Museum Color and Light ~ LACMA

Never lose the first impression which has moved you.

~Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

(painter, France 1796-1875)

After my visit to the Frank Gehry exhibition, I headed into the Ahmanson Building to get inspired by some masters in the permanent collection.

The Magdalen with the Smoking Flame, c. 1638-40

Oil on canvas

Georges de La Tour (France)

This Magdalen above, you may recognize, as it is a pretty famous piece. In fact, it was in my art history book! You can see the influence Caravaggio had on other painters. (They are called the Caravaggisti) This painting was a gift to LACMA from the Ahmanson Foundation. It's one of the highlights of the collection and one of my favorites!

Seine and Old Bridge at Limay, 1872
oil on canvas
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Corot is my friend Rachel's favorite artist. In fact, I texted this to her after my visit! There is something kind of magical about so much of his work. Even when the palette is dark and subdued, there are these little bits of light or sparkle that give it a mystical or dreamy feel. (At least to me!) 

Here's a piece at the Getty, with commentary.

Here's a lovely slideshow of his work with beautiful music!

Beauty in art is truth bathed in an impression received from nature.

I am struck upon seeing a certain place.

While I strive for conscientious imitation,

I yet never lose the emotion that has taken hold of me.

~Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

This Angel Raphael, below, is another of my favorite pieces, in the museum!

Archangel Raphael

Italy (Naples), c. 1600

Polychromed and gilded wood

Saint Catherine of Alexandria, c. 1615
oil on canvas
Bernardo Strozzi (active Genoa and Venice, Italy)

The piece above of St. Catherine, was a recovered Nazi-looted painting, valued at 3 million. It's a promised gift of the owner's direct descendant, Philippa Calnan, to whom it was willed and returned. 

It turns out she is a retired public affairs director who worked at LACMA! Many times, a piece is willed to many family members who have to sell, often to pay for all the legal trouble in getting the stolen pieces returned to the family. 

I work on all parts of my painting at once,

improving it very gently

until I find that the effect is complete.

~Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Basket of Peaches, with Plums and Quinces, after 1641 (detail)

oil on canvas

Louise Moillon (France)

Art is nature as seen through temperament.

~Camille Corot

Broad building at LACMA

Jesús Soto's Penetrable 
This piece (the yellow "strings") is very interactive and you can usually see kids playing in it. Right now the platform is being repaired, to the frustration of the under 10 patrons.

Window from the gift shop!

Colorful giftsop rings and things!

Sleeping woman with Boy, 1926

Painted wood

Hermann A. Scherer 

The Locks at Dolo, c. 1735
Etching
Antonio Canal (called Canaletto)

Portrait of Marten Looten, 1632
Oil on wood
Rembrandt van Rijn (Northern Netherlands)
(even when there are other Dutch Masters in the room ... you can always tell a Rembrandt!)

The most important things in a painting are 

Form and Value.

Color comes last - 

like a friend you welcome. 

~Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Abraham and the Three Angels, c. 1750 (detail)

Pen and brown ink and wash over black chalk

with white heightening

Francesco Fontebasso

A Fallen Angel, c. 1952
Red and white chalk over black chalk
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Venice, Italy)

The Triumph of Alexander the Great, c. 1485 (detail)
Tempera and gilding on panel
Bernardo Rosselli, (Florence, Italy)

Reality is one part of art;

feeling completes it ... 

Before any site and any object,

abandon yourself to you first impression.

If you have really been touched, 

you will convey to others

the sincerity of your emotion.

~Jena-Baptiste Camille Corot

Hesiod Listening to the Inspirations of the Muse, c. 1890
oil on canvas
Edmond-François Aman-Jean (France)

The Hope Hygieia

Roman, 2nd-century copy, c. 130-161, 

after a Greek original of c. 360 BC

Marble

"Hygieia, goddess of health, is identified by her snake. She was the daughter of Asclepius, god of medicine (and mythical ancestor of Hippocrates), whose shrines apparently housed sacred serpents. Here Hygieia feeds one some milk."

outside the museum ...

For the LA Times article on the Bernardo Strozzi, Nazi looted painting, click here.

Hope you enjoyed the little art visit and that you are off to a lovely fall.

Blessings and light!

Frank Gehry at LACMA

Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, model, 2006-present (in progress)
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Frank Gehry

September 13, 2015 - March 20, 2016

Not every person has the same kinds of talents,

so you discover what yours are

and work with them.

~ Frank Gehry

I wish I could start this post by saying that I have some vast knowledge of architecture and Frank Gehry. I mean, I do love the Disney Hall in downtown L.A. and looking at his buildings in photos, but I also just really love places with air conditioning in September! 

Since LACMA is about 5 minutes from me and fits the bill, on all counts ... it seemed like a really good idea to head to the Miracle Mile and get out of my apartment, which was probably in the 90s.

I have to say, the Frank Gehry exhibition was much more extensive and interesting than I'd expected! In part, because it felt like being in a sculpture exhibition and somehow seeing these buildings in miniature was just really cool. So many of them are just beautiful! Anyway ... here goes!

Above and below, an incredible model of the Louis Vuitton Foundation Building in Paris. (Art museum and cultural center.) I really want to see this one in person!

This video, below, has wonderful views of the finished building but it's in French, so if you can't speak french you can just fast forward it along. ;)

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, model

Bilbao, Spain founded October 18, 1997

Here's a short documentary, in English (!) about the museum in Bilbao.

Walt Disney Concert Hall, Project model, 1989-2003

Los Angeles, California

I know I draw without taking my pen off the page. I just keep going, and that my drawings I think of them as scribbles. I don't think they mean anything to anybody except to me, and then at the end of the day, the end of the project, they wheel out these little drawings and they're damn close to what the finished building is and it's the drawing ... 

~Frank Gehry

Another view ...

The best advice I've received is to be yourself.

The best artists do that.

~ Frank Gehry

There were screens up in the exhibition with photos of the finished buildings ... The screen below was showing the MARTa Herford Modern Art Museum, which opened in 2005, in Herford, Germany.

For me, every day is a new thing.

I approach each project with a new insecurity,

almost like the first project I ever did.

And I get the sweats.

I go in and start working,

I'm not sure where I'm going.

If I knew where I was going 

I wouldn't do it.

~Frank Gehry

Quanzhou Museum of Contemporary Art,

final design concept mode, 2012

Quanzhou, China

(one of my favorite models!)

Creativity is about play 

and a kind of willingness to go with your intuition.

It's crucial to an artist.

If you know where you are going

and what you are going to do,

why do it?

~Frank Gehry

The Ocean Avenue Project,

2008-present

Santa Monica, California

One Model

(120-room boutique hotel, retail and residential space, with open public space and museum complex.)

Nationale- Nederlanden Building, site model, 1992-96

Prague, Czech Republic

Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial,

model, 2009-present

Washington, DC

Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.

~ Frank Gehry

Philadelphia Museum of Art
Renovation, cross-section model,
2006-present
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 
1/4 inch scale

You can look anywhere and find inspiration.

~Frank Gehry

Beach House, model,

2014-present

Marina del Rey, Califonia

1/2 inch scale

Jazz Bakery, exterior model,
2011-present
Culver City, California
1/4 inch scale

Liquid architecture. 

It's like jazz - you improvise, you work together, 

you play off each other, you make something, they make something ...

~ Frank Gehry

Jazz Bakery interior model

8150 Sunset, model
2015-present
West Hollywood, California
1/8 inch scale

8150 Sunset, model

I love that Gehry (based in LA) has so many projects in progress in the L.A. area! This Sunset one, above, the apartments in Santa Monica, the Jazz Bakery, the Beach House in Marina del Ray, and I think there were another couple of residences, as well.

Your best work is your expression of yourself.

Now, you may not be the greatest at it, but when you do it, 

you're the only expert.

~ Frank Gehry

Biomuseo, Museo de la Biodiversidad,
site model, 2000-2014
Panama City, Panama

This is the full documentary on Frank Gehry done by the late Sidney Pollack, in 2007. It was actually playing on a screen inside the exhibition at LACMA. And you can watch it right here! ;)

For some great photos of the LV Building ... Louis Vuitton Building 

The message I hope to have sent is just the example

of being yourself.

~Frank Gehry

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