601 actual miles; left at 6:10 AM, home at 8:20 PM.
I have discovered this in-between-area in the world of art - the space between Public Museums and Private Collections. They are the commercial fine arts galleries/Private Art Dealers (MME Fine Art in NYC) and auction houses (Sotheby's and Christie's in New York, Skinner in Boston), and they offer art-on-view for very limited times:
ArtFix Daily's announcement for MME FINE ART:
and Sotheby's website:
I left the house just after 6 AM, hit traffic on 128 South, but had clear sailing after that - I hit the NYC parking garage just after 11 AM. A nice sunny 2-block walk (it would hit 75º later in the afternoon) over to Sotheby's on York Avenue, between 72nd and 71st Streets:
Since clothes-make-the-man, I was wearing a nice suit and tie, and it was GREAT seeing Martin Johnson Heade's The Great Florida Sunset, 1887, in their 10th floor viewing space:
(Note from the future [2 days later] - The leading lot at Sotheby's Taubman collection sale on Wednesday reportedly is headed to a Minnesota museum. The founders of the Minnesota Marine Art Museum are the buyers of the 8-foot-by-4-foot The Great Florida Sunset for an artist record $5.9 million, reports the Star-Tribune. It is said to be a companion piece to Heade's View from Fern-Tree Walk, Jamaica, already on view at the museum.)
Other excellent pieces at Sotheby's included:
William Bradford - Sunset Glow on Sea and Land
detail:
Thomas Moran - Sunset, Amagansett, 1905
and two wonderful pieces by Andrew Wyeth, from the Collection of Charlton and Lydia Heston:
Flood Plain, 1986
detail:
Ice Pool, 1969
WOW - Heade, Bradford, Wyeth, Moran, Winslow Homer, George Inness, Francis Augustus Silva, plus a pair of Tiffany lamps down on the 9th floor - this is better than many museums I have visited over the past few years!
I walked past our old apartment at 108 East 81st Street:
looking a bit upscale - no air conditioners hanging out the windows.
I had a wonderful visit with Elizabeth M. Stallman and Mindy Ellen Moak, Principals at MME Fine Art, LLC, 74 East 79th Street
and they let me hold William Trost Richards - Sunrise on the New Jersey Shore, 1881
And then I got out-of-town. I was up in Connecticut before I realized that I could fit-in the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Mass., and I got up there at quarter-to-5. Excellent pieces include:
Thomas Hill - Yosemite Valley, 1889
Frederick Edwin Church - Valley of the Santa Ysabel, 1875
Thomas Moran - The Last Arrow, 1868
Charles Herbert Woodbury - Mid-Ocean, 1894
Attributed to J.M.W. Turner - Beach Scene with Nets
Edward Moran - City and Harbor of New York, 1889
also at the Berkshire Museum was a lovely Photography exhibit, including:
Ansel Adams - "Clearing Winter Storm," Yosemite Valley, 1937
3 and 1/2 hours to get home - Thank You God for a Great Day! - It Worked Out Perfectly!
Music:
from the iPod, of course I had to start with
Day Trip by the Pat Metheny Trio, 2008
then albums from the purple nano:
"Panic in Detroit" from Aladdin Sane by David Bowie, 1973
Aja by Steely Dan, 1977
All That You Can't Leave Behind by U2, 2000
America by America, 1971
Hard Promises by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, 1981
Blows Against The Empire by Jefferson Starship, 1970
Bookends by Simon & Garfunkel, 1968
The Best of by Quicksilver Messenger Service, 1990
Hard Nose The Highway by Van Morrison, 1973
The Pursuit by Jamie Cullum, 2009
Houses Of The Holy by Led Zeppelin, 1973
Hot Tuna - 1st album by Hot Tuna, 1970
High Tide and Green Grass by The Rolling Stones, 1966 (their 1st Greatest Hits album)
Harvest by Neil Young, 1972
L.A. Woman by The Doors, 1971
The Title Track is an EXCELLENT driving song!
Shameless Plug: if you enjoy this blog, you may like my other one about Hiking the 4,000 footers in New Hampshire (I have done 41-of-48 thru October 2015)
hyperlink: dixonheadingnorth
http://dixonheadingnorth.blogspot.com/
