Researching, Part 3

This is the final installment of my Researching Trilogy.

While I was going through the Meltsner file at the Met I discovered the Brooklyn Museum had two Meltsner files. The next day I took the trek to Brooklyn.
The Meltsner files at the Brooklyn Museum were pretty useful and the librarians were the nicest I encountered on my trip. Here's another of Meltsner's Graham. It's much better than the image I had before the trip.
After my work in the library I went to explore the museum.

I really liked the American wing. They had a nice display with paintings and objects intermingled.
I got one more look at Gilbert Stuart's George Washington. (On the right. Charles Willson Peale's Washington is on the left). I saw Stuart's Washington at the National Portrait Gallery, the Met, and the Brooklyn Museum. Stuart's Washington is everywhere.
On the left is another Marsden Hartley. Hartley is one of Nate's favorite American modernists, and he was quite envious that I saw so many good Hartleys on this trip. The painting on the upper right is by George L.K. Morris. It was a featured work in the paper that I wrote for my 1930s American Art Seminar. Below is another Raphaelle Peale still life.


I also found this painting in Brooklyn. It's Max Weber's Russian Ballet. Seeing it was both exciting and horrifying because I knew it had to be in my dissertation.
So, finding the Max Weber made for a bit of additional work and another trip to the museum's library.

Then I checked out the period rooms. I was really liking period rooms on this trip. Like the one below with all the Noah's Arc animals all getting ready to cram themselves into the boat.
The Brooklyn Museum also has Judy Chicago's Dinner Party. It was pretty awesome to see in person.
And, jumping way, way back in time, I also really liked these Assyrian reliefs. This is a human-headed genie sprinkling pollen on a sacred tree.
After wrapping up things at the Brooklyn Museum, I jumped back on the subway and headed all the way up to Lincoln Center to go to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Here it is:
And here's the temple that is just across the street:
At the NYPL I watched some videos of Ruth St. Denis. I didn't have as much time there as I had planned because I had to go to Brooklyn unexpectedly, but I think it all worked out for the best.

I left the library at closing and everyone was gathering for the opera.
The next morning I was awakened at 2am by Jessica who had finally arrived from Connecticut. Hooray. We slept in, ate a big breakfast, and made it to the Museum of Modern Art just after opening.

MoMA was packed. Next time I'm going on Tuesday or something.
Still, it was great. Kind of like being in your modern art textbook. (Above is Barnett Newman's Vir Heroicus Sublimis)

They have lots of lovely Picasso, including The Three Musicians and Ma Jolie (also Les Demoiselles d'Avignon but I didn't take a picture).
Here's Max Ernst's surrealist gem Two Children are Threatened by a Nightingale.
The space itself is lovely too. Here is a view of the courtyard.
And a view of the floors punctuated by an Alexander Calder mobile.
There was a big Abstract Expressionist exhibition on when we were there. It seemed rather appropriate being in New York and looking at works by the New York School.
We show our enthusiasm for Jackson Pollock.
Then we walked through the East End to the Whitney Museum of American Art.
The Whitney had a really nice Edward Hopper exhibition, but I didn't take any pictures. I was little museumed-out.

So, the cure for that was lunch at Alice's Tea Cup. The restaurant is decorated with stuff from Alice in Wonderland, and they serve tons of kinds of tea and scones and little sandwiches. It was very exciting, as you can see.
We walked back to Times Square through Rockefeller Center.
Then we went and bought student rush tickets to A Little Night Music (starring Bernedette Peters and Elaine Strich), rested, ate, and enjoyed the show.

Jess left the next day to head back to Boston (she just works in Connecticut). And I got ready to leave too, but before I did I went to FOA Schwarz and watched the Big Piano Show. It was really pretty cool.
Some final shots of the city.
Then I took the subway to Queens and a bus to LaGuardia. (I was pretty proud of myself for figuring out how to get to the airport for $6 rather than $50.)

The trip was great. I did a lot of work, took a lot of public transportation, and saw a lot of cool stuff. And I got to visit with Cristy and Jessica. Everyone at home survived just fine without me thanks to Grandma Dorothy. Beckett was a little mad that I had been gone so long, but he liked me again in just a couple days.

Researching, Part 2

I was going to do two posts for my trip, D.C. and NYC, but I have too many New York pictures. So seeing as the Metropolitan Museum of Art is practically it's own universe, I decided it deserves it's own post.

My bus from D.C. arrived in New York City at about 10:30pm. I walked up 7th Ave to my hotel through Times Square. It's a very bright place.
The next morning I had an appointment at the Met's library to see an artist's file. I walked there through Central Park. I was glad that I did because it was my only chance to go through the park, and it was so pretty.
I finally made it to the museum.
I spent my morning here, in the Watson Library, looking through their Paul Meltsner file. If his name doesn't sound familiar it's because he's pretty much a forgotten artist these days.
After I finished going through the file and doing a bit of other research it was about 12:30, and I decided to see the museum. I started with European art.

Artists clockwise from upper left: Tiepolo, Rodin, Canova, Stubbs, Rodin, David, Caravaggio, Vermeer

Then I made my way over to the American Wing. This is the American courtyard.
After a quick detour through the musical instruments (awesome) where I gazed down on these fellows, I ate lunch and prepared to tackle the American Wing full-force.
One of the lovely things about a museum as big and as maze-like as the Met is that no matter how crowded it is you can find someplace quiet. The American section was very quiet. That was probably due to the fact that a lot of the art wasn't on display due to construction on the upper floors.

I saw John Vanderlyn's Cyclorama, a 360 degree view of Versailles.
Then I wandered through the reconstructed rooms, which really was one of my favorite parts of the museum. Here I am in the mirror.
Here's the Frank Lloyd Wright Room.
This room was the oldest on display in the American section. It's from a 1680 house in Ipswich Massachusetts.
There was a special exhibition of 20th-century American paintings (I could have jumped for joy), and an exhibition of American landscapes.

Artist's clockwise from upper left: Marsden Hartley, Georgia O'Keeffe, Thomas Cole, Grant Wood,
Thomas Cole detail, Hartley detail, Stuart Davis, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Charles Sheeler

The Met also has Luce Foundation visible storage! Look at all that furniture.

Next I wandered through Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. They were setting up for a party in the Egyptian temple room. Pretty sweet location for a party.
Visitors can walk through this Egyptian building.
Here are some highlights from Greece and Rome:
The Met is a very big place with hundreds of rooms. It's one of those museums where you must keep your visitor's guide handy at every moment if you don't want to a) miss anything or b) get lost. It reminded me a little of the Louvre in that sense, but at least here you don't keep getting dumped out into the room with the French Neoclassical Sculptures.
The Met has a lovely collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionists paintings. Predictably, it was the most crowded section of the museum. Here are the Van Gogh's getting a lot of love.

Artists clockwise from upper left: Monet, Gauguin, Monet, Cezanne

And from the Modern Sections:

Artist clockwise from upper left: Picasso, Pollock (detail), Van Gogh (detail), Kline, Brancusi, Segal
(Paige, it is a particularly nice Segal. You would like it.)

On my way out I stopped by the armored fellows again.

And then jumped into the studiolo for a minute. These rooms were trendy in Italy during the early Renaissance. The walls are illusions constructed entirely of wood inlay.
I left the Met at closing time and walked the few short blocks to gaze at the Guggenheim. After a day in the Met I feel like Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Guggenheim, with it's continuous spiraling floor plan, in direct opposition to the hundreds of maze-like rooms in the Met.
Then, because it was raining hard, I took the subway back to Times Square and went and bought student rush tickets to Promises, Promises, staring Sean Hayes and Kristen Chenoweth.
I didn't know the musical was based on the movie The Apartment until after it started. The movie is a bit more satirical than the mostly funny musical. It was still quite enjoyable.

Another busy day gone.