Museum Hopper

A couple of weekends ago, I dashed into the Cincinnati Art Museum to see the Treasures of the Spanish World exhibit.  The exhibit was created by the Hispanic Society and very c learly, the descriptions were written by the Hispanic Society.  The exhibit spanned the typical exhibit hall and then also one of the other halls sometimes used for exhibit too.   With my annual membership, I had free admission to the exhibit. The exhibits starts much further back than expected, which if I had read the description closely, I would have known.  It focuses on the holistic Iberian peninsula.  The exhibit is set up chronologically and has a mixture of art mediums.  The exhibit had descriptions of the art in both English and Spanish.  As i mentioned earlier, the descriptions were definitely written by the Hispanic Society as a few of them were quite complimentary about their collection and its possessions.   So I did end up taking a bunch of pho...

While my sister was here, we also headed to the Cincinnati Art Museum . She had never been and heard my mom talk about how much she liked the Art Museum here. We started our visit out by getting brunch at the Terrace Cafe .  I had made a reservation.  I like heading there first and then going into the exhibit; I find that you miss more of the "right as it opens" crowds. We had two missions this Saturday -- review the Burning Man and Kimono exhibits! I was so excited to see the No Spectators: the Art of Burning Man .  As my sister pointed out, this is probably the closest either of us will ever get to it, so it was time to soak it all in.  The exhibit was spread throughout the museum, so the crowds were not too concentrated.  I had some idea what an "ethos" Burning Man was, but whoa.  It has its own rules, patches and clubs. Some of the engineering items were very cool.  I liked the lighting elements.  This room was really cool; how they...

A few weeks ago, I did a girls afternoon at the Cincinnati Art Museum to see the Paris 1900: City of Entertainment .   We had a delicious brunch at the cafe.   The Paris exhibit does require tickets, but the tickets are just for the day.  They do not require a time.  I was able to use my annual pass for my ticket -- all included! I really liked the exhibit.  It was in the back two rooms on the second floor.  The artifacts were grouped by themes and it was across a variety of mediums (if you will).  I liked seeing the jewelry and paintings and sculpture and clothes.   Aren't these paintings beautiful?  It's really hard to believe that at the time they were considered so groundbreaking.  The use of light in these three paintings was really radiant, in particular the middle one.  I love the landscape, too.  The blue in that painting is very rich.   Basically this photo is for my husba...

I am going to merge two different visits to the Cincinnati Art Museum into one blog post as they were distinct and well, I have been to this museum a LOT.   I went a few weeks ago to visit the new exhibit, Make Way for Ducklings: The Art of Robert McCloskey.   Robert McCloskey was a Cincinnati writer and artist for won multiple Caldecott medals and honors.  He often drew on experiences and local stories for the basis for his children's books.  Growing up, we used to read Make Way for Ducklings , which won the Caldecott based on the story of ducks in Boston Commons.  I love seeing how the sketches develop into the final illustration.  They evolve similarly to how a powerpoint deck evolves.  Tweaks here and there with sometimes a massive overhaul.  It was interesting to see how they changes the pictures to make them more engaging for the audience.  The versions comparing color vs. black and white also were interesting to see the emphasi...

My husband and I went to the Cincinnati Art Museum to see the Terracotta Army: Legacy of the First Emperor of China .  We had a full day of the museum set up: visit the exhibit, lunch at the cafe and then listen to the curators discuss the exhibit.   Cincinnati is the only place in the US you can see the army and the only other place outside of China (based on my limited research) is in the UK for all of 2018.  The Chinese only allow ten of the warriors out of the country per exhibit.  The exhibit was broken into two sides: other items and the warriors.  The exhibit has been quite popular -- we overheard from a guard that they had 150 people waiting for the museum to open at 11 AM to see the exhibit, so definitely worth checking on reservations before you arrive. I really liked the tiger amulet, which was highlighted a few times in the museum materials!    Deer mat weights with sea shells The second room is where the magic was.....

Over the last week, I had the opportunity to go the Cincinnati Art Museum not once, but twice.  My sister, brother-in-law and their two children were in town twice in a week.   The first visit -- I thought we would visit the Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion .  They have a section of the exhibit that allow the kids the ability to touch the clothes and see the fabulous exotic garments.  My nephew really liked talking about what they were made of and what they reminded him of.  The shoes (which I had missed the first time I went to the exhibit) were also a topic of much conversation.  He spoke about how tall they were, how difficult they would be to walk in, again, what they were made of.  He even pontificated on which ones he thought my mother/his grandmother would like best.   As you can suspect with a five year old in an art museum, he did get distracted eventually.  I remembered the children's room, which as I obviously h...

This weekend, I went back to the Cincinnati Art Museum for a girlfriend date since it was the Art in Bloom exhibit. We made a reservation at the Terrace cafe for lunch.  It is surprisingly good and reasonably priced.  I got a club sandwich, which was unique with a delicious red pepper aoili on it.  My friend really liked her mufaleta.  She only got a half one, but it was huge!  Our waitress was a delight as well. We ended up wandering the museum to see the floral compositions.  90 pieces of art were selected to have floral arrangements made.  Each florist makes a list of three pieces of art that they would like to create an arrangement for and then, they get one from the list.  The art includes paintings, statues, vases, furniture, so really across the entire spectrum.  Some of the floral arrangements were quite literal; some were what I would have expected as "on trend" for the time the original painting was done.  Some of the arr...