Pennsylvania Art Museums: Day 3/4

Saturday, Nov. 2, 2019 - Wendy has a Retreat this weekend up in New Hampshire, so I'm on a 4-day road-trip, mostly focused on Pennsylvania Art Museums. Today will be my big "Trip West":


I left the Super 8 in Carlisle at 7 AM, and got to the Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh, PA) at 10:00:03:

It opens at 10 AM, so pretty pretty pretty good timing, if I do say so myself!

I have been here once before (10/8/2013). I wanted to come back and get Better Pictures than I had gotten before, and see new art from their collection. Highlights include:

Thomas Moran - "Clearing in the Mountains", 1865 oil:


Martin Johnson Heade - "Thunderstorm at the Shore", c. 1870-1871 oil:


Jasper Cropsey - "Florence", 1875 oil:


Vincent van Gogh - "Wheat Fields after the Rain (The Plain of Auvers)", 1890 oil:


Jackson Pollock - "Number 4", 1950 oil:


And YES - IT WAS PRETTY COOL hanging out with Monet's "Water Lilies (Nymphéas)", c. 1915 - 1926 oil:


It took me an hour to go 31 miles east, to The Westmoreland Museum of American Art (Greensburg, PA):

Good thing I have "Road Food":


I have been here once before (10/11/2016). I wanted to come back and get Better Pictures than I had gotten before, and see new art from their collection (no "Special Tour" this time). Highlights include:

Jervis McEntee - "Twilight on the River", c. 1875 oil:


Childe Hassam - "The Outer Harbour", 1909 oil:


Worthington Whittredge - Home by the Sea, c. 1872 oil:


And I always appreciate seeing something from the Cape and Islands when I'm out here on the road - Joseph McGurl - "Nantucket Harbor", 1994 oil:


I was originally planning on visiting a gallery in Carlisle, PA, which closed at 4. I have had a difficult time hitting it over the years - it is just far enough away that it is closed by the time I get there, or it is not open on the weekends. And it turns out that today continues that string - on my way to Pittsburgh, I passed a sign for "Flight 93 National Memorial". At the next rest stop, I checked Google Maps on my phone, and it is on US Hwy 30, 42 miles east of Greensburg. So I headed east and got there at 1:30 PM:



Like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., or Gettysburg nearby, this is a very somber place. Visitors pay their respects to the passengers and crew who sacrificed themselves to stop one of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 - this plane was headed for the White House:


The Visitor-Center area has an open area, directly along the flight path:



The inscription reads: "A common field one day. A field of honor forever."

I hiked the 3/4-mile path down to the Wall of Names/Memorial Plaza:



The boulder marks the crash site:


Looking back up at the Visitor Center:




Back up closer to the highway is a beautiful tower - the Tower of Voices:


It is unfinished, but it looks like it will be a beautiful installation (it already is!)

Sure is pretty driving through the Pennsylvania countryside:


So, I wasn't going to make The Trout Gallery back in Carlisle --- so I decided to GO TO PARIS!

"New Paris, Pennsylvania 15554", that is - ha ha ha, I crack me up!

Made it to the Rodeway Inn in Lebanon, PA - pizza and college football. I'm All Set!


Thank you God for this great Art Day!

Today, for my listening pleasure, it is a cd I burned with mp3s back in August 2000:

Joe Jackson - Night and Day, 1982


lyrics "Steppin' Out":
Get into a car and drive

Joni Mitchell - Night Ride Home, 1991


Jimmy Page and Robert Plant - Walking into Clarksdale, 1998


Patti Scialfa - Rumble Doll, 1993


Rickie Lee Jones - Pop Pop, 1991

An album of covers - the Best 2 are Jimi Hendrix's "Up from the Skies" and "Comin' Back to Me" from the first Jefferson Airplane album.

Neil Young - Silver & Gold, 2000

There is a great line in the song "Without Rings" - "Fighting drugs with pain."

The Rolling Stones - Some Girls, 1978


The Rolling Stones - Stripped, 1995 studio + live


Jefferson Airplane - Surrealistic Pillow, 1967 first album


James Taylor - That's Why I'm Here, 1985


Tom Waits - The Black Rider, 1993

This album is garbage - Waits just growling and yelling. Now I know why I don't have anything by him since the late-70s (when he was Really Cool).

Pennsylvania Art Museums: Day 2/4

Friday, Nov. 1, 2019 - Wendy has a Retreat this Friday-Saturday-Sunday up in New Hampshire, so I'm leaving a day early for a 4-day road-trip, mostly focused on Pennsylvania Art Museums. I needed to do a mid-week day visit to see the University art collections (Penn and Drexel), so Friday I would visit Philadelphia Art Museums:


Although I would have 150 miles on the road today:

90% of that would be after Philadelphia. So the morning looks like this:

with a zoom-in on the important stuff:

The Red Circles are my Art Adventures, and the Black Xs are my parking stops.

This will be my first visit to Drexel University, so 2 weeks ago I wrote their Director of their Collection about seeing their 6 artworks by Edmund Darch Lewis (2), Thomas Moran, William Trost Richards, Felix Ziem and Giovanni Battista Piranesi. She wrote back that although the Lewis works are unavailable, we should be able to see the others - how does 10:30 AM sound?

Well, I think that sounds GREAT!

So my next question is Logistics - although Google Maps says it takes 27 minutes to go the 16.5 miles from the Econo Lodge to the parking lot at Drexel, how long does it REALLY TAKE??

So I took a nice picture of the Crosstrek in the morning light, and headed off to Philly a little after 8 AM:


I crossed over the Delaware River into northeast Philadelphia, and headed down into Central City:


Although there was traffic, we were all moving fairly nicely, and I was parked by 9 AM. So I took a quick walk over to 30th Street Station to see their beautiful statue by Walter Hancock, alternately called the "Pennsylvania Railroad World War II Memorial" and the "Angel of the Resurrection":



A magnificent piece in a magnificent space.

fyi On display in the Cape Ann Museum (Gloucester) are two scale models of the work, both done in plaster.

After I got my breath back, I still had plenty of time before Drexel, so I went over to Penn.

I have previously had a difficult time seeing the art collection at the University of Pennsylvania. Although they have a newly-renovated "Penn Museum", its former name was "The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology"; hence, no paintings. Their Paintings/Art Collection is scattered around campus (I can sort-of see that - they are now seen by many more people/students than if they were tucked away in a gallery). Penn has pieces by Thomas Cole, Auguste Rodin, William Stanley Haseltine, Utagawa Hiroshige, Andrew Wyeth, and N.C. Wyeth. Two weeks ago I started correspondence with the Art Collections Manager (Penn Art Collection, University of Pennsylvania), and she told me that although the Hazeltine and Andrew Wyeth pieces "are in private offices of senior university staff that are not available for viewing" [and the Hiroshige is in storage], the other 3 pieces can be seen around campus. So I made a map:

Well, the N.C. Wyeth was in Hill House Atrium. Since Hill House is a dorm, I need "an active Penn ID card" to enter the building; well, better luck next time. So I headed up Locust Walk, past my old Psi Upsilon frat house:


A little farther up Locust Walk was Steinberg Dietrich Hall, with Rodin's "Jean D'Aire", 1889 in the lobby:


Back down Locust Walk to the Van Pelt Library, and in their 6th Floor Reading Room is Thomas Cole's "The Last of the Mohicans: The Death of Cora":



I returned to Drexel, and had a cup of coffee while waiting for my 10:30


Lynn was right on time, and I was able to see Thomas Moran - "Ripening of the Leaf (Autumn on the Wissahickon)", 1863 oil:


William Trost Richards - "The Wissahickon", 1872 oil:


Other highlights include "The Storage Area":

where I got to see Piranesi's "Plan of Rome and the Campus Martius", 1774 engraving:



After saying "Thank You", I got back to my car. That was a great 4.5-mile morning walk around West Philadelphia:


I then drove over to my SpotHero parking lot on N 20th Street, and walked over-and-down to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In addition to their regular (WONDERFUL) collection, they have a special exhibition - "From the Schuylkill to the Hudson: Landscapes of the Early American Republic", running from June 28 to Dec. 29, 2019


Highlights of the Exhibition and their Collection include:

Albert Bierstadt - "Niagara", 1869 oil:


Thomas Cole - "View of Sicily", 1842-45 oil:


Frederic Edwin Church - "Valley of Santa Ysabel, New Granada", 1875 oil:


they have a lovely display area next door in their original building:


Winslow Homer - "Fox Hunt", 1893 oil:


After a nice lunch in their cafeteria, I walked up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art:



I have been here 3 times before 4/22/2014, 10/24/2015 and 4/22/2017. I wanted to come back and get Better Pictures than I had gotten before - The place still looks great!

Not repeating myself from previous blogs, Wonderful Highlights include:

Thomas Cole - "Landscape, the Seat of Mr. Featherstonhaugh in the Distance", 1826 oil:
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Winslow Homer - "A Huntsman and Dogs", 1891 oil:


Winslow Homer - "A Temperance Meeting", 1874 oil:


Claude Monet - "Bend in the Epte River near Giverny", 1888 oil:


Claude Monet - "Poplars, Three Trees in Autumn", 1891 oil:


Claude Monet - "Poplars, End of Autumn", 1891 oil:


Vincent van Gogh - "Rain", 1889 oil:


Pablo Picasso - "Man with a Violin", 1911-12 oil:

This is 1-of-25 Picassos that I have taken a picture of in the past 6 years. I didn't think that I liked Picasso, but I think I will write a blog about them next week.

Canaletto - "The Bucintoro on Ascension Day, Docked in Front of the Doge's Palace", c. 1745 oil:


Francesco Guardi - "The Meeting of Pope Pius VI and Doge Paolo Renier at San Giorgio in Alga", 1782 oil:


Hubert Robert - "Ruins of a Roman Bath with Washerwomen", after 1766 oil:


J.M.W. Turner - "Bonneville, Savoy", c. 1812 oil:


Nice view from an upstairs window::


Said goodbye to the Museum, and walked back to my car - a good 5.7-mile afternoon hike:


Drove 135 miles out to the Super 8 in Carlisle, PA:

Dinner out at Chick-fil-A (and reading my Expanse scifi book) - WOW, What A GREAT Art Day!! Thank you God!

Today, for my listening pleasure, I am listening to a special Philadelphia-based selection from my iPod:

various artists - soundtrack to "Philadelphia", 1994


Todd Rundgren - Something/Anything?, 1972


The Who - Quadrophenia, 1973 double album