the Fogg Museum (and Mass. Historical Society)

Saturday, Dec. 21, 2019 - A week after Wendy's Ordination, we went into Boston/Cambridge for a fun date-day. I last saw the Fogg Museum 5 years ago, and I have been wanting to get back to it - they have a nice Winslow Homer exhibition, which only runs through Jan 5, 2020:


But I'm getting ahead of myself. Earlier this month I had gone into Berklee College of Music to see a couple of semester-end recitals - the Jimi Hendrix Ensemble and the Blue Note Ensemble. I REALLY Like doing this - the events are free, the kids are wonderful musicians, the venues are small recitals rooms (one was the size of my playroom!), and they are working hard to keep the music alive:



Well, right next door is a building I have never noticed before - the Massachusetts Historical Society:

and on Sat Dec 21 they are having a 10 AM tour of "The History & Collections of the MHS". So that was our first stop this morning:

Um, if you like portraits, and learning about the Revolutionary War Period, then this place IS FOR YOU. For me, not so much.

But they did have a nice map hanging in an office:



We then drove over to Cambridge and, after a fun lunch at Bartley's, we got to the Fogg Museum:


We started on the 3rd floor, and worked our way down, so the Winslow Homer exhibit was the first thing we saw:

"Gloucester Harbor and Dory", 1880 watercolor:


"The Lookout", 1882 watercolor:


"Sea Garden", 1885 watercolor:


"Canoe in Rapids", 1897 watercolor:


Other wonderful pieces in the collection include:

Utagawa Hiroshige - "Mimasaka Province: Yamabushi Valley (Mimasaka, Yamabushidani)", 1853 woodblock print:


Francesco Guardi - "The isola della Madonnetta on the Lagoon of Venice", c. 1785-90 oil:


Canaletto - "Piazza San Marco, Venice", c. 1730-34 oil:


Sanford Robinson Gifford - "Leander's Tower on the Bosporus", 1876 oil:


Jasper Cropsey - "Morning Fog", c. 1854-55 oil:


Albert Bierstadt - "Rocky Mountains, "Lander's Peak"", 1863 oil:


Claude Monet - "Red Boats, Argenteuil", 1875 oil:


Claude Monet - "The Gare Saint-Lazare: Arrival of a Train", 1877 oil:


Claude Monet - "Charing Cross Bridge: Fog on the Thames", 1903 oil:


John Singer Sargent - "Lake O'Hara", 1916 oil:


Pablo Picasso - "Mother and Child", c. 1901 oil:


Pablo Picasso - "The Pomegranate", 1911-12 oil:


Pablo Picasso - "Still Life with Inkwell", c.1911-12 oil:


Jackson Pollock - "No. 2", 1950 mixed media on canvas:


detail:


Wendy got back to Christ the Redeemer for a 3 PM appointment - Thank You God for a Great little adventure!!

Audio today - Wendy continued reading me a book she loved, and it sounds GREAT:

Robin Sloan - Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, 2013

Why do I have photos of 25 Picasso paintings?

Thursday, Nov. 28, 2019 (Thanksgiving Day) - To keep track of the museums I have visited, and the artists that I have taken pictures of, I have a giant spreadsheet. I was looking at it the other day, and I see that I have taken pictures of 25 paintings by Pablo Picasso (at 17 different museums, over the past 6 years). I find this remarkable, because I hate really dislike Picasso's art - it all seems very self-indulgent, and he takes a gimmicky idea and pounds it into the ground. Having said that, there are certainly a few VERY BEAUTIFUL pieces (Guernica, Three Musicians, some pieces from his Blue and Red Periods), and I love it when I encounter them.

So why do I have 25 photos? Well, 4 are "famous":

"At the Lapin Agile", 1905 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY):


"Jester on Horseback", 1905 (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA):


"Three Musicians", 1921 (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA):


"Bullfight", 1934 (The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC):


That still leaves 21 pictures - they were all done in a 4-year period from 1909 through 1912. It turns out that I really like LOVE his "Cubist" period!!! Here is where they are located:


and here they are, chronologically:

"Carafe, Jug, and Fruit Bowl", 1909 (Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY):


"Woman in a Black Hat", 1909 (Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH):


"Nude Figure", 1910 (Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY):


"Girl with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier)", 1910 (Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY):


"Portrait of a Woman", 1910 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA):


"Portrait of Wilhelm Uhde", 1910 (Fogg Museum, Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA, private collection):


"Seated Woman with a Book", 1910 (Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI):


"Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler", 1910 (The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL):


"Glass of Absinthe", 1911 (Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH):


"Man with a Pipe", 1911 (Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX):


"Pipe Rack and Still Life on a Table", 1911 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY):


"Still Life with a Bottle of Rum", 1911 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY):


"Still Life with Glass and Lemon", 1911 (Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH):


" "Ma Jolie" ", 1911-12 (Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY):


"Man with a Violin", 1911-12 (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA):


"Bottle, Glass, Fork", 1911-12 (The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH):


"The Pomegranate", 1911-12 (Fogg Museum, Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA):


"Still Life with Inkwell", c.1911-12 (Fogg Museum, Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA):


"The Architect's Table", 1912 (Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY):


"Man with a Guitar", 1912 (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA):


"Pigeon in Nest with Eggs", 1912 (Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, NY):


It turns out that, beginning in 1909, Pablo Picasso was major-hanging-out with his friend in Paris - Georges Braque - and they just kept experimenting with "new ways to see things". Using a mono-chrome palette, and different perspectives/viewpoints painted on individual surfaces ("cubes"), they were capturing many more aspects of a person (or a scene) than an artist traditionally achieved with his (or her) head-on view. Picasso and Braque kept stretching each other, and at one point in 1911 their works became almost identical:

Georges Braque - "Girl with a Cross", 1911 (Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX):


Georges Braque - "Still Life with Banderillas", 1911 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY):


a FUN FUTURE PROJECT is find out where the rest of Pablo Picasso's "Cubist paintings" are located (and visit them!). (and don't forget Georges Braque!!!).

I wonder why I am so attracted to this style of art. Perhaps a clue can be gleaned from my high school yearbook picture:


Thank you Bill Damon, photographer!