I have been working on crossing a few museums of my places to visit list this year. I already visited Montreal and my birthday is always a great excuse to visit some place new.

So in honor of my birthday my wonderful friend Kimberly and I drove to Baltimore for a few hours and wandered around The Walters Musuem of Art. It was a museum that I happened to stumble upon and knew nothing about. I am really glad that we went because I really loved it, there was the feeling of being in a small, intimate museum, but the work on display was what you would expect from one of the massive museums. On display is art ranging from pre-dynastic Egypt to the 20th Century, some beautiful scultpure and even a few Fabergé eggs. Personally wanted to take home with all the wonderful Lalique jewelry and a few vases as well.

Since modern art is not my preferred categories, the exclusion did not bother me. On the other hand the closed or unable to find Asian Art win bothered me slightly. That stems from the fact that there is always some area of a museum closed when I visit – the Prado, Musée d’Orsay, Montreal Museum of Fine Art – I am beginning to think it is me.

Level two covered the Ancient World, with examples of Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan and Roman art. Since I just finished reading the summary of Greek art a few days before I went in a little excited. Here I was able to look at what I had been reading about in person. As can be tricky with any museums layout, how the visitor to flows through this area was a little tricky. We started with the Egyptians, but ended with the early Greeks. To be honest, they have tried to position Egypt is a part all in its own, but it does lead into the ancient near east, or at least that is how I found it. In doing so I walked back through time, leaving Egypt via the Roman empire and ending in the early Greeks. I probably would not have even noticed, other than the fact that I am trying to learn to notice these things.

From there we walked through the Sculpture Court and the 17th and 18th century European art rooms which surrounded it. The museum impressed me with their Chamber of Wonders. It was not so much for the assortment displayed – which was great – but the idea of presenting this style of museum display. There was one very small special exhibit on display, The Art of the Writing Instrument from Paris to Persia. It was interesting, I actually would  have liked to see more items and the 19th century art was great, but it is always my favorite. Having never seen Titian’s “Venus of Urbino” being able to see Ingres’ copy the “Reclining Venus” hanging on one wall was a surprise to me. It is probably the closest I will ever get to the scandalous masterpiece.

As we were leaving we walked past the Conservation Window, which I think was the best part of the visit. So far I have learned nothing along the lines of art conservation, here they had one of the museum conservators showing a project they were working on and talking about it. The staff member we listened to worked on paper and prints, so she was showing a watercolor on floor paper that she was working on. It was very interesting to here what issues she was facing in the conversation process. I had read during my poster research some of the challenges of exhibiting works on paper. In this case the stability was a major issue and I was able to see how the paper sagged in areas and pulled at its tacking.

One piece that was very interesting that I now need to add to my list of things to learn more about was The Young Girl of Bou-Saadaby Ernest Barrias. So far all I have found is that this sculpture also appears on the tomb of Gustave Guillaumet in Montmartre in Paris.

Well June has been a busy month for me, time which included plenty of art. The month started with a visit with my favorite artist, my sister, Rachel Brooks. She lives and creates her fabulous works of art in southern Vermont, where I grew up. I had not been to the area since 2007 so a visit to my family was long overdue. My visit coincided with my sister’s self-organized art show, “Art in the Alley.” Literally what is sounds like, along with her friends she set up art in an alley way.

The show went well, while I was there she sold one of her shadow boxes and several of her sketches. She also had some jewelry and photographs on display. There was a lot of interest in on of her paintings – I myself really liked it, if only I had somewhere to hang it.

Painting by Rachel Brooks

Her roommate had some really interesting pieces on display. It may have been the Latin American art that I have been studying recently that was on my mind when I saw them, but many of them had a “Day of the Dead” vibe to them.

Only a few days after returning to Virginia from Vermont I was on a plane heading to Montreal. The reason for the trip was to watch the Canadian Grand Prix, however the first stop in the city was the Musee des Beaux-arts. As with my visit to Musee d’Orsay in Paris, part of the museum was closed for renovations. Even with some of the museum closed it was very interesting for me. Many of the artists names I did not recognize and I felt as if I should. The styles were consistent with artists I am familiar with so I am really looking forward to reading more about these unfamiliar artists. With the construction and all the street activities going with the F1 race in town unfortunately I did not get a photograph outside the museum. If I get to Montreal again…

I have ended my month with another trip to the Phillips Collection. My friend was having a birthday party a few blocks from the museum which gave me an excuse to check out not only the Kandinsky exhibit but also the recently renovated main house. I will not say that I am impressed with the renovation, a little disappointed in fact, it has lost some of the house charm it had. The music room appeared to be untouched – and was where I found my favorite discovery of the trip, Augustus Vincent Tack. I must find out more about him, the panels on display are remarkable, something between art nouveau and abstract.

Another artist I have to find out more about I only found today, Zoe Pawlak. A new blog that I have been following is The Jealous Curator, and Zoe was one of the artists featured. I want to own one of her pieces.

It Broke and All the Land was Plenty

Please, can I have?

Every so often we watch one of the several hoarding related shows and for several days afterward I have panic attacks about the empty box that would be perfect for mailing something or my collection of Blueprint Magazines. What I have realized is that I have been hoarding electronic media, while that box and the stack of magazines are a visual reminder of having too much I forget quickly how many bookmarked web sites, open online accounts and or random digital images of my cats I have.

What does this have to do with art? Well I am not going to part with any of my art books (okay, Who Owns Antiquity will be sold back at the end of class) but I am going to do a few group / mass posts of links that  I have been saving. Once they are posted, goodbye from my bookmark list. Let the cleansing begin with some museums that I some day hope to visit.  This is also not an easy task as I am VERY bad at tagging, which my husband would point out makes it hard to find the bookmark when you are looking for it.

National Museum of Women in the Arts – Washington D.C.

Montreal Museum of Fine Art – Montreal, hopefully I will get a chance to visit in June.

The Hyde Collection – Glens Falls, NY, a small museum but they have an interesting exhibit of book illustration coming up at the end of the year.

Olana – Hudson Valley, the home of Frederic Church.

New Britain Museum of American Art – New Britain, CT, right now there is a pretty cool looking exhibit by Lisa Hoke: The Gravity of Color.

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art – Hartford, CT, they have a costume and textiles collection that they rotate every two years.

The Walters Art Museum – Baltimore, MD, not a long trip from DC so hopefully this will be an easy one to visit.

High Museum of Art – Atlanta, I would like to get into their Works on Paper study room.

Kykuit – The Rockefeller Estate.

San Francisco Museum of Art – San Francisco, CA, not sure what is actually on display as many items on their site say they are not on display, but the The Steins Collect exhibit looks good.

Tate – I have been to Tate Britain, but there are so many other museums in the Tate collection that I would like to see.

Gemeente Museum – Netherlands, they have several period rooms including a The Gobelin Room which I had never heard of.

Guggenheim Museum – Any and all, I have not had a chance to visit any of their locations.

The Hepworth Wakefield – Wakefield, UK, Not yet open, but in a few months.

The Kreeger Museum – It is so close, no reason to not check it out.

Hill-Stead Museum – Farmington, CT, they have a box collection and a clock collection.

That feels good (true one could argue that all I did was move the bookmarks) I can also delete the Louvre bookmark, don’t think I needed to bookmark to begin with…