Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Crystal Bridges Museum Of American Art: Outside

Our stint in DC ended. Rachel and Will returned to find Daphne, Peter, and Bianca alive and well, and still in captivity, and other things in order, except perhaps the somewhat depleted supply of wine and spirits. We moved our act back to Knoxville, to reclaim Le Sport and to spend a few more days with Marie and Norm and Stacey and the boys. The usual threatening weather (December now) forced us on to Fayetteville and old-time friends Tawana and Wes. They were our upstairs neighbors in married student housing at Florida State in the late 60s. We have stayed in touch all these years, watched each others' children grow up, and visited whenever we could. They figure in quite a few previous episodes of this blog. Anyhow, we had been wanting to see Bentonville's Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and Tawana was happy to oblige.

Crystal Bridges is a purpose-built museum, quite new, the complex designed to complement its natural setting. The buildings and exterior are worth a post by themselves.
Google Earth view
Has a sister in Bilbao

Overview

Restaurant

Assorted buildings; the complex has everything you'd want in
a contemporary museum, library, research center, auditorium,
special exhibits areas, etc.

Bridge over Crystal Creek

Panning around the assortment of buildings ranged around the
pond



One of the exterior highlights is a Frank Lloyd Wright
USONIAN house moved to Crystal Bridges from its original
setting in New Jersey; here, a helpful model

Thus

No fotos inside

But the guided tour was great

Helpful info

About this point, Tawana astutely noted the similiarity between
the buildings' roofs and


































































































The local delicacy, armadillo...art indeed imitates nature

Beautiful place, and that's just the outside

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

National Portrait Gallery/Smithsonian

A customs agent in the Ronald Reagan building urged us to visit the NPG, observing that it was much more than just portraits. Indeed, it was. Although close to Rachel's, it had been closed for renovations for many years, and thus we'd not seen it. We finally made it and enjoyed the NPG greatly, both the great old building (originally the US Patent Office) and the Smithsonian and other collections.
Rosa Parks...

MLK

The last photo of Lincoln

Automotive Industry, Marvin Beerbohm

First great American inventor

Morse, who was originally a portrait painter (seriously)

Among the many Caitlins

Headless horseman

Part of the interior at the NPG

70s art, Nam June Paik's Electronic Superhighway
Grant and His Generals

A gigantic Moran Yellowstone, done originally for a Chicago
world fair

More contemporary video art (gimme that old-time...art)

Thomas Hart Benton, Achelous and Hercules

Edward Shinn...easily mistaken for you know who

Nice stained glass, John Le Farge's Peacocks
and Peonies

GW, before his...

Apotheosis...a study for the Capitol dome



























































































































Take a picture of this, she said

First four female Justices
































Captain Sam














Hideous portrait of Clinton

Among James Hampton's works at the NPG

I've seen these quite a bit recently

Fellow Miamian Purvis Young's The Struggle

In the gift store, thinking very evil thoughts

Another great place

POTUS!

So there we were, walking up NY Ave., after a visit to the hardware store, minding our own business, when we notice that the place begins crawling with police vehicles and black SUVs, and all the side streets, including I-395, are blocked off, and, quicker than you'd think, NY Ave. is utterly clear as far as the eye can see see, either way, except for the slowly approaching motorcade.







I was this close to LBJ (riding in an open convertible) in 1964, on Biscayne Blvd.,
and actually shook hands and spoke with George H. W. Bush (the Good Bush) in
1992; I was glad for this close encounter with Obama, one of that handful of US
presidents I very much admire


Sic transit, Gloria

We learned later that the POTUS and FLOTUS were going to the veterans' home
in north DC to serve Thanksgiving dinner to the residents there