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?

I continue to make an effort to visit all the museum’s in D.C., which can be a challenge because I am finding a new small one all the time and there are constantly exhibits that I want to see at museums I have been to already. I have made it to the National Gallery of Art half-a-dozen times and most recently during Christmas break with Chris and some of his friends. We had no plans as to seeing anything in particular, just a chance for the non-locals to check out Andrew Mellon’s wonderful building.

I have never studied sculpture or even considered studying it, however as it became apparent at the gallery I am drawn to more and more sculpture, and  there are some wonderful pieces in the  collection. My favorite on display in the west building has to be David Triumphant by Thomas Crawford. It is a wonderful combination of  marble and bronze, with fine wires making up the harp strings. A fair amount of time was spent trying to understand where each material ended and the other started.

You can see a full image of the sculpture on the National Gallery web site.

The collections of paintings are great, while a large amount of the work was the gift of Andrew Mellon, the Chester Dale collection is my favorite. Currently it is separated off from the rest of the work in the museum, hopefully it will be mixed in with the other work in the future. The more I learn and as I visit new museums  the more I really like to see work together, I hate the idea of two parts of one item being divided between museums and in this case I would like to have Dale’s collection mixed in with the other pieces in the museum.

From the National Gallery Website - Mary Cassatt The Boating Party, 1893/1894 Chester Dale Collection

His collection includes The Boating Party by Cassatt and Salvador Dalí’s The Sacrament of the Last Supper, two pieces I would not put in the same exhibit. Add to the arrangement work by William Merritt Chase, Van Gogh and Edgar Degas and what you have is a very big mix of styles and artists. A display that I would be interested in Carol Duncan looking at after reading her feelings on the donor memorial in the museum.

The collection is great, I cannot fault the quality of the items that are on display, it is just that the paintings are separated out from the others in the museum. I enjoy walking through the exhibit when I am at the gallery, nearby this time was a really interesting photography exhibit, The Pre-Raphaelite Lens: British Photography and Painting, 1848–1875. Last fall I visited the Truth/Beauty photography exhibit at the Phillips Collection a few times so it was exciting to see some of the same names displayed. I am sorry that it has gone off to Paris and I cannot take a look again, early photography is interesting. It is great to look at the manipulations before Photoshop when photographers used the chemicals, cut negatives and manually adjusted images until they reached their desired photograph. I heard a docent at the Phillips collection stay that one of the early female photographers actually had distorted lenses made to get the effect she wanted.

Prior to this visit I had only been to the east building once, in 2004 to see the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit. Since I  had entered that exhibit through the front doors of the east building I had not seen the awesome underground tunnel of lights that connect the buildings underground.

Villareal Light Sculpture, Multiverse - National Gallery of Art

I took a ton of photographs, most which look the same, if you care to look two more of them are posted on my IgoUgo page. The east building is the home of the modern art and on display while we were their was Arcimboldo, 1526–1593: Nature and Fantasy. The exhibit was one that had been discussed in my Aesthetics class which ended in December and I did want to see it, mostly for the new versions of Arcimboldo’s work like the sculpture.

Winter (After Arcimboldo) by Philip Haas

The 15 foot tall piece is a conversation starter, everyone was having their photo taken with the sculpture and it was probably the reason that the exhibit was so full. While the sculpture was in the main hall the exhibit itself was in a smaller gallery. Up close I could really see how detailed the paintings were, but there were so many people there that it was hard to get up close, add to that the room was boiling hot. I did not spend a lot of time in the exhibit, quickly checking everything out and then explored the rest of the galleries. Which was the best and worst thing. I loved a piece that was on display, but I could not take a photograph of it – or actually I was trying to take a photo of the information label it was not allowed. No photograph means my brain has long forgotten who the artist was, I thought that I had put the name in my phone… no luck. I need to go back soon, Gauguin: Maker of Myth recently opened and it will be on display until June so I will have to see if I can find the missing artist.

According to the wikipedia page “List of most visited art museums in the world” I have only visited four of the top ten visited art museums. I feel like I have been so many more than that, however even with two visits to London I have only visited one art museum in the city. In contrast last year I visited The Phillips Collection three times and the Smithsonian American Art Museum at least twice. I guess it balances out.

Reading the list is interesting, I have been reading a lot in preparation for my museum class about museums and have been thinking about all the museums, monuments and heritage sites that I have been fortunate enough to visit in my life. With this in mind I have started a new page on this blog to link to these places. Hopefully each year I will add a few more, this year I would like to add to the list Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art both in (get this) Montreal, National Museum of Women in the Arts here in Washington, D.C. and Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. I think I will be able to do it, two in Montreal will be tricky but as I have been once to the city I am not sure that I will get a third trip.