Adjusting happily to California Time; waking early
to lemons
we walked the dog and dove immediately into long-postponed tasks
dental [don’t ask]
and the closer-to-home-automotive; all swell.
[none of these vehicles mine, however]
Enrico made good on his promise to introduce us to Bernard, resulting in a most pleasant lunch
down First as the yard was chaos with Castro cutting back the jungle while Scott ground through powder-coated steel in the studio…things all rolled along quite smoothly until,
immediately after loading Reliable’s flatbed, I inexplicably collapsed for six daytime hours…but,
seemingly recovered, slept the night,
lived a day and Saturday we were in San Francisco town
to catch Noam’s show at Ratio 3,
some anomalous Robert Hudsons from the late seventies and
Ed Moses [at ninety the mastery came as no surprise] at Brian Gross where
in the back room we found a flight of Flemings as well before a brief detour
into Catherine Clark’s where Sandow Birk’s “Monuments” were all the rage.
Down in the architectural chaos of SOMA we tried SFMOMA for Saturday lunch
and Magritte, but whereas Etel Adnan was peacefully accessible ol’ Rene was definitely not…
This was made up for* by Wayne Thiebaud’s choices of greatest hits from the collection, some, like the Beckmann below, familiar and among my all time favorites but others truly hidden
treasures. Never a great fan of the later paintings his revelatory choices and commentaries nonetheless helped me at last understand why he is such a revered teacher and personage.
I’d seen the Bischoff before but the Joan Brown below, never;
…and George C. Ault, “The Hudson from Riverside Drive”, 1920 – 21…[!]
Around 2:30 we fled,
got into line for the ever-stalled Bay Bridge
and after maybe an hour home…where I began my Subtle Decline under pristine skies.
*[It even inspired an eleventh hour renewal of our membership]
So seem to have left Venice in the nick of time. I read yesterday that they had massive flooding, 75% of the city flooded. Footage showed the Venetians coping well with many in orange rubber golashes up to their knees. (spell check wants to make it “goulashes”, but isn’t that something else?) A foot race was not cancelled but being managed in about 15″ of water with hearty cheering.
Galosh-a-mighty!
That Joan Brown…acknowledgement of new process, as the Ault was perfect. There’s a lot to love about Max Beckmann. Didn’t Keith Boyle go on at times about his work? And Etel! 🙂
Glad you missed the acqua alta…today seems it’s covering 12% of the city, a new high.
A
A rewarding little show, with fine works and fine words accompanying…as for acqua alta, that would have been more of an adventure than we needed; the little bit that kept the hordes out of san Marco our first day was just about right.
Ah, the Hudson viewed from Riverside Drive…
As opposed to the Hudsons viewed at Brian Gross…quite a wonderful painting, that Ault [and familiar from your youth, when tugboats were still steam-powered [?]]
..often love what you love in PaintingWorld…
You/ve a discerning eye.
But oboy so does Wayne!
Love the Joan Brown…..those lines were for Magritte? I recently saw a good Magritte show, no lines, somewhere. The skies are soooo blue!
Yeah, Magritte; it was supposed to be a good show but…Saturday! Date night! Whatever…might as well have been Mona Lisa at da Louver…
You guys are insatiable.
After massive inputs in Europe you fly right back into more museums and galleries here.
I thought you were going to decompress “out there” for a while.
Art addicts.
Well, it definitely beats what’s on the news.
Well, Noam being an old friend got us into the City and, once there…