Wordless Wednesday

Last Saturday my wife and I decided to visit an exhibit at the local art museum.  The good news is that the local art museum is Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.  It is in it's third year of operation and is already a wold class facility.  The exhibit is entitled,

Van Gogh to Rothko brings together 76 artworks by 73 influential artists from the late nineteenth century to the present. The exhibition features masterpieces by some of the most prominent names in art history including Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O’Keeffe, Salvador Dalí, Frida Kahlo, Andy Warhol, and Mark Rothko. The works were selected from the collection of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, one of the finest collections of twentieth-century art in the country, located in Buffalo, NY.

The exhibit is great.  I learned that I like Van Gogh better than I like Matisse.

Here are a few other works that I found interesting.

You can find art that expresses every emotion in the human experience.  You can even find art that expresses your feelings at that very moment.  This piece is called When the Raven was White, by Grace Hartigan 1969.  I just like the color and motion in this piece.  I rarely try to understand the meaning behind the painting.

 This is Van Gogh

 This is Matisse.  I like Van Gogh better than Matisse

This is Sun, Tower, Airplane by Robert Delaunay -1913.  I think I like Delaunay better than Van Gogh or Matisse.

There were also some interesting sculptures at the exhibit.

It is not surprising that this piece is titled "Walking Man".   What is surprising is that I was able to capture this image without a bunch of people in the background.  The museum was extremely busy on this day and I was amazed to find an angle that was void of human clutter.

Blame it on my Oklahoma roots, but I am in LOVE with this sculpture.  It is titled simply "Indian" by Paul Manship - 1914.  Even though this bronze was cast in 1914 it has so many Art Deco overtones it is amazing.  It was my favorite piece in the entire exhibit.

Stay tuned, I'll be bringing more images from Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in the weeks to come.  Have a blessed Wordless Wednesday and feel free to visit again soon.

There is another project going on at the museum that has sparked my interest to volunteer as a guide at some point.  The museum has purchased a Frank Lloyd Wright designed Usonian house and is reconstructing it on the campus of the museum.  As a retired architect, this really caught my attention.  It will be several more months, possibly a year before the project is complete and ready to open to the public, but I am going to put my name in the hat to be a guide for this structure.  Just exactly what is a Usonian home, you ask?  Well, there were about 60 Frank Lloyd Wright designed usonian homes built.  They were Wright's attempt to design and build affordable housing for the average family, beginning in 1936.  Wright removed what he considered unnecessary frills from the typical residence, including the attic space, which led to flat or very low sloped roofs, He eliminated the basement and the garage.  In fact Wright coined the term car port to describe the open covered area to park the car.  He also called for radiant heat to be installed in the floors.  This was actually an energy savings feature.  He also employed some passive solar design concepts that were completely foreign to the construction industry at the time.  But that's a post for another day.

Bachman Wilson House by Frank Lloyd Wright