Friday, January 23, 2009

Four Museums in Two Days...



Just a short subway trip away from Brooklyn...



...at the International Center of Photography we were invited behind the desk to watch Obama's speech...and to celebrate...No photos allowed in the museum...however I did some research at home on Edward Steichen...a photographer of fashion and the famous..This photo of Gloria Swanson was one of many on exhibit...

"Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited, and the wealth and confusion man has created. It is a major force in explaining man to man."
Edward Steichen






..then on to the Metropolitan Museum ..where we could have spent a week wandering...absorbing Renaissance art and Calder jewelry...




Fra Filippo Lippi (b. Florence, ca. 1406–d. Spoleto, 1469)
Portrait of a Woman and a Man at a Casement, ca. 1440–44
Tempera on panel; 25 1/4 x 16 1/2 in. (64.1 x 41.9 cm)
Inscribed on edge of woman's cuff: LEALT[À]
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Marquand Collection, Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1889 (89.15.19)





The next day we went to the American Folk Art Museum - again no photos allowed inside..I enjoyed the juxtaposition of Mark Rothko paintings with primitive portraitist Ammi Phillips' portraits...Reds!

Untitled

Mark Rothko (1903 - 1970)
New York
1970
Acrylic on canvas
60 1/4 x 57 1/8 in.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc., 1986.43.173
(c) 1998 Christopher Rothko and Kate Rothko Prizel/Artists Rights Society, New York
Photo courtesy the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.


Harriet Campbell
Posted by Picasa

Ammi Phillips (1788 - 1865)
Greenwich, Washington County, New York
c. 1815
Oil on canvas
48 1/2 x 25 in.

Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, gift of Oliver Eldridge in memory of Sarah Fairchild Anderson, teacher of art, North Adams Public Schools, daughter of Harriet Campbell
Photo courtesy Imaging Department (c) President and Fellows of Harvard College







...and finished up at the Whitney Museum viewing a very wonderful Alexander Calder exhibit...

Alexander Calder, 'The Hostess', 1928. Steel wire, 11 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 11 7/8 in. (29.2 x 11.5 x 30.2 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York; gift of Edward M.M. Warburg. © 2008 Calder Foundation, New York/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

and a huge exhibit of Eggleston photos...


William Eggleston, "Karco", c. 1983-86, from "The Democratic Forest", 1989. Exhibition print, 16 x 20 in. (40.6 x 50.8 cm). Cheim & Read, New York © Eggleston Artistic Trust. Courtesy Cheim & Read Gallery.
“I had this notion of what I called a democratic way of looking around: that nothing was more important or less important.” Every detail, no matter how insignificant, takes on meaning."


...inspiration...

5 comments:

ELK said...

i did not think I was going to be taking in a museum today...especially NY thanks for sharing these treasures in your space here~

steviewren said...

Wow, you must have had a great time. You must be pooped though. I think I would be on museum overload. Did you try to see everything at each one or did you have an agenda that you followed?

GailO said...

ELK - Thanks for visiting the museums with me! I feel I still have to learn a lot about making a blog post about them...

steviewren - Pooped and overload were both words used frequently those two days...The ICP and the Folk Art Museums are both small and we could see everything...The Met and the Whitney however! ...we just picked the exhibits we really wanted to check out..

Ruth said...

I'm so jealous of what you have there. When we visit our daughter in NY, we rarely have time to go museum-ing. But we need to. You shared some wonderful pieces here.

What's that one image looking outside through the door. Is that yours?

GailO said...

Ruth - This is the first time we ever managed so many museums in one trip...I think it was just too cold to do anything else! Don't you just love visiting NYC? The picture you mentioned is taken inside the Whitney museum staircase ..I should always mention which pics I took...