Our recent trip to Massachusetts included a day in Boston, and we spent the afternoon at the Museum of Fine Arts. Neither of us had been there in many years.
The museum is showcasing art by surrealist painter Salvador Dali, alongside works by older artists who influenced him. The exhibition, Dalí: Disruption and Devotion, runs through December 1, 2024. It is arranged chronologically and contains good biographical material. Many of the paintings and sketches were on loan from the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. Meredith was bemused by the Evangelical Council painting done in 1960, commemorating the Vatican Council. Three large figures representing the Trinity dominate the top of that canvas, the installation of Pope John XXIII is pictured in the middle, just above the artist’s wife depicted as an angel, and the painter at his easel can be found in the lower left corner.
After seeing Dali, we headed to the European section. We lingered in the Monet room.
The MFA has 35 Monet paintings, one of the largest collections of his work outside France.
We then strolled through a couple dozen galleries in the European and American sections with a brief shortcut through some ancient sculpture rooms.
We ate a delicious lunch at the museum restaurant, sharing the courtyard with a giant Chihuly glass sculpture known as the Green Icicle Tower.
While at Comic-Con earlier this year, Meredith stopped by the booth staffed by the Bowers Museum and found out the museum has been featuring an exhibition on Asian comics, Asian Comics: Evolution of an Art Form. The exhibition closes soon (on September 8) so we made sure to drive up to Orange County while we could still see it.
The Bowers features art and artifacts from many cultures and puts together interesting special exhibitions. We went there once before in 2017 and saw fascinating exhibitions about Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition and the Chinese Empress Dowager Cixi. There are nice courtyards both at the main entrance and the side entrance facing the parking lot. The museum is well staffed with helpful docents, and docent led tours are available although we did not join any.
in the sculpture garden
We arrived in the morning, not long after the museum opened, and found ample parking in the main lot. The staff at the entrance alerted us that two galleries (Pacific Islands and China) would be closing early, so we made those our first stop. Meredith wore her “Museum Nerd” T-shirt and received many admiring comments about it.
heading into the Pacific Islands area
The Pacific Islands gallery, entitled Spirits and Headhunters, has extensive displays of artifacts, organized into the three main cultural areas, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. There is a large map near the entrance showing all the islands and areas featured in the gallery. It was interesting to see how the available materials are reflected in the artifacts on display. For instance, where metal was unavailable, weapons were made from wood and shark teeth, and armor was made from woven plant fibers. We appreciated seeing the boat models and types of currency. Along with the artifacts were extensive explanations of social institutions, religious practices, celebrations, diet, warfare, and navigation.
The main event!
The Asian comics exhibition covered approximately 20 countries over a timespan from the 19th century to the present. Both original art and published reproductions were included. Near the entrance we saw Japanese woodblock prints from 19th century. Japanese art, especially manga, was well represented in the exhibition, in part because of its wide influence but also because it was often reprinted in books, which have survived. In comparison, comic art created in Korea and the Philippines was typically published only in magazines and so less often preserved. This phenomenon was not limited to Asia; in the US also, early comics were published in newspapers and magazines (comic books) intended to be read and then discarded.
A wide range of topics were represented in the graphic novels, comic strips, and other art on display, including (among other things) religion, supernatural bestiaries, heroes, Indian epics, and China’s four great classical novels. The novel Journey to the West, published in the 16th century, inspired the well-known manga Dragon Ball.
We also saw a wide-ranging display of comics with historical themes. Many periods and countries were represented such as: the partition of India and Pakistan; colonization of several countries both by Western powers and by Japan; and World War II. Examples of comics commissioned by communist governments for propaganda purposes were displayed, as were comics covering current social issues like gender equality and housing.
There was a section screened off for adults only in which explicit art was on display.
In the final part of the comics exhibition, we saw information about the modern manga industry, contemporary artists and trends, the history of censorship in several countries, the role of women artists and their struggle for equality, and media adaptations of comic art. There was a table where patrons could follow a “drawing tutorial” and draw their own manga.
Unfortunately the Asian comics exhibition will be closing the day we post this entry, but the Bowers is planning an exhibition that will appeal to comics fans also. Fantasy: Realms of Imagination will open October 26, 2024 and run through mid-February 2025. The museums website says this about it:
From epic visions to intricately envisaged details, Fantasy: Realms of Imagination celebrates some of the finest fantasy creators, reveal how their imagined lands, languages and creatures came into being, and delve into the traditions of a genre that has created some of the most passionate and enduring fandoms.
Journey from fairy tales and folklore to the fantastical worlds of Studio Ghibli. Venture into lands occupied by goblins and go down the rabbit hole. Explore the realms of the one ring and travel into the depths of Pan’s Labyrinth. And discover how the oldest forms of literature continue to inspire fantasy authors today.
Presented in partnership with the British Library, Bowers Museum invites visitors to discover 160 fantastical items that include costumes, historical manuscripts, rare first editions, drafts of iconic novels, scripts, maps, original artwork, film props, and immersive multimedia experiences.
A short list of things we liked in the rest of the museum:
The carved ivories in the China section
The silver artifacts in the nearby Miao room
The Pio Pico memorabilia in the Missions and Ranchos room
Plein air paintings in the California Bounty area
The carved gemstones
Unfortunately, the Native American (First Californians) gallery was closed for renovation.
The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 am to 4 pm. Accessibility is good. Adult admission is $18, with discounts for seniors and students. Parking next to the museum cost $6.99; we had no trouble finding a space, but when we left in the mid-afternoon that lot was full. There is a museum café offering sandwiches and salads, but we chose to eat a late lunch at a local sushi restaurant, Taberu Sushi, instead. The food there was outstanding!
Earlier this summer we spent some time at the family camp on Pine Island Lake in Westhampton, Massachusetts. We made hiking a focus this visit and had gone out tramping in the woods two days already. We planned to try a new spot after Mass on Sunday, but the weather was a little drizzly. Why go out in the wet woods when you don’t have to? Instead, Meredith suggested a visit to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge. We enjoyed seeing the museum several years ago, and Bob had checked their website a few weeks earlier just to see what special exhibition might be on this summer. It is a retrospective of art from MAD Magazine, running from June 8, 2024 through October 27, 2024. The name of an artist we know from San Diego Comic-Con, Sergio Aragones, was on the list. We set out.
It was a pleasant drive to Stockbridge. We took Route 9 to avoid the “soul destroying” monotony (Meredith’s expression) of the Massachusetts Turnpike. As we headed up into the Berkshires the weather improved, and the day turned fine and hot.
With “Grendel”
Once inside we began as we had the last time, by going downstairs to see the well done, short documentary outlining the facts of Rockwell’s life. The video is narrated by his oldest son Peter, who also became an artist and whose sculptures can be seen as one walks to the museum from the parking area.
As you sit to view the film, you are surrounded by the framed covers of all of the Saturday Evening Post magazines on which his art appeared during his long career, 323 of them. We perused these and again were struck by the beauty and humor of his storytelling works. As Rockwell said, “I love to tell stories in pictures;” that was his passion, and his images needed no words. We both agreed, as students of history, that one intriguing aspect of this display is the way it chronicles the changes in American society over the decades, while also showing the unchanging characteristics of human nature. Bob was taken by the number of well-known authors whose names appeared on the cover of the issues that bore their work. Some are still widely read, like P.G. Wodehouse, Other authors are merely names to people of our generation, vaguely familiar because they were popular with our parents and grandparents, like Mary Roberts Rinehart. Rinehart is best known as a mystery writer and is credited with creating the phrase, “The butler did it,” although in her book the butler actually did.
At last, the special exhibition!
We moved on to the special exhibition, which took up much of the first floor of the museum. Organized chronologically, it laid out the history of the visual art used in MAD Magazine, from its early years beginning in 1952 through its original run ending in 2018. A reboot of the magazine was created that year, largely recycling material from the original. Bob got a kick out of some Peanuts cartoons that led up to the final strip of that week, when Charlie Brown gazes at the horizon and the sunrise is represented by the head of Alfred E. Neuman with the caption “What! Me worry?” Sergio Aragones apparently organized the use of the MAD icon by his longtime friend Charles Schulz.
We also found interesting the legal battle over the development of the magazine’s visual mascot. The widow of an artist who drew a similar goofy, gap-toothed kid with the same catch phrase sued the magazine. The court found for MAD when they presented evidence of the general concept being used in the late nineteenth century and even the image of a “Me worry?” kid being used to sell war bonds in the 1940s, before the widow’s husband had used the image.
Another item of historical interest was correspondence between Rockwell and MAD. He had been approached about doing a piece for the publication and had tentatively agreed, but before a contract was signed he wrote a letter expressing his hesitation and backing out of the deal.
Apart from the historical items, the MAD Magazine art was a pleasant stroll down memory lane. Bob was never an avid MAD consumer, but he did always enjoy the Spy v. Spy piece. It was fun to see the evolution of the characters illustrated in the exhibit. The variety of artistic styles used by the various artists appealed to him. He also liked the examples of the movie send-ups, particularly those of the Godfather films. Meredith was much more in touch with the magazine when she was growing up. Though not a subscriber, her father was a fan and would always pick one up at the newsstand (there’s something you wouldn’t do today!) when he noticed that the latest issue was on display. Meredith liked the Rockwell send-ups and was particularly taken by the picture of Alfred E. Neuman painting his self-portrait—only Neuman looking at himself in the mirror was painting the back of his head! The details on that piece were very clever as well—where Rockwell had posted on his easel examples of such portraits by famous artists, Neuman had pictures of other comic characters.
Meredith also remembered vividly her enjoyment of the fold-in section of the magazine. There was a display of several examples, and she puzzled quite a while before each trying to figure out the joke that would be revealed were one to fold in the image. It was only when we were near the end of viewing these panels that Bob noticed there was a picture of the folded in sheets below each page. The museum should have better pointed those out to the viewers as they were not immediately obvious.
A last family observation. We began this blog years ago when we would visit Meredith’s mother in Los Angeles. As her physical capabilities, and later her mental ones, faded, we found that going to museums was a good activity—it allowed Margaret to be pushed in a wheelchair, and we could tailor the pace and interactions with her to fit her attention span on the day. Meredith’s father happened to call her while we were at the Rockwell Museum. She greatly enjoyed telling him about the MAD exhibition, and they shared fond memories of things they had each enjoyed about the magazine. Since he is a sharp and well-educated man, he also enjoyed hearing about the Saturday Evening Post covers and the Four Freedoms permanent display.
The museum is easy to reach in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. We drove past the main entrances to the Tanglewood Music Center, and although people were arriving for the evening concert when we drove home, traffic was not a problem. Admission to the museum is $25 for non-members. Rockwell’s studio building, which was moved from the center of town to the museum campus in 1986, is open for viewing. We explored it on our previous trip in the Fall of 2017 but not this time. To ensure admission to the studio, the museum recommends taking one of the scheduled tours which cost $10. Parking is free and plentiful. The museum is handicapped accessible. It has an elevator between the main and lower levels, and walkways on the grounds are paved and slope gently.
We spent more time in the gift shop than on our previous visit. Visitors can purchase postcards and prints of many of the items on view, and shipping can be arranged. Meredith bought some coasters, both to bring home and to leave at our lake house in Massachusetts. Also on this trip we enjoyed picking things out for our granddaughters, both of whom have summer birthdays and were coming to the lake the next week. The six year old has enjoyed, our daughter reported later, the book of the Rockwell series A Day in the Life of a Girl, which was turned into a book with the permission of the estate and has added text. There is a museum café, but we did not eat there. Instead, we enjoyed a late lunch at Pleasant and Main, a café in Housatonic a short drive from the museum. The setting is a little quirky—it bills itself as a general store as well and seemed to be doing a business as an antique store too. The food was excellent and reasonably priced. The service was a little quirky also. We were given complimentary mimosas, very nice, but Meredith was served a crepe rather than the quiche she had ordered. We made no fuss, and both ended up enjoying the goat cheese and spinach crepe. The berry crepe for dessert was also excellent.
Note: to be respectful of copyrights, we have not pulled Rockwell painting images into this post. The collection can be searched on the museum website. We invite you to explore the extensive archives on that site, which include source materials such as photos, as well as the finished paintings.
We enjoyed the Monet to Matisse exhibition at the San Diego Museum of Art with our friend Chris. Apologies for lagging so far behind in making this post! But the exhibition was recently extended and will run through October 10, 2022, so it is still possible to view it.
The museum describes the exhibition as follows: See Impressionist masterpieces from some of the most significant names in European painting, including Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Pablo Picasso, Alfred Sisley, and Pierre Bonnard.
Organized by the Bemberg Foundation, which is based at the historic Hôtel d’Assézat in Toulouse, France, the exhibition features more than 60 works produced from the 1870s to the 1930s. This is the first time this collection of works is on view in California, and SDMA is one of only two showcases in the United States.
Meredith was pleased to see a painting by Maurice de Vlaminck. Her grandmother’s second husband Herb was a distant cousin of Maurice, an established Impressionist painter.
Adult admission to the museum is $20, but youth under 18 are free. There are discounts for seniors, students, and military. For this exhibition there is an addition $5 charge. We have the Balboa Park Explorer pass, which is accepted at multiple museums, so we only needed to pay the exhibition fee. Parking is free in Balboa Park but is not close to the museum. Plan to walk or ride the park shuttle. After our museum visit we ate at Panama 66, the open air restaurant next to the museum. We enjoyed it, as we have in the past. The food is good, they have craft beers on tap, and diners can stroll through the sculpture garden.
We are delighted to say that the Timken Museum in Balboa Park has reopened after more than two years. During its hiatus it has undergone a major refurbishment and systems upgrade. The Timken is probably our favorite museum, and it was delightful to get reacquainted with an old friend.
We attended a members’ preview on the first weekend in June; the museum reopened to the public on June 8. The San Diego Union Tribune did a pair of very thorough articles, a long piece about the reopening which covered the history of the museum and what’s new, and a second, shorter piece that highlighted ten “must see” works of art in the collection. We recommend those articles highly and will not try to repeat all that they covered.
Here are some highlights from our visit: We enjoyed seeing the two new works on display as part of the permanent collection. The first is an 1874 marble bust Eve by American artist Thomas Ball. The second is an 1890 oil painting Salome by American artist Ella Ferris Pell. Hearty thanks to the donors who made those acquisitions possible! (Kevin and Irene Rowe, for Eve, and Sandra and Bram Dijkstra, for Salome.) The gallery walls have been repainted, and the overall effect is to make the interior lighter and more pleasant. The collection has been rearranged in chronological order. The prior grouping was by category. The new system makes sense and is pleasing, and it did not take us too long to find our old friends. Every work of art now has an explanatory text on the wall to inform visitors. The bronze details have been refinished, inside and out, and this beautiful mid-century modern building really shines now. The air conditioning system has been completely revamped, an invisible but important upgrade. Among our all-time favorite works in the collection are: Eastman Johnson’s 1880 painting, The Cranberry Harvest, Island of Nantucket: And the 1557 painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Parable of the Sower: Early in the pandemic lock down, Meredith ordered a mask from the museum store online with that Brueghel image, and she wore it for our recent visit. The museum website has photos of all the works in their permanent collection, along with facts about each piece. The gallery that houses special exhibitions was not open when we visited. There is a planned exhibition of works by summer artist-in-residence Marianela de la Hoz set to open July 10. Something to look forward to! Things to know: The museum is open Wednesday – Sunday 10 am – 5 pm. Admission to the museum is free. Please make a donation! Parking in Balboa Park is also free, but located at a distance from the museum, so you will need to walk or take the park shuttle.
We donned our masks and headed to the Museum of Art for our first conventional indoor museum visit in a year and a half. We went to see the special exhibition “Cranach to Canaletto: Masterpieces from the Bemberg Foundation.” The exhibition included more than 80 paintings belonging to the Bemberg Foundation collection in Toulouse, France. Artists represented included, in addition to Cranach and Canaletto, Clouet, Boucher, Tintoretto, the younger Brueghel, and several others. Their home is undergoing restoration, making it possible for the works to be sent on tour elsewhere.
We saw some impressive and beautiful works from the 16th through 18th centuries. They were gathered by type and subject matter, with portraits all shown together, interiors in another section, religious and mythological works together, and then landscapes and other exterior scenes in the final room. Meredith particularly liked the portraits painted by Tintoretto. We were both amused by Boucher’s putti (cherubs). They were playing in their own paintings, apart from any larger scene, and looked as if they were taking a break from dancing attendance on God in some great theophany scene.
In the gallery just outside the Bemberg exhibition we looked at some contemporary paintings inspired by the pandemic.
The Bemberg exhibition has since closed. We are planning to go see the Renaissance to Realism exhibition currently on view which features secular paintings from the 17th century.
Recently Meredith discovered the 17th century Italian painter Giovanni Francesco Barbieri through a blog post featuring one of his paintings of the Annunciation. The Angelus Project blog posts a new image of the Annunciation each week. Barbieri is better known by his nickname “Il Guercino.”
She wanted to know more about Barbieri, and started with the Wikipedia article about him. Apparently guercino is Italian for “squint-eyed.” His Wikipedia entry has an image done by a contemporary artist, Ottavio Leoni, that shows Barbieri’s right eye crossing in, a form of strabismus (an umbrella term for several types of misalignment of the eyes). Also intriguing was a link in that Wikipedia article to a medical journal article exploring whether Leonardo da Vinci may have had strabismus. Other famous artists with various types of strabismus may include Rembrandt, Dürer, Degas, and Picasso.
We shared this information with our optometrist daughter, who told us that she had been discussing strabismic artists, particularly painters, with a colleague recently. She was struck by the observation that paintings represent a 3D world in a 2D medium, and that translating three dimensions down to two may be easier for people who already see the world in two dimensions because of their strabismus.
Soon after that discussion we were visiting the Timken and discovered that there is a painting in their permanent collection by Barbieri, of the parable of the Prodigal Son. In that parable, the father who welcomes back the errant son represents God forgiving sinners. Luke 15:11-32. A docent at the Timken explained to us that in addition to illustrating the original Gospel story, the painting also represents the Catholic Church of the Counter-Reformation, ready to welcome back Protestants.
Getty Center Sepulveda Pass, Los Angeles November 16, 2019
We drove up to the Getty to see Manet and Modern Beauty, their special exhibition of over 80 works by Edouard Manet, created in the final years of his life. We had read a preview article about it in the Los Angeles Times, and we were reminded of it by the monthly email newsletter we receive from the Getty. Meredith’s sister Kathleen met us there.
The works on display included not only oil paintings but also pastels, watercolors, and letters Manet sent to friends that he decorated with small sketches or watercolor images.
The marquee work, Jeanne (Spring), is a beautifully executed painting of a well-dressed young woman who symbolizes Spring. Manet had originally intended to paint all four seasons, each represented by a woman in seasonal dress. He did not live long enough to finish the project. He did paint Autumn, and that work is displayed near Spring in the Getty exhibit.
We enjoyed seeing images of the artist’s black and white cat Zizi, first eyeing a brioche and then curled up on his wife’s lap, in typical cat pose.
Manet also painted friends’ dogs, and the portrait of one named “Bob” was included in the exhibition.
As we finished touring the Manet exhibition, we were treated to an outdoor musical and dance performance piece that was part of the Bridge-S series created and produced by Solange Knowles. On the drive up to the Getty, we had read an article about her production in the Los Angeles Times.
The magi who came to see the infant Jesus are not named in the Gospels; indeed they are not even stated to be three in number. But legend has filled in the gap, and tradition has it that one of the three wise men came from Africa and was named Balthazar. We were interested to see how depictions of Balthazar changed over the centuries, and some of the illuminated manuscripts on display were exquisitely beautiful.
The pastel collection only included about a dozen works, but they were very well done. Jean-Francois Millet came from a peasant family and often depicted rural scenes. He led a revival in the use of pastels; displayed with his works are some by other artists who followed his lead like Alfred Sisley and Camille Pissarro.
It was a beautiful day; we enjoyed the views both to the east to UCLA and downtown, and west toward the ocean. The Getty Center gardens are beautiful, and we made a mental note to leave time for a tour of the grounds when we next come.
Admission to the Getty is free, but parking costs $20 per car. The price drops to $15 in mid afternoon and to $10 in the evening. The Manet exhibition runs through January 12, 2020. The Balthazar exhibition ends February 16, 2020, and the pastels run through May 10, 2020.
We went to see the San Diego Museum of Art’s new featured exhibition, Art & Empire: the Golden Age of Spain, on its opening weekend and then again more recently with a friend. In between our two visits we went to Spain, where we saw other Golden Age paintings at the Prado Museum in Madrid. It was fun to put the San Diego exhibition in the greater context.
The SDMA Golden Age exhibition features more than 100 art works, mostly paintings, from Spain’s imperial age. The works include not only those by Spanish artists, but also many by contemporaneous colonial artists. They are grouped thematically, with religious art making up a majority of the pieces on display, and many secular subjects shown as well. The museum’s own Spanish art is gathered here, together with many borrowed pieces.
There were many great works, and we cannot name a favorite. A very memorable piece was Velazquez’s Kitchen Maid with the Supper at Emmaus, which is interesting for its focus on the maid, with Jesus and the disciples in the background. It is displayed near a more traditional treatment of that subject.
We entered the museum for free as part of our annual Balboa Park Explorer Pass but paid $5 extra to get into the Art & Empire exhibit. It was well worth it! Without the pass, museum admission is $15, $10 for seniors, and the exhibition is an extra $5.
The exhibition runs through September 2.
After we were done at the museum on our first visit, we had fun riding the carousel over near the zoo. Meredith succeeded in grabbing the brass ring and won a second ride for free.
Our first museum trip of 2019 echoed our 2018 start. We used our Balboa Park Explorer passes to visit the San Diego Museum of Art. This time we concentrated our attention on two temporary exhibitions. The first showcased World War I propaganda posters; the second featured early 20th century prints that are not often displayed, due to light sensitivity.
We also spent some time in the permanent collection, viewing the gallery with European devotional art. El Greco is one of Meredith’s favorite artists, and his painting The Penitent St. Peter hangs at the entrance to that room. Further inside the room we got into a spirited discussion with a fellow enthusiast, comparing notes about the historic St. Nicholas, 4th century bishop of Myra, whose legend has evolved in odd ways to become the modern Santa Claus.
