Short Hops in New England

Business and family in Manchester, VT and Essex, CT allowed me to check out some of the smaller, local attractions that would normally fall under the art radar. Some were surprises, some disappointments, but all were worth the detour. The biggest show, and biggest letdown, was “Pissaro’s People” at the Clark in Williamstown. While I […]

June in New York

Just as you can’t judge a painting by an auction catalogue, it’s hard to predict from press notices which shows will catch your attention or linger in your mind; thus, the days I spent going to galleries and museums in New York this June held surprises, both favorable and un-. First, then, the winners and […]

The Essential 20

      Not wanting to be seen as totally negative, after posts on the Worst Paintings and the horrors of Glazing, and returning to Minneapolis after six months in California, I toured the MIA’s third floor to pick out 20 paintings I couldn’t do without. That is to say, I am not purporting to call these […]

A Day at the Getty(s)

A group from the Santa Barbara Museum Airbused down to LA to visit the Getty Center and the Getty Villa, with an emphasis on Asia and photography, as those were the two curators joining us. In all, there were three independent, but somewhat similar, exhibitions: “Early Photography in China,” “Felice Beato: A Photographer on the […]

The Clock

When I went to see The Clock at the Paula Cooper Gallery in Chelsea I had no idea what to expect, thanks to curator David Little’s warning not to read about it beforehand. Based on the work’s title, I was not surprised when each movie clip that appeared on the big screen had a timepiece […]

Ten Worst Paintings at the MIA

Nicola di Maestro Antonio d’Ancona, Madonna and Child Enthroned  (c. 1490) This will introduce you to the very subjective nature of this tour. For starters, I just don’t like my women (in art) to be heavy-lidded, flat-chested and with lips no wider than their nostrils. The human face may be shaped like an egg, but […]

Until Now: The Contemporary Art Tour

Welcome to Until Now, the MIA’s first exhibition of Contemporary Art. We’ve picked the period from 1960 to 2010, which happens to be half a century, a nice round number. But is there a significance to this particular 50-year span? I think you will see that there is, and the place to start is where […]

New York Notes

Three days in Manhattan in early June gave me a chance to randomly check out galleries and museums – never time enough for all I wanted to see, but enough to provide some insight and inspiration. Far and away the highlight was the Otto Dix retrospective at the Neue Gallerie, both for the power of […]

Glazing at the MIA

Oftimes when touring a special exhibition I will be asked by a visitor, “Why does this painting have glass over it?” and my answer is always, as we were taught, “Good question.” In so many ways, glass on a painting distracts and detracts from the museum visitor’s experience of the artwork. First, depending on the […]

On Visiting Houston

The docent told me that the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH) has recently become the 16th largest museum in the country. I assume the rankings are for art museums and are based on size of collection, but she wasn’t sure. MFAH’s literature speaks of 60,000 objects, whereas its catalogue from 2000 mentions 40,000. Size […]