Tom Shaughnessy agreed to an impromptu tour of my museum The Saint Louis Art Museum. (That's Tom with his faithful dog Finnegan in photo above.) I was more than happy to oblige him with the usual caveat that my museum sometimes moves my stuff around. The recent Anselm Kiefer display continues to dominate sculpture hall. Great stuff - yes...but clearly the museum had to accommodate the volume and scope of the Kiefer work. The museum calendar and hours may or may not include carnival like family activities or random groups but not on this Sunday. The relatively slow traffic could be due to the brisk wind chill below freezing keeping crowds at bay.
My tour had to include this Mark Rothko work. I explained that I was fortunate enough to see a production of the play RED that added to my appreciation of the personality of Mark Rothko who tragically took his own life. An art critique review of Rothko's life I read indicated that Rothko's suicide took place when he took a handful of barbitutes before cutting his vein at the elbow, He was found (apparently) in a pool of his own blood as large as one of his paintings.
I prepared a sort of syllabus/checklist of works I hoped to share with Tom. My personal favorites often include a tid-bit of something I've learned about the artist, Faith Ringgold's quilts contain copy (which have been published), Born in 1929, she is part of the Harlem Renaissance.
Thomas Hart Benton is a regional artist I came to appreciate after I lived in Joplin, MO for a time (near Neosho where Thomas Hart Benton was born). The painting shown below was done prior to Benton's mural in Jefferson City.
Norman Rockwell allowed me to share my personal experience growing up. My father owned and operated a commercial art studio (Morgan Studio art/advertising /photography in Cleveland, Ohio). He aspired to be an illustrator like Rockwell as he was entering the business world. He managed to be very successful in selling commercial art services.
Edgar Degas' Dancer of 14 stands proudly in a gallery space adjacent to Degas painting of Milliners. I didn't get a chance to mention that Degas has a relative in New Orleans. I hope to visit his painting of the Cotton Exchange Degas painted while living it the town where my brother lives.
Andy Goldworthy's site specific Stone Sea is made of 300 tons of Missouri limestone quarried in the Show Me State. I also shared that I was able to view Goldworthy's wall at Storm King in New York. Storm King is a 500 acre Sculpture Park I was fortunate enough to visit with my son, hia wife and their remarkable boy James (when James was about 7 or 8 years old).
Aristide Maillol's the Mountain in the sculpture garden is a favorite but the brink chill in the air caused me to delay going outside to ponder Maillol's muse Dina Vierny. But, Tom is already hatching a plan to visit the Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City sometime in the next couple of months. (His daughter Grace is an event planner there. How great is that?)
No trip to SLAM is complete without admiring Claude Monet's Water Lillies. This piece is actually part of a triptich that was a work in progress in his Giverny studio when the artist died in 1926. (The three segments now live at Nelson Atkins Museum in KC, The Saint Louis Art Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art).
The museum has the largest collection of Max Beckmann paintings including this spectacular large painting of the Titanic from 1912-13. The painting serves as an interesting contrast to paintings created after the German expressionist was labeled a degenerate in Nazi Germany.
No comments:
Post a Comment