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Home , Balthus, Horace Pippin, James Turrell, La Pausa, Ludwig Bemelmans, Watts Towers

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Isabella Stewart The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is something different. A Gardner Museum socialite who attended regular lectures at Harvard after her marriage, Gardner 25 EVANS WAY got the inspiration from time spent BOSTON, MA 02115 in Venice at the Palazzo Barbaro, which had become a kind of ex-pat artist hangout where one could find As beautiful as this faux Venetian James Abbott McNeill Whistler, John Palazzo’s intricate interiors are Singer Sargent, and Ralph Curtis. (Moorish, Medieval, Gothic, and Her collection got off to an auspicious Chinese), visitors are inevitably drawn start: Two of her earliest purchases to something it doesn’t have: specif- were Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait, Age ically, 2 Rembrandt and a 23 and Titian’s Europa. Gardner lived Vermeer, which were cut out of their in private quarters on the fourth frames and stolen in a bold, daytime floor overseeing the installation of robbery in 1990, by thieves dressed as her constantly growing collection policemen. The Dutch Room displays of paintings, , and entire the empty frames. The robbers also interiors imported from Europe. scored 5 Degas , a Manet, While we can’t imagine the rooms and others. The unsolved crime is one as lived in in a normal household, we of the biggest art thefts of all time, can imagine Gardner letting Sargent and the Gardner Museum’s way of take over the Gothic Room as a keeping the wall warm for the works’ studio one year, or dancers and singers eventual return is both tribute and performing for friends on balconies true-crime story. and in hallways. The collection, which Part of the thrill when visiting has managed to securely hold onto grand, historical revival homes and its Fra Angelico, Benvenuto Cellini, museums is imagining what life was Sandro Botticelli, and Piero della like there. When the site is truly the Francesca paintings, is matched by the artist’s or collector’s home, (such as incredible craftsmanship of its rooms. Frederic Edwin Church’s Olana, say, or The museum is forbidden from sell- even William Randolph Hearst’s castle), ing or acquiring any objects, ever; but we imagine the salons, the dinner par- it didn’t stop the successful organiza- ties, and walking among the beautiful tion from adding a handsome addition objects in our bathrobes. Other re- by Renzo Piano, connected by glass creations are less satisfying: The walkways to the original building, Getty Villa is modeled after Roman which houses performance halls, space ———————— homes but was always meant to house for temporary contemporary exhibi- COURTYARD, ISABELLA STEWART J. Paul Getty’s collection of antiquities tions, and a place for scholars to study GARDNER MUSEUM, BOSTON, MA. down the hill from his real home. Gardner’s library of 7,000 rare books. PHOTO: SEAN DUNGAN

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Wadsworth the . Wadsworth kicked Continuing the architectural off the collection in the beginning Disneyland factor, the museum Atheneum with paintings by John Turnbull, John also boasts one of the first Inter- Singleton Copley, and the Peale family. national Style interiors in the Museum of Art But the museum never rested on its U.S., in the upstairs of the otherwise laurels; it acquired the best collection Neo-Palladian Goodwin House. 600 MAIN STREET of Hudson River School paintings The museum is known for many HARTFORD, CT 06103 anywhere, including Thomas Cole’s firsts: It’s the first American institu- Mount Etna from Taormina and Frederic tion to collect Caravaggio, Anthony Edwin Church’s Hooker and Company van Dyck, Francisco de Zurbarán, The Wadsworth is a major American Journeying through the Wilderness from , Joan Miró, Balthus, museum that may be lesser known Plymouth to Hartford in 1636. and Salvador Dalí. It staged the first because of the Latin addendum to its The Wadsworth expanded through- American show on and name, which speaks to its founder out the early 20th century with the country’s first ever Daniel Wadsworth’s desire to create gifts from Samuel Colt’s widow and retrospective, in 1934. a center for learning. Its iconic, J. P. Morgan that resulted in adding In 2015, a major renovation was castle-like building gives a hint to its Tudor and Revival completed, rehanging all of the per- age: Opened in 1844, it’s the oldest buildings. Morgan’s gift included the manent collection. It’s regarded as one continuously operating museum in bulk of his collections in antiquities. of the most successful reconceivings

of a museum ever, and its highlight is collection’s decorative-arts collections deface. Ultimately, local artists and the double-height Grand Hall of the and obsession with European painting: the leadership of the Atheneum stood Morgan Memorial building—hung to Pre-Raphaelite William Holman Hunt’s up to the desecration and started to mimic the collection’s 1749 painting incredibly complex and gorgeous stoke a certain fondness in town for by Giovanni Paolo Panini, Interior of The Lady of Shalott from the late 1890s. “the Rocks,” as they became known. a Picture Gallery with the Collection of Cardinal Silvio Valenti Gonzaga, with NEARBY: In 1978, the city of Hartford paintings everywhere. commissioned Minimalist sculptor ———————— OPPOSITE: INSTALLATION VIEW OF Critics note the new layout’s power Carl Andre to create a public pier near THE MUSEUM throughout to mix less famous works City Hall (on the corner of Main Street OF ART, HARTFORD, CT. with blockbuster pieces like Caravaggio’s and Gold Street, around the corner ABOVE: SOL LEWITT, WALL Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy, or from the Wadsworth). Andre was at the #1131, “WHIRLS & TWIRLS” (WADSWORTH), even major postwar abstraction pieces peak of his fame for his steel-plate floor 2004, 2004, INK AND PAINT ON WALLS, by Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and pieces (you can see them at Dia:Beacon, 18 FT. 9 IN. X 113 FT. 9 IN. THE ELLA GALLUP Barnett Newman, or contemporary p. 42), but for Hartford, he gathered SUMNER AND MARY CAITLIN SUMNER COLLECTION FUND, 2004.12.1 superstars like Kara Walker, Cindy 36 local rocks, arranged them in a triangle, Sherman, and Bill Viola. and called it a day. The piece, titled The most popular painting, Stone Field , became a lightning according to staff, is a fusion of the rod in the city: easy to ridicule, easy to

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Storm King an old farm wall. It’s his biggest work that would later reemerge after visits ever and winds in and around the to Monhegan Island in Maine, as Art Center trees, disappears into a pond, and well as ephemera, like Christmas reappears on the other side for a final cards he made for his family. The 1 MUSEUM ROAD run right into the New York State house also presents strong temporary NEW WINDSOR, NY 12553 Thruway. embedded exhibitions, such as a recent solo show a 40-ton stone at the top of a hill, by up-and-coming painter Mercedes creating a space meant to be played Helnwein and the winner of the first When the owners of the Star Expansion in. And Maya Lin built Wave Field, New York State–sponsored Edward Company—makers of steel fasteners— in which 11 acres of grass covering Hopper Citation for Visual Artists, conceived of their museum, they a former gravel pit seem to roll like Carrie Mae Weems. hoped to build a collection of Hudson ocean waves. (She has said she was Around town you can see the River School paintings. But within inspired by Native American mounds butcher shop that inspired Seven A.M. 5 years of opening the building and around her hometown in Ohio, (now in the Whitney Museum, p. 60); adding more acreage, they found Japanese culture, and 1970s Land the site of the family’s dry-goods store they’d bought 13 David Smith sculp- Art.) Other standout pieces are by where Hopper worked as a teen; and tures—very stern, abstract bronzes Forrest Myers, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Hopper’s gravesite. (The house will and steel assemblages—and a new , Anthony Caro, provide a map.) Halfway between direction was underway. Ursula von Rydingsvard, Kenneth Nyack and Storm King on Route 9W, Eventually the place grew to 500 Snelson, Richard Serra, and Menashe in Haverstraw, you’ll find the house acres, and 2,500 acres were donated Kadishman. he painted in House by the Railroad to New York State to preserve the Storm King is closed for a good part in 1930—it was Hopper’s painting views that are framed by some of the winter, so check the website to of this house that Alfred Hitchcock of the biggest sculptures—a giant, plan ahead. used as a model for the one in Psycho, orange ; a set of and Terrence Malick used for Days Alexander Libermans inspired by NEARBY: Back down the New York of Heaven. Chartres Cathedral; a 212-foot Robert State Thruway toward Grosvenor built to match the curve is Edward Hopper’s home and studio of the Schunnemunk Mountain ridge in Nyack (82 North Broadway). Once ———————— ALEXANDER LIBERMAN, ILIAD, 1974 –76, a bustling, ship-building place on the beyond. The landscape, left largely PAINTED STEEL, 36 FT. X 54 FT. 7 IN. GIFT natural with native plants, provides Hudson River, Nyack was a perfect OF THE RALPH E. OGDEN FOUNDATION. settings for work of many different laboratory for Hopper’s quiet spaces © THE ALEXANDER LIBERMAN TRUST. scales—some dominating knolls, some and rooms full of light, and the sense PHOTO: JERRY L. THOMPSON, © STORM KING ART CENTER, MOUNTAINVILLE, NY tucked just off paths in the woods. of waiting. His house, which he Storm King Art Center has continued to visit after settling into collected important pieces but also an apartment in Greenwich Village worked with artists on site-specific for life (p. 63), was rescued from installations. Andy Goldsworthy, demolition in the 1960s and opened known for his work that channels as a community art center and tribute the rolling, woodsy landscapes of his to Hopper in 1971. It has a collection native England, built a 750-foot- of juvenile paintings showing skill long stone wall from the remains of and an interest in boats and water

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The Frick downtown toward the Park Avenue Armory (646 Park Avenue). It’s Collection not the one where the famous Armory Show of 1913 expanded ’ 1 EAST 70TH STREET view of —that’s at NEW YORK, NY 10021 26th Street and Lexington Avenue. But it does present site-specific contemporary art and performance A perfect museum in every way, the pieces. Recent ones have included Gilded Age mansion once owned collaborations between architects by industrialist Henry Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei, Clay Frick holds a small collection of a massive drawing made with a world-renowned Old Master paintings fleet of motorcycles by Aaron Rose, in opulent salons and drawing rooms and a multimedia exhibition by often hung the way Frick himself musician and performance artist left them on his death in 1919. . Also just steps The collection includes the risqué, away is the Carlyle Hotel, where you multi-panel The Progress of Love by can enjoy a cocktail under Jean-Honoré Fragonard in its own drawn by illustrator and bon vivant Rococo room, and another full room Ludwig Bemelmans; he made them of François Boucher panels. On a more in exchange for a half-year’s worth of serious note, there are major portraits accommodations for his family. by Titian, Hans Holbein the Younger, , Diego Velázquez, Rembrandt, and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s ———————— intimate masterpiece Louise de Broglie, INSTALLATION VIEW OF JEAN-AUGUSTE- DOMINIQUE INGRES, COMTESSE D’HAUSSONVILLE, Countess d’Haussonville. There are 3 7 1845, OIL ON CANVAS, 51 ⁄8 X 36¼ IN. Vermeer paintings, including Mistress THE FRICK COLLECTION, NEW YORK, NY. and Maid. Moving along, there are PHOTO: MICHAEL BODYCOMB paintings by , Édouard Manet, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Jean- Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Pierre- Auguste Renoir, Paolo Veronese, and J. M. W. Turner to see, as well. Sadly, younger art lovers in your party will have to wait outside—you must be at least 10 years old to enter.

NEARBY: Assuming a visit to the museums just a few blocks north have already been taken care of, stroll

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Wyeth Studios rural farm life by studying the Kuerner excitement when they became public. Farm next door. He explored many Andrew’s work was polarizing, in BRANDYWINE RIVER MUSEUM styles of painting, influenced first part because of the great wealth he OF ART by the local Impressionists—the was able to amass. The art historian 1 HOFFMAN’S MILL ROAD New Hope Group—and later rising Robert Rosenblum tagged him as CHADDS FORD, PA 19317 American regionalists like Thomas simultaneously the most overrated and Hart Benton, but he never made underrated American artist, but he’s paintings that were as successful as in most major museum collections one N. C. Wyeth purchased the land and his illustrations. way or another (and since he was fre- built his house in 1911 with money he Andrew was frail as a child and quently mentioned in Charles Schultz’s made from illustrating Robert Louis grew up very close to his father, Peanuts comic strip, he can’t be all bad). Stevenson’s Treasure Island. It’s on the learning art from him from an early You can tour Andrew’s studio, as site of the Battle of Brandywine, the age. He stuck with a realist, regionalist well, and the materials are even fresher 1777 Colonial loss that found General style in the vein of feeling, more vital. You can also tour the Pulaski helping George Washington or Thomas Eakins throughout his life, Kuerner Farm where docents will point escape, and led to the fall of always painting places and people out famous sites of paintings, especially . It’s fitting: Wyeth learned close at hand to the family homes in the ones of Helga in the stable. to paint and draw from , Pennsylvania and Maine. His work Tours of the studios and the farm the illustrator who promoted intense took on a marked melancholic tone are organized by Brandywine River historical research, including costumes after his father’s death in a car crash in Museum of Art nearby, and before you and props, as key. Unlike some historic 1945, and he soon became one of the set off on the tours, you can see major artists’ houses and studios that seem to most well-known American painters works by all 3 Wyeths—including the strive to be forward-thinking, Wyeth’s of all, after showing Christina’s World best collection of Andrew’s work and is a bit of a historical , with a in 1948. (The painting is now at the many “Helgas”—at the museum. The massive Palladian window lighting the , p. 56; and you Brandywine also has a strong collec- studio and dark-wood rooms packed can visit the Olson House where it was tion of paintings by , the with art and objects like ship models conceived in Maine.) self-taught African American artist and antique firearms. The tables with Like his father, he began using the who went on to study at the Barnes his original artist’s materials are a neighbors as a subject and painted Foundation (p. 83) after receiving the treat to see, as is the he painted many pictures of Anna and Karl attention of critics and collectors, tracing the arc of his own life. Kuerner. In 1971, though, he began including N. C. Wyeth. It also has a The house was the family seat the series of paintings that would couple of major works by trompe l’oeil for the Wyeths, including many make him infamous and inspire an still-life painter George Cope and his- who became painters—son Andrew, early example of the “blockbuster” torical paintings by Howard Pyle. daughters Henrietta and Carolyn, and museum-show tour in the 1980s. He grandson Jamie—and was a hub for painted 45 major paintings of Helga creative people of all kinds, including Testorf, a married caregiver who lived ———————— ANDREW WYETH’S STUDIO AT frequent visitors F. Scott Fitzgerald, on the farm. That he kept the paintings CHADDS FORD, PA. Mary Pickford, and Lillian Gish. After (many are nudes, disarming in their PHOTO: CARLOS ALEJANDRO having painted so many Western and bluntness and honesty) secret from maritime scenes on the way to getting everyone including his wife and famous, Wyeth took to illustrating Helga’s husband, only added to the

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American within the world of self-taught and folk art, so the museum Visionary is full of the superstars in this field—Thornton Dial Jr., Reverend Art Museum Howard Finster, Eugene von Bruenchenhein, Martin Ramírez, 800 KEY HIGHWAY Judith Scott, Adolf Wölfli, and the BALTIMORE, MD 21230 whirligigs of Vollis Simpson. But it displays them side by side in annual group shows tackling uni- ———————— “It’s pretty un-museumy,” says versal themes with lesser-known BELOW: DAVID BEST, A LEAD ARTIST Rebecca Alban Hoffberger, who names and new discoveries. FOR THE BURNING MAN FESTIVAL, WORKED WITH A HOMELESS SHELTER founded this celebration of The spaces and displays and NEAR THE MUSEUM TO CREATE THIS after working with typography on the walls tend ART CAR IN ONE WEEK. psychiatric patients and a visit to toward the wacky, but the art PHOTO: NICK PREVAS. Jean Dubuffet’s Collection de l’Art and the intentions are strong and OPPOSITE: THE MUSEUM’S EXTERIOR Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland. pure. The museum runs numerous DEPICTING THE AURORA BOREALIS The museum has made it a point to public programs, including the NIGHT SKY. reject the art world’s standards even popular Kinetic Sculpture Race. PHOTO: DAN MEYERS

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National Museum and Culture seeks to document many facets of American life, so there’s quite of African a bit of history here, including objects from a sunken slave ship, Harriet American History Tubman’s belongings, an entire Jim Crow–era railway car, and Chuck and Culture Berry’s red Cadillac. But the art doesn’t disappoint, 1400 CONSTITUTION AVENUE NW with both early modernists and artists WASHINGTON, D.C. 20560 such as Hale Woodruff, Thornton Dial, Beauford Delaney, , Purvis Young, , A wonderful moment at the end of Clementine Hunter, Archibald Motley, ’s presidency was the Lois Mailou Jones, and Henry Ossawa opening of this museum in 2016. Tanner. More contemporary artists The striking building in the shape include Amy Sherald (who is respon- of an upside down ziggurat—the sible for the universally acclaimed best new building in Washington, official portrait of Michelle Obama D.C. in decades—was designed by unveiled in 2018), , Ghanian British architect David and Chakaia Booker. Some items Adjaye to look like a Yoruban crown. that fit both camps work—ever since The museum had been an idea going the Souls Grown Deep Foundation all the way back to , toured The Quilts of Gee’s Bend, they’ve when African American soldiers been heralded for their sophisticated returning from Europe first raised abstract compositions and use of color. the idea of a museum honoring their Another is the Mothership—a stage prop experience. Like many museums in designed by funk superstar George the Smithsonian group, the National Clinton and used at Parliament- Museum of African American History Funkadelic concerts. It’s exuberant Pop sculpture at its best.

———————— LEFT: EXTERIOR VIEW OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON, D.C. PHOTO: MICHAEL VENTURA/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO.

RIGHT: INSTALLATION VIEW OF VISUAL ART AND THE AMERICAN IMAGINATION, NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON, D.C. PHOTO: ALAN KARCHMER/NMAAHC.

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101ADUS_interior14 BLUES.indd 104-105 8/14/18 2:57 PM #47 The John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art

5401 BAY SHORE ROAD SARASOTA, FL 34243

Built by circus royalty in the 1930s, the Ringling Museum truly feels like a palace. Its pink Spanish Revival arms stretch out toward the Gulf of Mexico, surrounding formal gardens. Its galleries are actually big enough to display its collection of gargantuan paintings, like The Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek. The 66-acre summer estate of the billionaire family, with its Venetian- style mansion called the Ca d’Zan, is the moment here: It’s all about ogling the spectacular riches. But the museum is the real deal—it contains work from all eras and all continents, and its European and American painting collections matter. There’s Diego Velázquez, Paolo Veronese, Giovanni Bellini, , and more. And there’s enough work to put on interesting rotating exhibitions and to lend to other touring shows. It also has a 3,000-square-foot “Skyspace” called Joseph’s Coat, which is an excellent way to enjoy the Gulf light.

———————— INSTALLATION VIEW OF THE JOHN & MABLE RINGLING MUSEUM OF ART, SARASOTA, FL. PHOTO: COURTESY THE JOHN & MABLE RINGLING MUSEUM OF ART

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Walker rotunda. Outside is the bronze The Fighter of the Spirit by Ernst Barlach, Art Center a piece the Nazis tried to destroy in Kiel, Germany, but was hidden before 725 VINELAND PLACE they could get to it. MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55403 NEARBY: In front of the U.S. District MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ART Courthouse is one of Tom Otterness’s 2400 3RD AVENUE SOUTH phantasmagoric landscapes, called MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55404 Rockman. Made up of a towering golem and multiple playful figures, it’s an allegory about the power of the state Two great stops. The Walker is known that kids can crawl on. for its ambitious exhibitions and for being an early champion of artists like Kara Walker, Robert Irwin, Barry ———————— AND COOSJE VAN McGee, and Catherine Opie. But its BRUGGEN, SPOONBRIDGE AND CHERRY, 1988. collection also includes paintings like PHOTO: GENE PITTMAN FOR , Franz Marc’s The Large Blue Horses and MINNEAPOLIS major pieces by Chuck Close, Yves Klein, and Edward Hopper. Its film department collects moving-image work from artists such as Matthew Barney, Nam June Paik, Stan Brakhage, Fernand Léger, William Klein, and Derek Jarman— all wrapped up in a spaceship designed by Herzog & de Meuron. Its forward-looking nature includes multimedia arts, and it’s been a pioneer of working on the web in conjunction with the other must-visit in town, Minneapolis Institute of Art. This McKim, Mead & White temple is a classic American city encyclopedia, collecting everything you could want to see to understand the culture of the world going back 5,000 years. Its high- lights include several Louis Cranach the Elder portraits; ’s Olive Trees; Do-ho Suh’s large metal robe, Some/One; and Jennifer Steinkamp’s digital projection into a

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The Cleveland Standard Oil. The 50-foot-tall rubber stamp of the word “free” sits on its Museum of Art side in Willard Park, next to City Hall.

11150 EAST BOULEVARD CLEVELAND, OH 44106 ———————— EXTERIOR AND GARDENS, CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART, CLEVELAND, OH. PHOTO: © THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART A massive gem in the middle of Ohio, the Cleveland Museum started in 1913 as a Beaux-Arts Georgian temple and was later added to by Marcel Breuer in 1971 and Rafael Viñoly in 2009 and 2012. Most dramatic is a canopy of glass that spans a vast space between the wings, creating an area that’s less gala-benefit atrium and more like a public square. The encyclopedic museum is known for its Egyptian and Asian art collections, but really spans the globe and millennia. Some standouts include Caravaggio’s The Crucifixion of St. Andrew, J. M. W. Turner’s The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, Pablo Picasso’s La Vie, George Bellows’s Stag at Sharkey’s, and ’s quieter but moving Reading. Postwar painters are well represented here, including Larry Poons, Morris Louis, Jules Olitski, Robert Mangold, and Mark Tansey. Out front is a notable early casting of Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker that was blown up by the radical group the Weathermen in 1970 and stands, unrestored, bearing its scars like Venus de Milo or even The Sphinx.

NEARBY: Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen created Free Stamp in 1992 as a commission for

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101ADUS_interior14 BLUES.indd 142-143 8/14/18 2:57 PM #60 Oscar Howe. The Philbrook also The Philbrook presents a standout survey of Native American art in other mediums Museum of Art from basketry to jewelry to rugs to pottery masterpieces by Maria 2727 SOUTH ROCKFORD ROAD Martinez. Fittingly the main villa TULSA, OK 74114 is stocked with Italian Renaissance art including work by Giovanni Bellini, but the museum also shows With Kehinde Wiley’s massive its breadth by including everything Equestrian Portrait of Philip IV installed from work by 19th-century painter in 2018 in the Italian Room of its 1920s William Merritt Chase to contemporary oilman’s mansion, Tulsa’s Philbrook sculptor Rachel Whiteread. Museum shows its devotion to honor- ing both the past and all the forward motion of contemporary times. The ———————— painting is modeled after Velasquez’s INSTALLATION VIEW OF (CENTER) portrait, but like most of Wiley’s work, BIAGIO D’ANTONIO, THE ADORATION OF THE CHILD WITH SAINTS AND DONORS, it features an African American man, in C. 1476, OIL ON LINDEN WOOD PANEL, exquisite street style, in the heroic role. 90½ X 86¼ IN. PHILBROOK MUSEUM OF ART, Waite Phillips surprised Tulsa just TULSA, OKLAHOMA. GIFT OF THE SAMUEL 10 years after moving in by turning H. KRESS FOUNDATION 1961.9.19. the ornate Renaissance Revival villa, PHOTO: COURTESY PHILBROOK MUSEUM OF ART designed by Kansas City architect Edward Buehler Delk, and its 25-acre gardens, over to the city to create a museum. Later additions created more exhibition space and the Philbrook Downtown, a building in the Brady Arts District devoted to modern and contemporary art, and the institution’s pride: its Native American painting collection. Spanning from ledger-style drawings of the Battle of Little Big Horn to Pop- and Expressionist- inflected American Indian Movement canvases, it’s one of the best in the world. Much of the collection was generated by an annual show the Philbrook ran starting in 1946 devoted to Native American painting; some painters here include Narisco Abeyta, Woody Crumbo, Fritz Scholder, and

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Crystal Bridges NEARBY: If you come through Little Rock to get here, be sure to leave some Museum of time for the Arkansas Art Center (501 East 9th Street, Little Rock)—an American Art institution with a devotion to works on paper that has earned it a major 600 MUSEUM WAY collection of Neo-Impressionist Paul BENTONVILLE, AK 72712 Signac drawings and watercolors, an impressive array of Arthur Dove paintings and watercolors, drawings Straddling two rushing creeks, this by , and a set of Robert museum devoted to American artists Andrew Parker watercolors based was created by Alice Walton and on British poet Keith Douglas’s World opened in 2011. The art world was War II work. dubious—what was the Walmart heir up to? But she used her considerable riches to create a top collection— ———————— VIEW FROM THE NORTH TO THE including everyone from Charles GALLERY BRIDGE WITH MARK DI SUVERO, Willson Peale to Thomas Eakins to LOWELL’S OCEAN, 2005–08, CRYSTAL to Edward Hopper BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, BENTONVILLE, AK. to Mark Rothko—and a reputation for PHOTO: DERO SANFORD, COURTESY smart negotiations. The Moshe Safdie CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN building of wood and glass displays the ART, BENTONVILLE, AK goods handsomely. Some sleeper treats in the collec- tion that shouldn’t be missed include War News from Mexico by Richard Caton Woodville, The Lantern Bearers by , and Supine Woman by Wayne Thiebaud. One of Kerry James Marshall’s greatest paintings, Our Town, is here, as is an entire Frank Lloyd Wright house, the Bachman- Wilson House, shipped in from New Jersey. The museum ticks 3 of the sculptural/site-specific boxes every institution seems to have these days: a Roxy Paine, a Mark di Suvero, and a James Turrell Skyspace. But who can blame them for needing a Louise Bourgeois Spider?

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Dallas Museum Southwest, including Otis Dozier, work includes strong paintings by William Lester, and Everett Spruce. all the New York School heavies, the of Art They were realists, not romantics Germans—, Sigmar like the Western painters, and they Polke, and —and 1717 NORTH HARWOOD STREET brought some Impressionist technique photography by , DALLAS, TX 75201 along for the ride. The Dallas Museum Lynn Davis, and Charlie White. of Art has the biggest collection The Impressionists and Post- devoted their work (there were a lot Impressionists are represented in It’s huge—and like all the big city more than 9 of them). the main collection, but also take museums, spans many millennia and But the rest of the galleries feature center stage in a 15,000-square-foot cultures. Its roots were in the Dallas plenty of work by big American and re-creation of Coco ’s villa Art Association, which showed Texan European painters; some standouts are La Pausa in the South of . painters in the public library starting Frederic Edwin Church’s The Icebergs Given by , who bought in 1903, and it went through several from 1861; Gerald Murphy’s Razor, it in the 1950s, it includes a collection homes before it got its vast Edward and his biggest painting, Watch, from of small works by Paul Cézanne, Larrabee Barnes building in 1984. 1924; Robert Rauschenberg’s Skyway, , Paul Gauguin, Édouard Some of those early painters who which references JFK’s assassination Manet, , and Vincent showed in the library made up the in Dallas; and a small collection of van Gogh, as well as dozens of Dallas Nine, devoted to painting the paintings by Piet Mondrian. Postwar Pissarros and Renoirs.

The museum takes the decorative doing caricatures for Vanity Fair and made, outside of the normal art-world arts seriously, and has a large col- the New Yorker. Back in Mexico, he venues, to highlight past oppression of lection of modern design, including became interested in preserving and African Americans in Dallas. the front doors to a Greene & Greene analyzing pre-Columbian art, which house in Pasadena and work from influenced his mature work, like this Ettore Sottsass and the Campana masterpiece devoted to the 4 elements. ———————— OPPOSITE: INSTALLATION VIEW OF THE Brothers. A recent acquisition is a EUROPEAN GALLERIES AND (ABOVE) knockout: the Wittgenstein Vitrine NEARBY: At the Dallas County Records THE EXTERIOR VIEW, DALLAS MUSEUM by Carl Otto Czeschka—a 5-foot-tall Building (1201 Elm Street), artist OF ART, DALLAS, TX. silver case encrusted with gems, made Lauren Woods has built a piece into a in 1908. drinking , originally labeled The worth-the-trip-alone moment “Whites Only,” from the Jim Crow era. here is right outside the front door: a Woods removed a plaque that covered 60-foot-long glass mosaic by Miguel the remnants of that sign and added a Covarrubias, made in 1954 for an video projection of Civil Rights pro- office building overlooking the city’s testers being attacked by police with first major freeway. Covarrubias was firehoses. The video is triggered when born in Mexico City but made a name a visitor drinks. It’s one of several for himself in in the 1920s pieces around town that Woods has

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Georgia O’Keeffe’s to it is Winslow Homer’s house on the Maine coast (p. 13). The similarity is in Home and Studio that the surroundings that captivated the artists—the powerful work of 21120 US-84 nature continually paying humanity no ABIQUIÚ, NM 87510 mind—is practically overwhelming. A few miles drive from O’Keeffe’s home is the White Place, an area of Probably the most satisfying visit in dramatic rock formations and cliffs, all this book. Not only is the house and white, that she painted many times. studio that Georgia O’Keeffe built Spot the Cerro Pedernal from here, a from a dilapidated hacienda intact, flattop mountain of which O’Keeffe the landscape and its power over the said, “It’s my private mountain. It imagination is unchanged. O’Keeffe belongs to me. God told me if I painted began spending time in the area after it enough, I could have it.” visiting Mabel Dodge Luhan in Taos The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in in 1929. Soon she made it a regular Santa Fe runs the tours of the house summer getaway from both New York at Abiquiú—and you can see a good and her husband, . survey of her work there, from flowers She worked and painted in a secluded to skyscrapers to bones, including Black corner of Ghost Ranch, driving around Hollyhock Blue Larkspur, Untitled (City in a Ford Model A to find the rock Night), and that amazing blue void in formations and ravines that would Pelvis IV. become her most famous landscapes. There are two kinds of tours at In 1945, she bought the land in the Ghost Ranch—one on foot that goes to village of Abiquiú. When she built her her old home (nothing left compared new spot, she used traditional adobe to Abiquiú), and one that goes by van building techniques but added modern to locations she painted. Some of the skylights and picture windows to bring most thrilling places to compare to her in light: The doorways and windows paintings aren’t at either location. The were the subjects of many of her Black Place, which inspired 14 years paintings—as were the views of the of work, is 150 miles east of Ghost cottonwood trees below in the Chama Ranch—its desolate hills are immedi- River Valley. She moved here full- ately recognizable. O’Keeffe compared time in 1949, 3 years after Stieglitz’s them to a field of 100 elephants. death. Some people who visited her at Abiquiú include Charles Lindbergh, Allen Ginsberg, Joni Mitchell, Eliot ———————— THE ROOFLESS ROOM IN GEORGIA O’KEEFFE’S Porter, and Ansel Adams. HOME, ABIQUIÚ, NM. The trivia and the game of spotting PHOTO: HERBERT LOTZ, GEORGIA O’KEEFFE MUSEUM, compositions fall away quickly here. SANTA FE / ART RESOURCE, NY Among artists’ homes, the closest thing

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Heard Museum point of view rather than from an to preserve that first-person point of analytical or anthropological perspec- view—helping to upend placement 2301 N. CENTRAL AVENUE tive. That means it has great of art objects in ethnographic contexts PHOENIX, AZ 85004 relationships with artisans who’ve for decades. received knowledge from gener- The other main drive is contempo- ations of makers, and also with rary art—especially from the Native Treating Native American culture contemporary artists collaborating American Fine started as vital and alive is key to the with the museum. in the 1960s. As Native American Heard Museum’s success. Founded The Heard’s collections divide into artists began using Western art tech- in 1929 from Dwight and Maie 2 areas. One is a deep look at work niques in the early 20th century, Bartlett Heard’s collection, it has made throughout the Southwest, and experimenting with modernist grown into one of the most important including the best collection of Hopi ideas in the postwar era, they were museums in the Southwest. Its Kachina dolls in the world, Navajo always bedeviled with challenges over charming, Spanish-style main building and Zuni jewelry, Navajo textiles, tradition and authenticity. doesn’t show off the 50,000 square ceramics from prehistory to the Humor is key, according to feet of expansions it’s had through present, and basketwork extending painter Jaune Quick-To-See Smith. the years. It’s also the biggest museum into . The museum enlists “Humor is a tie that binds tribe to that makes it a point to see native art, contemporary Native American artists tribe,” she says. “Humor is a panacea old and new, from the first-person to guest curate these shows in order for what ails”—and also contains

powerful social criticism. You can NEARBY: There are two James Turrell see humor at work in pieces like Skyspaces nearby. Your basic round T. C. Cannon’s 1980 painting of an model is at the Scottsdale Museum Osage man in traditional dress of Contemporary Art (7374 East sitting at home in front of a van Gogh Second Street, Scottsdale). The more wheatfield painting. interesting is Air Apparent, at the The Heard continues to collect Arizona State University Tempe contemporary work, and has re- campus (which is also, appropriately, created the studio of the New Mexican home to the interdisciplinary School painter Pablita Velarde. She was one of Earth and Space Exploration). of the leading Native painters of the Based on local Hohokam tribe dwell- 20th century who worked in the “flat ings, the concrete and steel structure painting” style, did murals on pueblo housing the piece feels light and life for the WPA, and showed all over ephemeral set in its Christy Ten Eyck ———————— OPPOSITE: INSTALLATION VIEW OF BEAUTY the world. The museum also puts on cactus garden. No reservation needed; SPEAKS FOR US, HEARD MUSEUM, PHOENIX, AZ. the Native American Art Market Fair you can drop by 24/7. each March, which represents over ABOVE: ENTRY COURTYARD, HEARD MUSEUM, PHOENIX, AZ. 100 tribes and has been running for over 60 years. PHOTOS: CRAIG SMITH

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200 LARKIN STREET SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102

Since it split off from the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum, housing one of the most comprehen- sive collections of Asian art in the country, lives in the upper floors of the Beaux-Arts civic center building that housed San Francisco Museum of Modern art (or SFMOMA; p. 217) for many years. Its 18,000 works cover all cultures in Asia, but it’s known for its giant collection of exquisitely carved jade netsuke bottles from . Among its masterpieces are a Zhou dynasty seated Buddha in bronze from the year 338 B.C., a rhinoceros-shaped vessel dating back to 1050 B.C., and sandstone figures of Shiva and Parvati from Cambodia. The museum delves deeper than most Asian art museums, devoting space to Himalayan art and to art from the Sikh kingdoms. It also has a completely reconstructed tea room from Kyoto on its second floor.

———————— INSTALLATION VIEW OF THE JADE TREASURY, ASIAN ART MUSEUM, SAN FRANCISCO, CA. PHOTO: COURTESY ASIAN ART MUSEUM OF SAN FRANCISCO

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A-Z West and ’70s and in the ’80s, which have grounds are a Wagon Station encamp- added to its mystique. In addition, ment which consists of 12 science Joshua Tree it’s been home to artists such as Jack fiction-like inhabitable pods, a small Pierson and the late Jason Rhoades, shipping container compound, a Outdoor Museum and a funky broken-down aesthetic “regenerating field,” her own home that seems to infuse everything (and, full of prototypes for furniture, and a JOSHUA TREE, CALIFORNIA thankfully, to resist cutesy artiness). field of outdoor architecturally scaled There are 2 major places to visit— sculptures called Planar Pavilions. A-Z one seeks perfection in life, and though West is also the site of Zittel’s personal The high desert town of Joshua Tree its objects are handcrafted, they’re studio, which includes a weaving is another place that has become a also futuristic; the other makes new facility and ceramics area where bowls touchstone for artists deriving inspira- work out of the trash of the past. and textiles are produced and sold to tion from the western landscape— First is A-Z West, located on almost support the overhead of the compound. its light, its openness, its danger. (See 70 acres right next to the national park (Bowls, or “A-Z West Containers,”’ are Taos and Marfa.) There’s a rich history where artist Andrea Zittel conducts the only dishes used for all eating and here, from ancient Pinto culture to experiments for living. Her work asks drinking functions at A-Z West.) more recent Native Americans and questions about how we live, and Tours are held once a month or so, early settlers. It’s also been a hideout how our lives are dictated by social and because this is the artist’s per- for rock bands like America in the norms and values. Spread across the sonal residence, it must be stressed

that drop-ins are impossible. When no riots in 1965, for pieces in a show he Art work made of salvaged train cars. tours are available, you can visit the organized with Judson Powell called 66 Viewed from above, it’s a bit like Planar Pavilions on the northern edge Signs of Neon, which traveled all around Peru’s Nazca Lines, perhaps tracing of the compound. You also can become California. (He was also a founder of the the bodies of a tangle of eels. The a guinea pig for her by booking 1 week organization that saved ’s museum is open daily, with occasional stays in 1 of 2 small Experimental , p. 243) Later, he bought tours worth scheduling for. Living Cabins—about 30 miles east— land in Joshua Tree and didn’t stop that have no power or water and are building until his death in 2004. The installed with abstracted forms for fantastical scrap works reward close-up ———————— OPPOSITE: ANDREA ZITTEL, WAGON STATION living called Planar Configurations. looking, wandering, and taking in the ENCAMPMENT AT A-Z WEST, JOSHUA TREE, CA. Zittel is also a founder of High Desert long view. It’s inventive technically, PHOTO: LANCE BREWER, COURTESY THE ARTIST AND Test Sites, a local non-profit that sup- and evocative in its critique of modern REGEN PROJECTS, ports works and programming by other culture. Purifoy grew up in Alabama, ABOVE: NOAH PURIFOY, NO CONTEST, 1991. artists throughout the year. where he must have been influenced PHOTO: COURTESY NOAH PURIFOY FOUNDATION The next stop is the Outdoor by the tradition of African American © 2018 Museum, the life work of Noah Purifoy. yard shows (see the last major remnant A graduate of the Chouinard Art of this at Joe Minter’s African Village Institute (the predecessor of CalArts), outside of Birmingham, p. 157). Purifoy made his first sculptural scrap Over the hill from the Outdoor pieces out of the wreckage of the Watts Museum is Unagi—a massive Land

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Honolulu Museum Willson Peale to Thomas Eakins, John decorative art, mostly in the form of Singer Sargent, and Arthur Dove is entire rooms transported from North of Art all here. Postwar work from Helen Africa and Middle Eastern countries. Frankenthaler to Robert Motherwell to Duke—the tobacco heiress known for 900 SOUTH BERETANIA STREET Philip Guston to Robert Rauschenberg philanthropy and gossip-column- HONOLULU, HI 96814 is here, too. Sculpture checks in with worthy adventures—got respect in the Alexander Calder, Louise Nevelson, islands by being the first non- DORIS DUKE’S SHANGRI LA David Smith, Mark di Suvero, Isamu Hawaiian woman to learn surfing 4055 PAPU CIRCLE Noguchi, John McCracken, and, right (directly from Duke Kahanamoku, no HONOLULU, HI 96816 out front, a kinetic George Rickey. less). She started Shangri La in 1937— But the Hawaiian galleries are why some of it inspired by trips to places you’re here. They have incredible indig- like the Taj Mahal on her honeymoon This museum, spread out over 3 acres, enous artworks, early views of the with James Cromwell—and continued would stand out in any state for its islands by Europeans dating back to to add to it as she traveled. Highlights collection of American and European 1788, Georgia O’Keeffe’s views of Maui, include the Damascus Room with paintings old and new. But its importance and 20th-century work by artists born its extensive wood paneling in the is in its collection of Hawaiian art, both here. The regional modernist style that Ottoman-Syrian style; the Syrian room pre-colonial and post-, in the changing the building reflects shows up in the which re-creates an entry hall from views of Hawaii in Western art along art by Marguerite Louis Blasingame, the 1500s; and collections in every the way, and in its Asian collections— Isami Doi, Hon Chew Hee, Cornelia material from glass to metal to textiles. they include 10,000 Japanese woodblock MacIntyre Foley, and Keichi Kimura. Tilework is astounding throughout the prints donated by James A. Michener, The native feather capes are the biggest complex, with examples dating back with masterworks by Kitagawa showstoppers. to 1260. The range of Ilkhanid tiles Utamaro, Katsushika Hokusai, and the It was Cooke’s idea to include all from Iran traces the arc of secular world’s largest collection of Utagawa corners of Asia in the museum, and the and religious Islamic art and innova- Hiroshige. museum has continued that mission tions in glazes and techniques. All of Anne Rice Cooke, a missionary’s with the most recently expanded this is laid out as Duke lived in it—like daughter born on Oahu in 1853, started galleries representing Korea and the a time-traveling palace. the museum with her own collection Philippines. One of the highlights in 1922, with a vision of building a of the Asian collections is a Chinese flowing indoor/outdoor experience figure of Guanyin in wood from the ———————— OPPOSITE: INSTALLATION VIEW OF THE that was true to Hawaiian life, with year 1025 whose casual pose seems as AMERICAN GALLERY, HONOLULU MUSEUM courtyards punctuating the 32 galler- modern as anyone on the island today. OF ART, HONOLULU, HI. ies. Though it was designed by a New The museum also runs Spalding PHOTO: SHUZO YEMOTO, COURTESY HONOLULU York architect, Bertram Goodhue, it House—a former residence of Cooke’s, MUSEUM OF ART. influenced what became the Hawaiian- where, in addition to a Japanese- PAGES 252–53: INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR Modern style. inspired sculpture garden, an entire VIEWS OF SHANGRI LA, HONOLULU, HI. The galleries world by David Hockney is perma- COURTESY SHANGRI LA HISTORICAL ARCHIVES, include a pretty extensive art-history nently installed. DORIS DUKE FOUNDATION FOR ISLAMIC ART, HONOLULU, HAWAI‘I seminar from the Renaissance to the Looking over legendary Diamond PHOTO: TIM PORTER / OTTO Impressionists. American painting from Head Beach, Doris Duke’s Shangri La John Singleton Copley and Charles contains her collection of Islamic

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