Los Angeles County Museum of Art
October 12, 2014
“Miracle Mile” Wilshire Boulevard
We took Margaret to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) to see a special exhibition, “Haunted Screens: German Cinema in the 1920s.” The exhibition featured over 150 drawings and set photos from German movies of the 1920s, both silent and early sound era. There were also several screens showing clips from the movies featured in the exhibit, and a number of contemporary movie posters were displayed on the wall. We first heard about the exhibition through an article we saw in the Los Angeles Times. The set design drawings were quite evocative. Meredith was struck by the skill and artistry of some of the watercolors. Bob was amused by the directions written on some of them including the word “achtung.”
We next went to see another special exhibition, “Big Quilts in Small Sizes: Children’s Historical Bedcovers.” The museum has drawn on some of its reserve collection and displayed a dozen quilts, mostly from the 19th century and a few from the 20th century, all handmade and small in size. This was the exhibit Margaret liked best. She has been quite adept at handwork of all sorts and particularly likes quilting. She admired the careful work on several of the pieces displayed. After seeing the quilts we strolled through some of the permanent collection in the Art of the America’s building, stopping to admire a gigantic mirror that once adorned a mansion in Menlo Park, then served as a Hollywood prop for decades, before finally joining the museum collection in the 1990s. On our way out of the museum complex we went through the Japanese art building and stopped to browse through the special exhibition of modern kimonos. We particularly liked the ones that illustrated abstract flowing water designs, especially one that had dragonflies on it.
The museum complex is quite large and encompasses nine different buildings. It has an impressive collection spanning many countries and eras. One could certainly spend a full day there and still not see everything. The museum is located at the west end of Hancock Park; the Page Museum, better known as the La Brea tar pits museum, is at the east end of the park. The park is a fun place to stroll, and features the novel sight of various tar pits large and small interspersed throughout the lawn area that makes up the park. The aroma of liquid tar may not be to everyone’s taste, however!
We parked at the east end of Hancock Park, in the lot that is actually associated with the Page Museum. That lot cost $9 – the weekend rate – and put us closer to our favorite area restaurant, Johnnie’s New York Pizzeria. (There is also parking in a garage at the west end of the museum, which costs a little more.)
We met up with our youngest daughter and her boyfriend for lunch at Johnnie’s before going over to the museum. Margaret surprised us by choosing something other than her regular dish, turkey panini. This time she had what Johnny’s calls its Italian quesadilla – thin pizza dough with melted mozzarella and pesto sauce. It was quite good. The young people had other plans so did not join us at LACMA. Discussion over lunch of our visit to the Torrey Pines reserve prompted Margaret to recall a very large white pine which grew in the yard at the Dresden Avenue home where she grew up, in Gardiner, Maine.
Admission to LACMA is $15 for adults, $10 for seniors. Bank of America customers who visit on the first full weekend of the month can get in free by showing a B of A debit or credit card. Wheelchair accessibility is good, although one sometimes has to hunt for the ramps and interconnecting bridges between buildings.