When I travel I make it a point to go to as many museums as possible. We only had 4 days, so I dragged my hubby all over New York to see the top museums on my list.
The first was the Morgan Library, historic private library of Pierpont Morgan, which includes 3 Guttenburg Bibles and stacks of rare books. They also have rotating exhibits and I was lucky enough to catch "Alice: 150 Years of Wonderland." I saw early writings and drawings of the author Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodson) and the illustrator John Tenniel. I loved seeing the drawings from concept to final illustration.
The next museum on the list was the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I found the museum overwhelming, it is so large. The collections are amazing, but you really have to limit what to see. My favorite gallery was filled with medieval statues, stained glass and icons.
The American Folk Art museum is very small, but had a wonderful exhibit of "Art Brut,"a term coined by French artist Jean DeBuffet. Raw art by untrained artists from the 50's and 60's.
And last but not least the MOMA where I saw am amazing exhibit of Picasso's sculptures. Picasso worked with everything from plaster, ceramics, found objects, bronze. Whatever caught his fancy. He learned what he needed then played and pushed the limits of each medium - good advice! One of my favorites was this small assemblage.What you cannot see in the photo is, on the back of the sculpture, he made hair out of twine.
The MOMA also has an extensive collection of paintings that rotate on display. I was able to see Jean-Michael Basquiat's painting over a massive canvas covered with collaged journal pages.
Four museums and all manner of mixed media inspiration: pencil, ink, crayon, paint and found objects used to describe each artists vision of figures and faces. I came away inspired, recharged and ready to get to work! I bought some new pens and pencils to try and played with them while waiting for the plane to leave....
