Since going to art museums is our favorite thing, we are always pleased to share the experience with our friends. Richard Wallman, an old friend who lives in Beaverton, is a charming fellow and dynamite raconteur, so his company made the day special.
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Richard Wallman with sculpture by Maillol
Portland Art Museum |
The Portland Art Museum used to be so small that we felt we were doing them a favor to stop by and see their little special exhibits as we drove through town. By now they have grown in size and quality so much that it has become a significant art venue on the West Coast. No, it doesn't compete with Seattle or San Francisco, but we had an exciting viewing experience there.
The special exhibit that drew us to the museum this year was the sculpture of Gaston Lachaise. The exhibit, called Man/Woman, was organized by the Lachaise foundation, so it was good size and good quality. Lachaise's thing was the idealized human form on a monumental scale. It is quite an experience to stand in a gallery with four huge figures towering over you.
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| Monumental female nude by Gaston Lachaise |
For lunch we had planned to eat at the museum snack bar, but the snack bar no longer serves anything but coffee and rolls, so after some inquiry, we walked a block to Southpark Seafood Grill and Wine Bar. We passed through a bicycle demonstration event and along the deeply shaded park. The restaurant was in an old building, but it had been modernized with window walls that made it seem bright and airy.
Back at the museum, we turned our attention to the permanent collection. The museum recently changed its policy to allow photography, much to Dan's delight.
The new star of their collection is a painting by van Gogh, which was donated a few years ago by a local patron. This piece had languished unappreciated and dingy for decades in a family collection; once it was restored, it turned out to be a significant, and rather endearing, work. It doesn't look much like the familiar work by van Gogh, because it is a dark and drooping image of an ox. When van Gogh first started painting, he was living in the coal region of Belgium, where light is scarce and life is hard. He didn't discover bright light and rich color until he went to France.
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| Vincent van Gogh, The Ox Cart, 1884 |
Everyone has a still life by American painter Severin Roesen.
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| Severin Roesen, Still Life with Flowers and Fruit, 1872 |
This romantic scene by E. I. Couse is interesting because he is known for depicting Indians in the Taos area.
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| E. I. Couse, The Fishing Party, 1890 |
Thomas Moran is an American known for his paintings of Yellowstone and other Western landscapes. Here he depicts Venice, while under the influence of the English painter Turner.
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| Thomas Moran, The Grand Canal, 1899 |
N.C. Wyeth is a terrific American illustrator from the early 20th Century.
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| N.C. Wyeth, The Great Train Robbery, 1912 |
Florine Stettheimer was a rich and sophisticated New Yorker who depicted her social scene in a fake-naive manner. Her stuff seems silly at first, but it grows on you.
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| Florine Stettheimer, Portrait of My Teacher, 1929 |
Raymond Jonson painted in the same period. He saw things from a transcendental point of view.
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| Raymond Jonson, City Perspectives, 1932 |
Here's a photo of the painter Marcel Duchamp, one of my favorites, by the celebrated portrait photographer Irving Penn. He portrayed a number of people backed into a tight corner, but it seems particularly apt for Duchamp who eventually renounced painting and took up chess.
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| Irving Penn, Marcel Duchamp, New York, 1948 |
Gerhard Richter is a German painter from the last half of the 20th century who has worked in several styles. This is a painting of an old photo which the artist deliberately blurred; we've seen several in this style. I think the style says how hard it is to remember the people from the past; we recall a snapshot instead of the person, and even that is blurry in our memory.
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| Gerhard Richter, Frau Niepenberg, 1965 |
Women get pretty good coverage at PAM. There was a painting by Berthe Morisot and sculptures by Louis Nevelson and Barbara Hepworth.
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| Barbara Hepworh |
One of their most contemporary works was this startlingly realistic male nude sculpture. I failed to note the sculptor's name. The shock was softened by placing this work opposite a copy of a Roman sculpture of a fallen warrior, also nude.
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| The classic male nude depicted with startling realism |
We finally packed it in around 4 p.m., even though we hadn't seen the whole museum. On the way back to his place in Beaverton, Richard conducted us on a tour through Washington Park, a huge, wooded hillside with a famous rose garden, a Japanese tea garden and a children's museum. Richard's deep familiarity with Portland's layout made driving with him a treat. We even managed to stop by Fred Meyer and get my watch repaired, as it had stopped the day before.
In the evening, we didn't feel like driving around looking for a nice restaurant. We thought we would eat at the nearby Chinese, but it was closed, so we walked a half a block to the Brickyard Tavern, where Dan got a hamburger and I got some soup. We faced a window wall so we could watch the evening light fade. Someone played a great set of blues tunes on the jukebox. The waitresses were nice and the crowd hadn't gathered yet. We made a pleasant time of it.
