Friday and Saturday at the Huntington Gardens and Gallery

My friend Bill and I roamed around the Huntington Gardens on this beautiful afternoon and then checked out the American paintings in the Virginia Scott Steele gallery.  Here are a few photos of what I particularly enjoyed.

The children's garden is fun for old guys too.

"Still Life with Green Chair," 1950 by Roger Medearis, 1920-2001, Egg tempera on board.  The artist's teacher was Thomas Hart Benton who taught him to use egg tempera by mixing dry pigment with egg yolk thinned with water on a glass palette until he obtained the desired color and consistency.

"The Breaker Boys," 1925 by George Luks, 1867-1933, oil on canvas.  This new acquisition by Luks who was part of "The Ashcan School" which was known for grimy but uplifting depictions of turn-of-the-century urban life.  The description states that this painting is a bleak picture of unremitting toil.  "Bleaker Boys" were children who removed debris and sorted chunks of coal according to size and grade.  They were poorly paid for their dangerous labor and suffered injuries or even death from falling down coal chutes.  Luks painted this as a message to the world about the conditions in which these boys work.  

"Three Houses," 1913 by Robert Spencer, 1879-1931, oil on canvas.  The description states that Spencer is best known for his paintings of figures against backdrops of factories and apartment houses.

On Saturday, Colleen and I returned to the Huntington for a lecture and slide show by Gil Garcetti on "Japan, A Reverence for Beauty."  Garcetti, our former District Attorney and father of our current mayor,  has been exploring photography and publishing beautiful photography books that include the building of the Disney Hall, water and the impact of the lack of it in Africa (women and girls spending much of their days carrying water rather than going to school until a well and pump are installed in their neighborhood), and dance in Cuba.

Garcetti projected his beautiful photos on a screen and talked about his experience.  He then was available to sign purchased hand bound books at a reception afterwards.  

Here are a few pictures that I took:

Garcetti talking about one of his photos.

Garcetti took a photo of this work done on wood that showed the scene of a Japanese internment camp during WWII. 

This is the cover photo of his book where only the one leaf is in focus falling in the Japanese forest.