san francisco

A World of Paper

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[The Fortuny Tent at Pulp Fashion]

Back in the spring of 2011 I coerced my sister into accompanying me to an exhibit at San Francisco’s Legion of Honor called Pulp Fashion. Both of us came to this visit with no expectations and were quite blown away at the exquisite exhibit. Isabelle de Borchgrave is a Belgian artist who works mainly with paper and paint to recreate to scale reproductions of historical costumes. I believe the exhibit at the Legion was the first large scale exhibit of her work in the United States.

Tonight, the Bellevue Arts Museum opens an exhibit called A World of Paper which focuses on  a specific body of work inspired by painter and textile designer Mariano Fortuny. I am very excited to have an opportunity to see the work of this world class artist again.

I have to mention to see this work up close is a bit mind boggling when you realize every bit of it is created from paper. I hope people “go over the bridge” and take the opportunity to visit BAM with their own eyes. I’ll be reporting back on my own visit.

As an aside, for anyone who hasn’t been to the California Palace of The Legion of Honor, it is quite the grandiose pleasure. The location is a bit out of the way, so you feel like you are making a pilgrimage, with a pay out of spending time with the mainly European collection of art. For Hitchcock fans, you might recognize the interior from the famous museum scene in Vertigo.

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The Girl With A Earring

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I came across Ken Johnson’s brief mention in the NYTimes that Girl With Earring and Entourage will be coming to The Frick. Sure enough Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting from the Mauritshuis opens today. I had no idea that Vermeer’s Girl With A Pearl Earring had not been shown in New York City since 1984. She will be in good company since The Frick is privy to three Vermeers in it’s own collection.

I was lucky enough last April to see this show when it was installed at the de Young in San Francisco and it was quite the treat. I was reminded once again that my brief excursions down to the Bay Area have enriched my museum going life far more than I give credit. This year I was lucky to go more than once getting a chance to return to the de Young in July to see their Diebenkorn exhibit, which I am still trying to wrap my mind around.

I would like to point out the de Young and the Frick enlisted two entirely different marketing campaigns for the same exhibit. Much to my disappointment, there will be no winking girls with pearls at the Frick.

David Park

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I’ve just started reading Nancy Boas book David Park – A Painter’s Life and was excited to see a post about Park on the front front page of The Painter’s Table today, leading to a nice blog entry by Left Bank Art, where writer Carl Belz posts a 1983 essay on a Park exhibition.

Park was a favorite of mine in my early painting years and after seeing the Diebenkorn Berkeley Years exhibit in San Francisco this summer it is hard not to have a restored crush on the Bay Area Figurative painters. Boa’s book is dense and printed in very, very small type which is leading to a slower than usual reading rate, but I am very thrilled to see someone like Park given his due in print. I am a little shocked to find that he died as such a young age (49).

I’m partial to this one:

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David Park, Mother-in-Law, 1954-1955; oil on canvas, 26 in. x 19 1/2 in. (66.04 cm x 49.53 cm); Collection SFMOMA, Collection of Vicki and Kent Logan, fractional and promised gift to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; © Estate of David Park

Source: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Things about Diebenkorn

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There are entire places and things I witnessed on this day that I neglected to comment on, became unable follow through on or was unable to think about  in any articulate manner. The Diebenkorn Exhibit, a meditation on the Sausalito Six, The Heath Factory all occurred on this day. I was sick. I was tired from driving and managing and lonely as hell. I know they were important things.  Things I had made a pilgrimage out of. But sometimes you need to wait.

SFMOMA and De Young

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I am exhausted. Finally a good night’s sleep and the SF garbage trucks wake me up at 5:04A. I’m fighting off some bullshit cold that I’ve been trying to get since Thursday.

Yesterday we met at SFMOMA. But first I got hopelessly lost for a good half hour after getting off BART. It had already been a long day with the flight. A quick coffee at SFMOMA coffee shop, a wait in line to see The Clock, which was brilliant and entertaining, lunch at that tea place in Yerba Beuna Gardens which was more chi chi and small portioned than we had hoped ( and at lunch time not as relaxing). The weather yesterday was downright perfect. back to SFMOMA to see the Garry Winograd exhibit which was important but honestly we buzzed through it. A cab ride to Golden Gate Park to see The Girl with A Pearl Earring.

The Girl w/ Earring show at the de Young was perfect and strangely not too crowded. It was such a treat to see the Vermeer, Rembrandt, Jan Steen, Frans Hals, a lovely show. We looked at the permanent modern art collection and I opined in front of the DeKoonig how much I wish I was still painting. Cab to San Remo then we hoofed it back downtown to have dinner at a food court in a mall which was actually nice. Then on to BART and I took a cab to City Lights. That and the Italian coffee shop up here in North Beach are my two SF touchstones. It was calming to just browse, listen to earnest 20 something discussions about poetry and just be.

I walked back to the San Remo, dropped my stuff and ventured two blocks to Safeway to get a bottle of wine.