Day 1: 3-day trip to Cleveland Museum of Art

Saturday, April 7, 2018 - This past winter I became aware of a DYNAMITE exhibit that was "touring": Eyewitness Views: Making History in Eighteenth-Century Europe

The premise is to pull together works that showed historical events in the 1700's; actually, it is a WONDERFUL excuse to pull together works by Canaletto, Francesco Guardi, Luca Carlevarijs, Bernardo Bellotto, Antonio Joli, Michele Marieschi, Giovanni Paolo Panini, and Hubert Robert. The paintings come from collections ALL OVER THE WORLD: Alte Pinakothek (Munich, Germany), Minneapolis Institute of Art, The National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), Musei Civici di Como (Como, Italy), Museo di Capodimonte (Naples, Italy), The Boston Athenaeum (Boston, MA), Musee du Louvre (Paris, France), The Royal Castle (Warsaw, Poland), Ashmolean Museum (Oxford, England), National Gallery (London, England), Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, PA), J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, CA), Chrysler Museum (Norfolk, VA), Gemaldegalerie (Berlin, Germany), National Gallery of Ireland (Dublin, Ireland), Musee Carnavalet (Paris, France), The Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, TX) and private collections.

After being at the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, CA) from May through July 2017, and then the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Minneapolis, MN) from September through December 2017, the exhibition has its final stop at The Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, OH) from February through May 2018:


I asked Wendy, and she said YES, so I bought tickets and started planning:

The Museum tickets were for 2 PM Sunday, April 8, so Saturday we would go out I-90 through New York State, spending the night in Hamburg, NY. Sunday we would go to St. Anne's Anglican Church (Madison, OH), then Cleveland, and spend the night in Brookville, PA; and Monday just head on home (almost all museums are closed on Mondays).

We left home about 7:30 AM, and were at the Albany Institute of History & Art at 11:

I had visited here only 10 weeks ago (at the end of January), and I knew I wanted to get Wendy out here! They have two excellent exhibitions:

plus an exhibition that the ladies in my household love:


"45th Station: Shono", woodblock print, Reading Public Museum, Reading, PA:

To quote the Display Info Card: The image is considered the masterpiece of Hiroshige' Hoeido version of the Fifty-three Stations on the Tokaido Road.

The Hudson River School exhibition was as beautiful as I remembered it:

This time I will show you the five beauties by Homer Dodge Martin:
Bash Bish Falls, 1859

View on Lake George, c. 1859

Hudson River Waterfall, c. 1860

Storm King on the Hudson, 1862

Landscape with Boat, c. 1860-1870


We had a nice lunch in their cafe, then headed down the road.

Because we weren't "Museumed Out" just yet, we stopped at The Arkell Museum in Canajoharie, NY:


I had visited Arkell only once before, in November 2014, and I remember them having a wonderful Winslow Homer collection. Highlights today include:

Winslow Homer, On the Beach, c. 1869


Childe Hassam, Provincetown, 1900


Albert Bierstadt, El Capitan, ca. 1872-74


Then 3 1/2 hours down the road, and we got to Letchworth State Park, which contains the "Grand Canyon of the East". I loved my stop here at the end of my cross-country trip last August, and I'm really glad I got to show Wendy.





Then a little over an hour to get up to Hamburg, NY. Nice dinner at The Waterstone Grill, then bed at the Super 8.Thank you God for a GREAT Adventure DAY with my Wonderful Wife!

For my listening pleasure, I have been doing Shuffle Songs on my iPod. 17,869 songs means that I can certainly "shuffle off to Buffalo"!! and also Wendy read my book out loud:

Sotheby's NYC Spring 2018

Saturday, March 24, 2018 - I really enjoy my trips with Wendy to NYC to see Auction House and Gallery exhibitions, so I researched "The Spring Season" - Sotheby's is the only one having an auction around now, so we left the house a little before 7 AM. 4 easy hours down to NYC. SpotHero parking, and a great lunch at Cafe Luca, then a quick walk over to Sotheby's:


There were some BEAUTIFUL pictures on display for their American Art auction:
a pair of oils by Thomas Hill:

Yosemite Valley, (no date), and Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite, 1895

Edgar Alwin Payne - The Miner Peaks at Iceberg Lake, no date

It reminds me of when I visited Iceberg Lake in Glacier National Park in September 2013:

I don't know if it is the same Iceberg Lake, but it certainly was a lot more foggy!

Albert Bierstadt - California Coast, no date

Alfred Thompson Bricher - Lake George, 1863

David Johnson - A Study at Tamworth, N.H., 1863

Jasper Francis Cropsey - Autumn, 1880


Note from the Future - these pieces sold for:

Lot 80 - Thomas Hill - Yosemite Valley - $25,000
(estimate 20,000 - 30,000)

Lot 81 - Thomas Hill - Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite - $17,500
(estimate 20,000 - 30,000)

Lot 83 - Edgar Alwin Payne - The Miner Peaks at Iceberg Lake - unsold
(estimate 30,000 - 50,000)

Lot 157 - Albert Bierstadt - California Coast - $43,750
(estimate 20,000 - 30,000)

Lot 74 - Alfred Thompson Bricher - Lake George - unsold
(estimate 60,000 - 80,000)

Lot 62 - David Johnson - A Study at Tamworth, N.H. - $32,500
(estimate 8,000 - 12,000)

Lot 70 - Jasper Francis Cropsey - Autumn - $81,250
(estimate 30,000 - 50,000)

There were other wonderful pieces: 3 more Bierstadts, 2 more Brichers, 2 more Cropseys, plus Durand, Silva, and a pair by Childe Hassam.

Picked up the car around 2, dinner at home! Excellent Adventure-Time with my Beautiful Bride! Thank You God for these Great Days!

On the way home, Wendy read, for an hour, one of my books: "Sky's Witness: A Year in the Wind River Range" by C.L. Rawlins (1993):

She liked it a lot.

Music today:

The Rolling Stones - It's Only Rock 'n Roll, 1974


Van Morrison - It's Too Late to Stop Now, 1974 double live album


The Who - It's Hard, 1982


Bob Dylan - John Wesley Harding, 1967


Bob Dylan - Infidels, 1983


Roger Waters - in the flesh, 2000 double live album


Shameless Plug: if you enjoy this blog, you may like my other one about Hiking in New England (the 4,000 footers; the 100 Highest; WATERFALLS)
hyperlink: dixonheadingnorth
http://dixonheadingnorth.blogspot.com/

Mass. Museums & Adirondack Skiing, Day Two

Saturday, January 27, 2018 - Skiing at Whiteface Lake Placid, New York:


An hour-and-15-minutes to get up to Whiteface, then just over 5 hours to get home. Sleep in my own bed tonight!

Highway 74 West runs alongside a couple of beautiful lakes, frozen in the wintertime:

No time to stop and take pretty pictures, though.

At a rest stop, I think I read about my next hiking adventures:


After I-87, on 73 going through Keene Valley, I passed a REALLY COOL store - The Mountaineer:


It was before 9 AM, and there were a bunch of cars in the parking lot, and at least a dozen people inside. It made me SMILE, and reminded me of when I had breakfast in the Super 8 at Arches National Park - there were people with maps, people with hiking gear, people with high-carb/stick-to-your-ribs breakfasts! I LOVE THAT VIBE!

They had cool "raised relief" maps, and I bought a hiking map of the area.


Saturday morning, 10 AM:


The top of the gondola has a great viewing area

which looks south out over Lake Placid:

and then back up at the summit of Whiteface:


It was a good day for skiing - a little sun, not cold, not much wind:





After 3 or 4 runs, I was hungry, so I went in Boule's Bistro at the Mid-Station:

I was wondering why service was so slow (they were busy setting up pots and pans and various grill stuff), but I just burst out laughing when I checked the time and it WAS ONLY 11:15!!! I got a great cup of chili and hot chocolate, and had a SUPER view from a table at the window:


I did a bunch more runs up and down the mountain, and by 2 o'clock I was ready to hit the road. Drove east through New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and then down into Massachusetts. Guess where I had dinner?


Once again, Thank You God for my health, and for these wonderful adventures!!

After skiing, I listened to the last 3-of-6 cds for C.S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy, 1955

Chapter X. Fortune's Smile
...
As for the Earth, the country I grew up in had everything to encourage a romantic bent, had indeed done so ever since I first looked at the unattainable Green Hills through the nursery window. For the reader who knows those parts it will be enough to say that my main haunt was the Holywood Hills-the irregular polygon you would have described if you drew a line from Stormont to Comber, from Comber to Newtownards, from Newtownards to Scrabo, from Scrabo to Craigantlet, from Craigantlet to Holywood, and thence through Knocknagonney back to Stormont. How to suggest it all to a foreigner I hardly know. ...

Well, I think "a map" is a pretty good way "to suggest it all to a foreigner":


After C.S. Lewis, Music for today was 3 albums from my orange nano:

Grace Potter & The Nocturnals - This Is Somewhere, 2007

ok, but won't keep.

Dawes - Stories Don't End, 2013

good, and will keep.

Paul Simon - Stranger To Stranger (deluxe), 2016

I like it, and will keep it!