved his plan, setting the date of the offensive between 7 January. The front was reinforced by the 4th Ukrainian Front's 5th Guards Cavalry Corps, which arrived around the end of December, as well as 300 tanks and 100 self-propelled guns. In accordance with Stavka instructions and his staff developed a plan for the offensive; the front command proposed an attack towards Kazanka and Bereznegovatoye in the rear of the German troops around Nikopol. The 2nd Ukrainian Front was to defeat the German troops around Nikopol in conjunction with the 3rd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts. Due to the advances of the 1st Ukrainian Front in the Zhitomir–Berdichev Offensive, Stavka decided to change the plan. On 29 December, it issued a new directive, which ordered the front to resume the offensive by attacking towards Kirovograd with at least four armies no than 5 January; the attack was to destroy the German troops around Kirovograd and capture the city from the north and south. The front was to capture Novoukrainka and Pomoshnaya, advancing to Pervomaisk on the Southern Bug, where it was to capture a bridgehead.

The front was to mount a secondary attack with two armies towards Shpola and Khristinovka. The attack towards Kirovograd and Pervomaisk was intended to split the German troops in Right-bank Ukraine in half, thereby assisting the 1st and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts; the secondary attack was meant to help the 1st Ukrainian Front encircle and defeat German troops in the area of Kanev and Zvenigorodka. In accordance with the directive, Konev modified the plan for the offensive. Lieutenant General Konstantin Koroteyev's 52nd Army was to attack towards Balakleya and Khristinovka, turning its troops towards Korsun-Shevchenkovsky. Lieutenant General Ivan Galanin's 53rd Army, supported by Major General Boris Skvortsov's 5th Guards Mechanized Corps, was to attack towards Mala Vyska. For the main attack towards Kirovograd, the front utilized two shock groups; the northern shock group, including Lieutenant General Aleksey Semenovich Zhadov's 5th Guards Army and Major General Fyodor Katkov's 7th Mechanized Corps, was to attack the city from the northwest.

The southern shock group, with Colonel General Mikhail Shumilov's 7th Guards Army and Colonel General Pavel Rotmistrov's 5th Guards Tank Army, was to attack from the southwest, tasked with encircling and destroying the German troops in the Kirovograd area develop the offensive towards Novoukrainka and Pomoshnaya. By the beginning of January, the 2nd Ukrainian Front included the 4th, 5th, 7th Guards Armies, the 37th, 52nd, 53rd, 57th Armies, the 5th Guards Tank Army, the 5th Guards Cavalry Corps, 20th Tank Corps, 1st, 7th, 8th Mechanized Corps. Air support was provided by the 5th Air Army; the front fielded a total of 59 rifle divisions, three cavalry divisions, three tank and four mechanized corps. Before the operation, the 7th Mechanized Corps was transferred to the 5th Guards Army, the 8th Mechanized Corps to the 5th Guards Tank Army. By 1 January, the front numbered 550,000 men, 265 tanks, 127 self-propelled guns, 7,136 guns and mortars, 777 anti-aircraft guns, 500 combat aircraft. Erickson, John.

Stalin's War with Germany: The road to Berlin. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300078138. Frieser, Karl-Heinz, ed.. Germany and the Second World War. VIII: The Eastern Front, 1943–1944: The War in the East and on the Neighbouring Fronts. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198723462. Glantz, David. Soviet Military Deception in the Second World War. London: Frank Cass. ISBN 0-7146-3347-X. Moschansky, Ilya. Освобождение Правобережной Украины. Moscow: Veche. ISBN 978-5-9533-5236-9. Ziemke, Earl F.. Stalingrad to Berlin: The German Defeat in the East. Washington, D. C.: United States Army Center of Military History. OCLC 1013364845