All Kinds of Perfect

Since I had a gathering today in Brooklyn, that provided the best excuse for the long subway trip for an art museum visit.

Several good shows at the moment, including a John Singer Sargent watercolor exhibit.

John Singer Sargent An Artist in His Studio c1904

John Singer Sargent
An Artist in His Studio
c1904

 

My discovery though was an oil that directly relates to my thesis.  My artist Elizabeth Okie Paxton could have seen the painting and decided to work with the unmade bed.  You can see what a geek I am that this excites me.

 

 

 

Everett Shinn Fifth Ave 1910

Everett Shinn
Fifth Ave
1910

The drawing exhibit Fine Lines: American Drawings is great, too.   Noguchi and Louise Nevelson did figure drawings!  I guess they had classical training.

Then there’s Everett Shinn, whose drawing style directly resembles his paintings, and I think is just as evocative.  Don’t you feel like you’re there?

 

 

And here’s the little charmer by Winslow Homer.

Winslow Homer Two Girls in a Field 1879

Winslow Homer
Two Girls in a Field
1879

 

 

The Brooklyn Museum American collection is full of greatest hits which they have installed very thoughtfully–always some new connection or learning there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The El Anatsui show Gravity and Grace is full of spectacularly photogenic works, so check out the slide show below.  His mixed media pieces, made of probably thousands of small pieces of various metals and found objects, shaped just so, are enormous.  Here’s one that takes up a whole wall, rippling and folding according to the site where it is hung.  Very joyous!

2013-04-28 15.07.55

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Brooklyn neighborhood I visited for the gathering on this perfect spring day is so Leave-It-To-Beaver gorgeous that I felt a little heartsick. You know, that sense of longing for a lovely home surrounded by flowers and birdsong.  That and only three blocks from the subway.  A little bit of heaven in Brooklyn.  Who knew?