International Museum Day

Since today's hashtag is #InternationalMuseumDay, I thought I'd show you some of my favorite paintings from my local museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I'm incredibly lucky to be a subway ride away from The Met.  I can easily pop in any time and get a dose of great art, something I really needed when I hit a creative wall last year.

You could spend a month in the building and not see everything, so I picked out a few of the pieces that I'm sure to see every time I visit.

This is my all time favorite painting in The Met, Woman With A Pink, by Rembrandt.

Being a floral painter, I always stop to see the Fantin-Latour's.  Above is Summer Flowers, the painting below is Roses In A Bowl.

The Dance Class

Love all of Degas Dancer paintings and sculptures.

The Dancing Class

Of course, I always visit the VanGogh's.  This is one of my favorites of the Sunflowers.  One of these days I'm going to try doing a copy of it.

Roses, Vincent Van Gogh

I can't pass by the most famous woman in The Met, Sargent's Madame X.

The Pink Dress, Berthe Morisot

I always visit the Monet's.  Years ago while visiting France, I trekked to Rouen just to see the Cathedral.  It was pretty amazing to see the building that I knew so well from the paintings.

Garden At Sainte Adresse

Morning On The Seine Near Giverny

I hope you enjoyed seeing a few of my favorite paintings from The Met.  By the way, these and thousands more of their works are now in the public domain, so if anything catches your eye, you can download the images for yourself.  Have a good weekend and enjoy the Royal Wedding!

A Visit To The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

On my recent visit to Santa Fe, visiting the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum was at the top of my list of places to see.  I've seen O'Keeffe's work in various museums, but I had never seen a complete exhibition of her work, so it was very interesting to see so much of it in one place.

As I'm still typing with one hand, I'm just going to post the paintings, but if you would like the title of a specific painting, leave me a comment and I'll post it there.

I've always been a fan of the floral paintings.  The prevailing wisdom over the years is that they are representing vaginas, even making it into a Breaking Bad episode.  However, I just happened upon an article in The Guardian regarding the 2016 O'Keefe show at the Tate Modern, stating that the reference to female genitalia came from Alfred Stieglitz, not from O'Keeffe herself, and that she always denied that there was a sexual component to the paintings.

If you are ever in Santa Fe, don't miss seeing this museum.  Not only is it filled with beautiful artwork, but I must give a shout out to the staff.  Everyone from the ladies at the reception desk to the security guards could not have been nicer or more helpful.  Since that is not always the case here in New York, it was a nice change.  They also have lockers available, so you don't have to schlep your stuff all over the museum.

Hope you enjoyed seeing these paintings.  I'll have more Santa Fe photos coming soon.


UPDATE:  I forgot one of my favorite pics, Georgia's paintbox!

A Visit To The NC Wyeth Home and Studio

I recently went on a fun road trip to NC Wyeth's home and studio in lovely Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.

The house and studio are part of the Brandywine Conservancy and Museum.  Upon arrival at the museum, you can purchase a ticket for the tour and then ride over on the shuttle bus.  Our guide (a retired art teacher) was at the house to greet us.

The grounds are absolutely beautiful.  In 1911, with the proceeds from his illustrations of Treasure Island, Wyeth purchased the land and built the house and studio.  The tour started with a walk through the house.

The photo above is NC with his wife Carolyn (known as Carol) and their five children.  None of the family is alive today.  The home and studio were passed to the Conservancy upon the death of daughter Carolyn, an artist who lived at the home her entire life and worked and taught classes in the studio.

Even after the home got electricity, NC insisted the family continue to dine by candlelight.

Carol had quite the dish collection and was clearly a blue and white lover like myself.

Upstairs are NC and Carol's bedrooms as well as the kids rooms.  Some of the rooms were built on as the family expanded.

Next we moved on to the studio.  I have to tell you, this building is enormous.  At least three times the size of my apartment!  We started in an entryway that contained books and props.

Portrait of Andrew Wyeth ( Andrew is currently having a centennial year exhibition in the museum).

We then walked into the actual studio.  It is amazing.  All the books, props and supplies look like someone just finished painting.  The museum is doing a great job of preserving the space.

It was impossible to get a good shot, but in the corner hangs NC's paint covered smock.  I wonder if anyone will want a picture of mine someday!?

Portrait of Carolyn Wyeth.

Can you believe these frames?  They are beautiful.  There were a bunch of them just hanging around.

This is the most amazing contraption.  It is so large that I could not get a photo of the whole thing.  It is a staircase on wheels.  NC used it to work on very large paintings.  He could just walk up and down and move the whole thing to wherever he needed.  Considering I'm suffering through an 18x24 right now, this is pretty impressive!

Our last stop was the prop room, which was more like the prop apartment.  The room is enormous and filled with all of the props needed for paintings and illustrations.

After the tour we went back to the museum to see the Andrew Wyeth show.  I hope you enjoyed this look into the Wyeth home and studio.  It makes me very happy to see art studios being preserved for generations of artists and art lovers to visit.   I will have a separate post up soon to show you some of the work from Andrew's exhibition.