LACMA 50 for 50

The idea of waiting for something 

makes it more exciting.

~Andy Warhol

It's the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's 50th anniversary, and to celebrate? Fifty new fabulous gifts (promised) to the museum! My parents got the invite but were unable to attend the patron party, and though I couldn't find someone to go last minute, I decided to take myself on a little artist's date. (Did any of you do the Artist's Way?)

Normally the patrons get a little coffee/dessert reception in the patio near Ray's Stark Bark, but this was a much swankier surprise!

This is a GREAT video! Old footage and birthday messages! :)

Many more desserts, lovely indoor seating areas, flowers ... and wine!

I checked out the first room of the exhibition, then decided to have my wine before exploring the rest of the works. I'm such a cheap date, one glass of wine and I have to wait around. Anyway ... on to the art!

Roy Lichtenstein

Interior with Three Hanging Lamps, 1991

Oil and Magna on Canvas

Serpent Headdress

(a-Mantsho-na-Tshol)

Republic of Guinea, Baba peoples,

possibly late 18th century

Wood with pigments 

At one point this piece of African art was in Matisse's studio!

I like to pretend that my art has nothing to do with me.
~Roy Lichtenstein 

Claude Monet

France, 1840-1926)

Two Women in a Garden, c. 1872

Oil on canvas

The richness I achieve comes from nature,

the source of my inspiration.

~Claude Monet

Standing in front of this lovely Monet, I suddenly became very emotional at the idea that this beautiful painting and all the others were going to be gifted to my museum, my city. I took it very personally ... in the very best way.

François Boucher
France, 1703-1770
Leda and the Swan, 1742
Oil on canvas

Nature is too green and badly lit.

~Francois Boucher

(hahaha!)

Albrecht Dürer
Germany, 1471-1528
Melencolia I, 1514
Engraving

If a man devotes himself to art, much evil is avoided 

that happens other if one is idle.

~Albrecht Durer 

Andy Warhol
United Staes, 1928-1987
Two Marilyns, 1962
Silkscreen ink and pencil on linen

Don't think about making art.

Just get it done.

Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad.

Whether they love it or hate it.

While they are deciding,

make even more art.

~Andy Warhol

As you can see, there is quite an array of works, which is pretty representative of the museum as a whole. A bit of everything and something for everyone. There were also some great old photos from Hawaii and Duke Kahanamoku's surfboard!

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

France, 1780-1867

The Virgin wight he Host, 1860

Oil on canvas

Drawing is the honesty of art.

~Ingres

Hans Memling
Active Flanders, c. 1430-94
Christ Blessing, 1480-85
Oil on Baltic oak panel

Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini
Italy (Rome), 1598-1680
Portrait of a Gentleman
c. 1670-75

One of my greatest influences the Italian artist

Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

~Frank Gehry

James McNeill Whistler
United States, 1834-1903
Black Lion Wharf, 1859
From the "Thames Set," 1871

An artist is not paid for his labor

but for his vision.

~James Whistler

(love that!)

Janus Reliquary Guardian Figure
Gabonese Republic or Republic of the Congo,
Kota Peoples, Ndassa group
Mid 19th century
Wood, copper, brass, iron and cowrie shell

Painting relates to both 

art and life.

Neither can be made-

I try to act in the gap.

~Robert Rauschenberg

Robert Rauschenberg
United States, 1925-2008
Monday Duck (Urban Bourbon)
1995
Acrylic on mirrored and bonded aluminum

Value the process.

~Robert Rauschenberg

Evert time I'v moved,

my work has changed radically.

~Robert Rauschenberg

I wasn't aloud to take pictures of this bequest but they gave us a beautiful program. The bequest is the largest ever to LACMA by far ...

It includes Toulouse-Lautrec's Jane Avril: Profile of a Woman (1893), Dance by Jean Baptiste Carpeaux, Edouard Vuillard's Sacha guilty in His Dressing Room, 1911 (LOVE!), Nude study for Little Dancer by Edgar Degas modeled 1878, and the gorgeous Degas piece At the Café: The Song of the Dog, 1875. Amazing! This is a photo collage I made with my iPhone from the program.

I have tried to do what is true and not ideal.

~ Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Another piece is this Kees Van Dongen ... which I also LOVE!

Painting is the most beautiful of lies.

~Kees Van Dongen

It's all very inspiring and exciting that all these pieces will be in my town!

Back to have to the reception to have an herbal tea in the reception ...
Groovy chairs, huh? I sat on the sofa though.

DeWain Valentine

Red Concave Circle, 1970

Outside ... under Chris Burden's "Urban Light." (2008) Chris Burden passed away last month. To read more about him, click here.

'Limits' is a relative term.
Like beauty, it is often in the eye of the beholder.
~Chris Burden

Here's an very interesting interview with Michael Govan about the future of LACMA and about the collections. They show slides of the future building, as well as the the new acquisitions. 

I love LACMA. I remember driving from Ventura when I was little to LA, having breakfast at the old IHOP on Wilshire and seeing the King Tut exhibition. It was a huge deal. I remember when I was maybe 19 going to the huge Hockney exhibition and falling in love with color ... and when I moved to L.A. it was a huge gift to my life. And then, 17 years ago I moved about 6 or 7 minutes away from the museum. Lucky lucky me!

To read about the Perenchio bequest and see more of that collection, click here.

To see all the gifts in the 50 for 50 show, click here.

Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, 
as if it were necessary to understand, 
when it is simply  necessary to love.
~Claude Monet

Autry Museum of Western Heritage

Roseta Santiago 

Return to the Indian Building

oil on linen

24 x 30 in.

Masters of The American West

2015

Please click on the Artists' names to take you to their website.

All photos were taken with my iPhone so they are not print quality.

Here's some majestic spiritual, Native American Flute music f

rom R. Carlos Nakai - Kokopelli Wind

John Coleman

Honeymoon at Crow Fair

Bronze

(Marjorie and Frank Sands Patron' Choice Award, and The Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation Award for Sculpture.)

From the website:

"The Autry’s Masters of the American West Fine Art Exhibition and Sale is considered the country’s premier Western art show. Each year, more than 75 nationally recognized, contemporary Western artists challenge themselves to create and exhibit their very best work. Stylistically and thematically diverse, their works represent the extraordinary range of subject matter that contemporary, historic, and mythic Western experiences inspire."

My parents looking at a painting by Z.S. Liang, called Solicitation for Leadership  (95,000 and it, like most all the others on this post, was sold.)

Even with it being all figurative work (realism, non abstract etc) there was quite a variety, and all of the pieces are for sale. Most of the work had been sold by the time we all met there for my grandma's birthday. She was so excited to go see the show and I hadn't gone for a couple of years.

Z.S. Liang
Keeper of the Thunder Medicine Pipe
Oil on linen canvas
48 x 28 in.

This following piece was so beautiful, especially in person. Beautiful light!! My favorite of the show.

George Hallmark
The Prayer
oil on linen
24 x 20 in.

For landscapes, these following smaller pieces were just jewels! So beautiful! I want to look at more work by this artist. I wonder if he teaches workshop. I mean, seriously.

Cyrus Afsary
After the Rain
oil on linen
16 x20 in.

Cyrus Afsary
Reflection
oil on linen
18 x 24 in.

Really loved this piece below, as well. Large and very abstract the way he did the composition. Beautiful work.

Len Chmiel
Geological Illusions
oil
38 x 39 in.

George Carlson
Witness of Time
oil on linen
42 x 42 in.
(Ross and Billie McKnight Artist' Choice Award, and Masters of the American West Purchase Award)

This piece above won all sorts of awards. The light was wonderful and the texture was so cool, so I'm posting a detail of it, underneath.

Here is an interview with the artist ...

John Coleman
In the Shadow of Ancestors
oil on canvas
50 x 34 in.
(Same artist that did the large bronze sculpture, second photo from the top. Love the way he paints skin and the shadow of the fringe or her knee was amazing.)

William Acheff

Quiet Steps

oil 

5 x 10 in.

(So detailed and lovely! This was a treasure of a painting!)

Interview with the artist above. Great after 2:00 especially.

Calvin Liang
Sunset Sailing in Newport Beach
oil on canvas
18 x 24 in.
(My mom was freaking out over this. She's a painter too.)

From Calvin Liang Workshop

This following portrait is a small piece by Mian Situ. He usually has my favorite pieces in the show. They are always stunning. You should really check him out online. You will be blown away.

Mian Situ
The Blue Scarf
oil on canvas
12 x 9 in.

This is a slideshow of his work. :)

Here is Mian Situ interviewed ...

Jeremy Lipking (below) is an artist whose work I have been following for years. A friend of mine and I went to a show 10 or 15 years ago, I think in West Hollywood. I can't remember, but the first work I saw was a beautiful nude in the woods, painted so gorgeously with these luscious strokes of oil paint that reminded me of John Singer Sargent.

Jeremy Lipking
Walk Through Painted Deserts
oil on linen

The next one is by Lipking, as well. Explore his work here when you get the chance.

Jeremy Lipking
Young Girl in Profile
oil on linen
20 x 16 in.

Jeremy Lipking
Riders Under Vermilion Cliffs
oil on linen
8 x 10 in.

Below, another great exhibition. After seeing the little moccasins in one of the paintings above, it got my wheels turning about subject matter. (I have Iroquois on my dad's side.)

I put a piece of myself, my family, and my ancestors 
in every piece I make.

I want everyone to see and feel how my people would have lived 
hundreds of years ago, 
for each piece I make is done the old way.

~Glenda McKay

Sioux-Métis frock coat

1850-1875

Deerskin, cotton, wool, glass beads, quills, silk ribbon, sinew

Collection of John and Marva Wamock

Métis pants with attached half-leggings

1860

Buckskin, cotton velvet metal, silk thread

Gift of Mrs. Camilla Chandler Frost

Southwest Museum of the American Indian Collection

The symbol projected on the floor, below, is symbolic of the Native North American worldview. The equal-armed cross represents the four cardinal directions and the three layers of the universe, encircled by the life-giving sun.

I screwed up on the info for the beautiful Moccasins below. They are either Tahltan before 1938 (Matilda Reid) or Kutchin from 1951 (Katherine Peter.) Sorry!

Kiowa cradleboard
late 1800s
Wood, hide, cotton, glass beads, brass, rawhide, sinew, pigment
Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, Harvard University

Blackfoot gauntlets
Circa 1900-1915
Hide, glass beads
James R. Parks Collection

Dakota Shoulder puch
1850s
skin, flannel, ribbon, glass beads
Southwest Museum of the American Indian Collection

Delaware bandolier bag
circa 1860
Cotton cloth, silk ribbon, wool yarn, glass beads.
"The Delaware artist who made this bag had already been forcibly relocated to a reservation in Indian Territory. Despite being made after removal, the bag's traditional Delaware essence remains.
Collection of John and Marva Warnock.

Grandmother used to bead medicine flowers 
onto their homemade items such as moccasins and bags 
because white people, especially missionaries, 
disapproved of Mdewakanton women using medicines.

~Delores Bluestone

The Plateau

Nez Perce or Yakama cradleboard

circa 1890

Buckskin, glass beads, brass beads, wool cloth, wood

Lee and lois Miner

Bag

1995

Maynard White Owl Lavandour

Cayuse/Nez Perce

Moose hide, glass beads

On load courtesy of Tamastslikt Culteral Institute 

My teachers are the beadwork's of the past.

I am inspired by the forms, colors, and textures of the world around me.

~Katrina Mitten

 

My Grandma Beverly and I on her 93rd birthday!

For more information, check out the Autry Museum Website.

Blessings and light!