Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
I've had a very pleasant vacation week; aside from Thursday when it rained the weather cooperated nicely. Saw my ophthalmologist and determined that nothing had changed which is good insofar as I was a little concerned that something might have happened with my retina but bad in that my vision continues to be a little cloudy. Nothing to do though other than keep going back each year and try to avoid any other problems.
Got over to IKEA and bought and assembled four more bookcases which I needed desperately. IKEA is a difficult place. They accept online orders and in store orders but not telephone orders. I wanted the bookcases delivered as they are made of particle board and each one weighs 83 lbs. The store doesn't have enough employees and is laid out in a maze like setting where it's sometimes impossible to find your way around. The delivery charge was reasonable, a flat $59, but if I wasn't willing to go down to the warehouse and pick out the items myself there would be an additional $40 charge. So I pulled these things off the rack and pushed them to the checkout then pushed them to the home delivery counter. If you have ever pushed a cart with almost 350 pounds of dead weight the length of a football field you may understand why three days later my thighs are still sore. But I will say the delivery was swift, they said they could deliver it the same day between 6PM and 10PM and they were there are 5:55 PM. Which I was especially pleased about as I'm not sure I could have stayed awake until 10PM. Way past my bedtime.
On a more entertaining note, I saw a few nice exhibits.
First I went to the Museum of Modern Art and saw "American Modern: Hopper to O'Keeffe." This was basically MOMAs chance to bring things out that aren't usually on display and what they brought out was much of what I enjoy. The first things I saw were the Hoppers, three oils including Night Windows and House by the Railroad, three watercolors including box factory and Mrs. Acorn's Parlor and five etchings including Night Shadows. I don't think I had seen the watercolors before but it was wonderful to see all of them. O'Keeffe was represented by her colorful and black and white abstracts. There was Charles Sheeler industrial art, an oil painting of a barn with a photo next to it as well as an old Ford factory depicted in oil and a lithograph. I've seen some of Sheeler's drawings that if sitting next to a photo were hard to determine which was which. They brought out a Grant Wood lithograph of a Farmer resting after driving a field of fence posts. It's so rare to see any Grant Wood aside from American Gothic. They had up Andrew Wyeth's Cristina's World which has grown on me. I wasn't that impressed early on but as the years have passed I've come to really appreciate it. It's certainly a crowd pleaser. They had up two Charles Demuth watercolors of fruit and vegetables, Corn and Peaches and Eggplant and Tomatoes. It sounds silly to rave about fruit but these are extraordinarily beautiful. The Met had an exhibit of Demuth which had many of these watercolors in it and it was one of the most enjoyable shows I've seen. There were many others, 150 in total and I truly enjoyed just about all of them. I must note that the NY Times gave it a lukewarm review basically saying that they had better stuff in the attic they could have brought down. Regardless, I was pleased I went and wish they would bring things down from their attic more often. MOMA has a search function where you can search their entire collection by artist and see an image of each piece in their collection. This is a link to the H page if you care to look for some of the things I mentioned.
http://www.moma.org/collection/artist_index.php?start_initial=H&end_initial=H&unparsed_search=2&role=1 The following day I visited the National Academy of Design. They had an exhibit of Reginald Marsh, an early 20th Century artist. His style according to Wikipedia was social realism but it could just as easily be described as ashcan art. He studied under John Sloan. I've seen his work before but this is was the first extensive exhibit and it had many wonderful things in it. He was fond of painting street scenes, people in front of theaters and he always very carefully recreated the marquee with the movie titles and performers. He captured the depression in an interior of an employment agency and the hustle and bustle of daily life in BMT 14th Street. He was fond of Coney Island and went there to sketch before creating beach scenes. They showed some of his photographs as well as photos by Weegee of similar themes. Very enjoyable. This is a link to a Washington Post article on the exhibit.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/art-review-swing-time-reginald-marsh-and-thirties-new-york/2013/08/15/1e7214fa-0071-11e3-96a8-d3b921c0924a_story.html Instead of the Hudson River school landscapes which they usually have on display, the Society had 200 years of American Painting. While I missed the landscapes this was a pleasant surprise as there were many things I've never seen before. Notably portraits by the Peales, Gilbert Stuart, Benjamin West, Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, William Sidney Mount and John F. Kensett, as well as John Singer Sargent and Childe Hassam. All in all a splendid collection.
Finally, I went back to the Met to visit the European Galleries again and also to see "Eighteenth-Century Pastels." An exhibit that opened earlier this month which had slipped my mind. Like the MOMA exhibit it was another attic show, the majority were from their permanent collection but not usually on display. No very big names here but some exceedingly beautiful portraits of Eighteenth Century notables such as the younger sister of Louis XVI. In the article, one of the illustrations is of two young sisters beautifully dressed, the younger one sitting on a toy horse. In a nice juxtaposition it is a copy of a Fragonard oil painting which was in the next gallery. The copy was made before the Fragonard was cut for some reason, eliminating the horse and other items. Seeing this is like finding buried treasure.
This is a link to a nice article about the exhibit.
http://www.thecultureconcept.com/circle/metropolitan-museum-of-art-new-york-18th-century-pastels I can definitely see myself visiting the Met on a weekly basis when I retire. So much to see and see again.
Andy G.
Nephew & Brother at Relay for Life
http://www.flickr.com/photos/20260725@N08/3618612722/ en femme in Berlin
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23178876@N06/9299090075/ Hanging out with boys in dresses.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43624159@N00/9333960547/pink and white sissy
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22704178@N07/9341149877/ Ready for some dusting...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/75021159@N05/9350227725/ Sparkle 2013 - Sat Night
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64791749@N00/9346776948/Bridget
http://www.flickr.com/photos/98950720@N04/9316802172/Pageant Sissy
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22704178@N07/9341142043/ 06-29-13 WTF Big Gay Wedding (27)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31704706@N05/9325410288/ Lauren; Lipsy; Aqua Prom Dress (7)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47184151@N03/9323853728/SDCC 2013 Cosplay 382 - Power Puff ..Girls?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42115329@N08/9329242139/208
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21000067@N04/9400728132/
Betty's Pub 20.1
Topic: It's the it might as well be Spring Flickr as the Winter Flickr is now locked! (Read 29894 times)
