Friday, June 24, 2016

Albright-Knox Art Gallery Visit


Paul Gaughin's Yellow Christ
I grew up in Western New York and try to make it up back this way at least once or twice a year.  Since my 16 year old daughter has developed a love of art and art history, I thought it would be fun to go back to probably one of the first art galleries I ever went to.  It's kind of nice that I have someone to bum around with to art galleries without feeling like I am being rushed.

The Albright-Knox Art Gallery is in Buffalo, New York and I haven't been there in probably about 20 years.  I can remember distinctly some of the art that I viewed there as a child mainly the Warhol works that they have in their collection.  I was happy to see that they had more works that I recognize and love which made for a fun visit.

Besides "Yellow Christ", another Gauguin piece that is one of my favorites was there.  Paul Gauguin's "Spirit of the Dead Watching".

I love walking through and finding pieces that I have read about.  It was nice to come across a George Seurat painting and to study the artist's pointillism technique.

 

"Etude Pour "Le Chahut"" by Georges Seurat
I was happy to see a Frida Kahlo for the first time.  I love her work so much.  I never knew that the Albright-Knox had one of her self-portraits.
"Self Portrait with Monkey" by Frida Kahlo

Another one that I knew that my daughter would like would be Jackson Pollock's Convergence.  I had my daughter pose in front of it just to show the scale.  I thought it would be a good reference photo to use with my students to show how truly large Pollock's pieces are.
My daughter loved this whimsical play on words in this piece by Francois Morellet called "Geometree No. 51".  It actually had a tree branch on the painting.

There is a special exhibition going on right now at the Albright-Knox with 2 different abstract expressionist artists.  The description of the exhibition is as follows:
Shade: Clyfford Still / Mark Bradford features the work of celebrated American artists Mark Bradford (born 1961) and Clyfford Still (1904–1980). For the exhibition, Bradford has helped select more than twenty paintings from the Albright-Knox's important collection of works by Still. In adjacent galleries, Bradford presents a group of his own paintings—created specifically for this exhibition—that manifest an ongoing conversation with both Still’s abstractions and the broader legacy of Abstract Expressionism.
Being a mixed media artist myself, I loved being able to get up close to Mark Bradford's work and seeing the different layers he used to create his art.

The paintings were HUGE, complex, multi-layer masterpieces that amazed me with their execution by the artist.  I can't imagine how long it took to complete these pieces.

I will be posting some photos from my visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art that I went to in May.  As always, thanks for stopping by to read!


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