Beautiful April Day in the Huntington Gardens

My friend Bill and I enjoyed a walk through the Huntington Gardens.  The Roses were blooming out all over as were many other flowers and trees.  The new cafe is wonderful with outdoor views of the gardens while munching on a scone and sipping iced tea.  Here are a few photos:

The entrance is enhanced with this sculpture, "Jerusalem Stabile," 1976 by Alexander Calder (1898-1976).

Chances Are we were a bit Misty on Saturday Night

We enjoyed a wonderful evening at the Disney Hall with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Johnny Mathis.  Yes the 79 year old crooner still has it, vibrating and modulating each note to perfection.  I have so many memories of the late 1950's and early 1960's dancing slowly with the lights turned low to the great Johnny Mathis.  Here are a couple of pics:

"Whistler's Mother," and friends at the Norton Simon on Friday, April Third

My friend Nancy and I enjoyed seeing the three visiting paintings from the Musee d'Orsay in Paris that were temporarily traded to the Norton Simon.

"The Card Players," 1892-96 by Paul Cezanne, French, 1839-1906, oil on canvas.  The description states that as if engaged in a silent ritual, Cezanne's peasants play out their game, each intent upon his hand.  The scene is arranged like one of the artist's still lifes with not interaction between players, a "collective game of solitaire."

"Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (Portrait of the Artist's Mother)," 1871 by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, American 1834-1903, oil on canvas.  "One does like to make one's mummy just as nice as possible," said the artist in an interview,

"Emile Zola," 1868 by Edouard Manet, French, 1812-1883, oil on canvas.  The great novelist was only 28 when the picture was painted.  Zola was a defender of Manet's painting style saying "Manet's place is marked for him in the Louvre." 

Roaming on Thursday with my friend Jesse

After a great breakfast at Back on the Beach in Santa Monica, Jesse and I checked out the Hammer Museum in Westwood.  We enjoyed the permanent collection of Armand Hammer and then visited the many other temporary exhibits.  Here is a bit of what we appreciated:

We were greeted by the work of Lily van der Stokker entitled "The Tidy Kitchen."

Lily van der Stokker was born in 1954 in the Netherlands.  She resides and works in Amsterdam and New York City.
The program states that for this exhibit, "The Tidy Kitchen, she may have created her most political work to date.  In this work which goes from floor to ceiling in the entry of the museum, she uses heavily text-based approach which she brings to the subject of housework and cleaning.  The phrases "Washing and Cleaning" and "Organized and Tidy," are surrounded by descriptions of objects and actions from the domestic world, such as "sticky honey bear" and mildew on the shower curtain."   At one time or another we all have to deal with issues of cleaning.  The phrases like "oven clean in 2 hours and 45 minutes" remind us of how we are constantly bombarded with ads for products claiming to make our lives easier and better.  The program states that women have been expected to do the cleaning without compensation.   The artist believes that women should be paid for the skills and contribution with the text "Crying Crying for $320 per 8 our day.

We then went up to see the permanent exhibit and appreciated several favorites that are seen below:

"Don Quixote and Sancho Panza," 1866-68 by Honore Daumier, French, 1808-1879, oil on canvas

"Portrait of a Man Holding a Black Hat," 1637 by Rembrandt Harmensz, van Rijn, Dutch 1606-1669, oil on panel.

"Portrait of a Man in Armor," 1530 by Titian, Italian 1488-1576, oil on canvas.

"Touc, Seated on a Table," 1879 by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French, 1864-1901. oil on panel

We then roamed into the exhibit entitled "Provocations:  The Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio."  This fun exhibit shows the designs of Thomas Heatherwick in London.  The program states that this shows the breadth of the studio's practice by focusing on the design concepts behind these various designs.   Here photos of a few of my favorites:

1:10 scale model of the Olympic Cauldron, London, 2012, copper-plated brass.  The description states that his design was created to engage every country in the Olympic Games to take part in making and lighting the Olympic cauldron.  During opening ceremonies, a representative from each nation placed its copper element on slender rods radiating from the heart of the stadium.   Lit by young athletes, the individual flames were lifted and surged into a single, symbolic blaze.  

Afterward, the elements, patinated by the heat, became individual mementos of the 204 participating countries.

Zip Bags, 1993, Reel of zipper with an imaginative staircase design in the background.

Jiading Bridge, Shanghai, China, 2010.  This scale model of a design for a 65-foot-long waterway span that rises for boats to pass underneath.  

"Extrusions," 2009, Electroless-nickel-plated aluminum. "Can you squeeze a chair out of a machine, the way you squeeze toothpaste out of a tube?
A design for a modern London double-decker bus in the background.

A portion of the bus.

"Raw Extrusion," 2009

Next we passed into the gallery with an exhibit by Charles Gaines entitled "Gridwork 1974-1989.  The artist lives in L.A. and is on the faculty at the California Institute of the Arts.  The seventy-year-old African American artist also has an current exhibit at the Art + Practice gallery in Leimert Park neighborhood of L.A.  The artist created the gridwork style of painting as a rules-based procedures to construct order and meaning in contrast to the free expression style of artists like Jackson Pollock.  Here are some photos of his works:

From the series "Walnut Tree Orchard, he begins with photographs.

He then translated the photographs into drawings on paper with a hand-drawn grid. 

He used the same process with black-and-white photographs of people.

The facial features are then presented as negative space in a field of numbered squares.

"Numbers and Trees (1986-89).  The description states that the painted tree is composed of differently colored and numbered squares that are overlaid so that the numeric information about the other trees in the series is collapsed into one image.  Each vertical axis depicts the same number in each of its squares, beginning with zero at the center axis to form the trunk of the tree.

We ended our day at the outdoor concert stage behind the Jimmy Kimmel Life show in Hollywood. Thanks to brother-in-law Pat, we were enjoyed a performance by Chicago and Earth Wind and Fire.
It was great fun...we "Boogied On Down."  Here are a few photos:

Casa Romantica Art Exhibit

Above the beach and pier at San Clemente is a Spanish styled house and garden called Casa Romantica.  It was built in the 1920's for the family of Ole Hanson, one of the founders of the city. 
We roamed through the house and enjoyed the historical information that was posted.  Mr. Hanson had his villa built to be similar to Casa Pacifica a few miles down the coast.  The Casa Pacifica was the Western White House for President Nixon.

The art exhibit is from the E. Gene Crain Collection which focuses on the achievements of the California School, an association of artist who came of age during the 1930's.  Crain got to know many of these painters who worked in California.

The view from the Casa Romantica

"The Moon Over Russian River Hills," 1982 by Millard Sheets, 1907-1989, watercolor on paper.  The description states that in the later years of his life, Sheets began to paint sunsets and moonlit skies. His home was in Gualala, California.

"Summer Pageant," 1949 by Phil Dike, 1906-1990.  This watercolor painting of Newport Beach was featured on the cover of the Los Angeles Times Home Magazine in August of 1952.

"Night of the Dead, Mexico," 1982 by Millard Sheets, watercolor on heavy wove paper.

"Heritage," 1966 by Robert E. Wood, 1926-1999, watercolor on Arches paper.

"Stallion Confrontation," 1985 by Millard Sheets, watercolor on heavy wove paper.  Sheets had intimate knowledge of horses from his childhood on his grandparents farm in Pomona.

"Rocks at Stewart's Point," 1966 by Millard Sheets, watercolor on paper.

"China Cove at Corona del Mar," 1975 by George Post, 1906-1997, watercolor on paper.

Last Sunset of our Spring Break vacation in San Clemente. The picture was taken from our condo balcony.

San Clemente to Laguna Beach

While enjoying our vacation on the beach in San Clemente, I drove up to Laguna Beach to roam through some art galleries and through the Laguna Art Museum.  I enjoyed some of their permanent collection and two special exhibits.  One exhibit is entitled California Printmakers, 1950-2000 and the other Robert Henri's California: Realism, Race and Region 1914-1925.

Robert Henri was born in 1865 in Cincinnati, Ohio and died in 1929.  He was a distant cousin of Mary Cassatt, artist.  He studied art in Philadelphia and later founded a group called the Ashcan School who left their love of impressionism to engage in a more realistic art to create what was said to be as real as mud, as the clods of horse-shit and now...a smell of human life.  He worked in Philadelphia and Paris.  He later taught at the New York School of Art with students including Edward Hopper and George Bellows.  His first wife died in 1905 and he married Marjorie, a 22 year old cartoonist. 
He later traveled to the Western coast of Ireland and spent several summers in Santa Fe, New Mexico.


Here are my photos of my favorites from the Laguna Art Museum:

                  Scenes of the San Clemente Pier and Beach

     "The Old Post Office," 1922-23 by Joseph Kleitsch, Hungarian, 1882-1831, active U.S.

     Kleitsch was a noted portrait painter who moved to Laguna Beach in 1920.  He loved living

     in Laguna and painted the charm of the small town.

"El Paseo Street," 1924 by F. Carl Schmidt, American 1885-1969.  Schmidt studied at the Art Institute of Chicago before moving to California.  This is a view of El Paseo street in Laguna, site of the first art festival held in August 1932.

"Portrait of a Laborer," 1945 by Francis De Erdely, Hungarian, 1897-1956, active in U.S.
De Erdely settled in Los Angeles in 1944 and is known for expressive and compassionate paintings of the lives of Mexican immigrants.

"The Card Players," 1956 by Hans Gustav Burkhardt, Swiss, 1904-1994, active in U.S.
Burkhardt lived in Los Angeles from 1937.  The painting harkens back to The Card Players by Cezanne and from Picasso.

"Untitled," 1959 by John Altoon, American, 1925-1969.  He is a native of Los Angeles and lived in New York where he developed his style of action painting and then lived in Mallorca before returning to L.A. The description states that Altoon's abstractions are about he artist's own presence, his gestures, as he paints with a messy abandon, free from the traditional ideal of art as imitation of reality.

"The Suspension," 1971-73 by Lyn Foulkes, American, b. 1934

"Jolly Cones," 2002 by Wayne Thiebaud, American, b. 1920.
The artist brush strokes make an image one wants to eat right off the canvas.

"Abstraction," 1955 by Karl Benjamin, American, 1925-2012

"The Beach Hat," 1914 by Robert Henri.
This painting is of Henri's second wife, Marjorie Organ who was an artist herself and the artist's favorite subject.
The description states that the bright palette reflects the Southern California environment.

"Hotel Acatlan:  Second Day, from the Moving Focus series," 1985 by David Hockney, born 1937, England, works in Hollywood.  Color lithograph.