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art museum

MoMA The Museum of Modern Art, NYC (In Pictures)

by Dan Perez September 17, 2018

Was back in New York City with Mrs. Perez last week for a quick weekend getaway; primarily to catch lo-fi folk/rock act Waxahatchee at Le Poisson Rouge in the West Village (check out the pics HERE). With the weekend rain dragging into Monday, we decided that a visit the only major art museum open on a Monday would be the perfect way to spend the afternoon, so we hopped a cab to NYC’s famed Museum of Modern Art. We had been there several years ago but brought my mother along who pretty much laughed her way through the museum (“You call that art?!!!”) and wanted little more than to get out of there as soon as possible. I returned this past week accompanied by Mrs. Perez, my camera and a few good lenses – but first, a little history.

Founded in 1929 by by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (wife of John D. Rockefeller, Jr.) and two of her friends, Lillie P. Bliss and Mary Quinn Sullivan, the Museum of Modern Art officially opened on November 7, 1929, nine days after the Wall Street Crash(!). It was housed in six rooms of galleries and offices on the twelfth floor of the Heckscher Building at 730 Fifth Avenue (corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street). At the time, it was America’s premier museum devoted exclusively to modern art, and the first of its kind in Manhattan to exhibit European modernism.

Former New York Governor and Vice President Neslon Rockefeller became president of the museum in 1939 and that same year MoMA opened to the public in its new (and present) location on 53rd Street. The new location was renovated and designed by the modernist architects Philip L. Goodwin and Edward Durell Stone (Stone’s other notable works include Radio City Music Hall and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.).

In 1997, the museum undertook a major renovation and expansion designed by Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi with Kohn Pedersen Fox, one of the largest architecture firms in the world. The project, including an increase in MoMA’s endowment to cover operating expenses, cost $858 million in total. The project also nearly doubled the space for MoMA’s exhibitions and programs and features 630,000 square feet of space. The Peggy and David Rockefeller Building on the western portion of the site houses the main exhibition galleries, and The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building provides space for classrooms, auditoriums, teacher training workshops, and the museum’s expanded Library and Archives.

The Museum of Modern Art is considered by many to have the best collection of modern Western masterpieces in the world, including more than 150,000 individual pieces in addition to approximately 22,000 films and 4 million film stills. Since 2012, the museum is open seven days a week and admission costs are $25 for adults, $18 for seniors and $14 for students (children 16 and under are free). TIP: Avoid long lines and buy your tickets online at www.moma.org – you’ll thank me afterwards.

Brought my camera along this time (still photography is allowed) so here are a few photographs of some of the art that caught my eye, enjoy…

Let’s kick things off with “City Dreams” by Congolese artist Bodys Isek Kingelez which consists of sculptures of imagined buildings and cities that reflected dreams for his country, his continent, and the world. The sculptures are created from a range of everyday materials and found objects — colored paper, commercial packaging, plastic, soda cans, and bottle caps — all meticulously repurposed and arranged.

“Fall of the House of Usher” (1979) by Italian artist Mario Merz (1925-2003)

An art tour discusses “Mademoiselle Pogany” (version I, 1913), a sculpture of Hungarian artist Margit Pogany, by pioneering Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876–1957)

Images from MoMa’s “Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980” The exhibition explores themes of large-scale urbanization, technology in everyday life, consumerism, monuments and memorialization, and the global reach of Yugoslav architecture and includes more than 400 drawings, models, photographs, and film reels…

The Werner and Elaine Dannheisser Gallery features two towering wood sculptures by German sculptor Thomas Schütte and views of the city…

“Edge of Town” (1969) by American artist Philip Guston (1913-1980). Comical hooded Klan figures first appeared in Guston’s works after one of his Los Angeles murals was vandalized by the Ku Klux Klan in 1933…

“Do the Dance” (2005) by American artist Elizabeth Murray (1940-2007)

A couple perusing a portfolio of forty screenprints and lithographs from German artist Sigmar Polke (1941-2010)

“The Last Supper” (1986) by American artist Andy Warhol (1928-1987). From Carolyn Lanchner, MoMA Curator of Painting and Sculpture: In differentially vitiated colors, Dove Soap’s logo in rose and General Electric’s in muted blue announce their presence at the holy scene. God, having separated light and darkness, found his creation to be “good,” and, according to its slogan, GE, with beneficent intent, “brings good things to light.” And did not the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus at his baptism in the form of a dove? One might suspect a radically recast, reimagined transubstantiation. The much more brightly colored price tag of fifty-nine cents is more difficult to justify; might it be the cost of a Woolworth’s copy of The Last Supper?

“Reanimation” installation featuring four videos (color, sound and silent) on custom screens within a prefabricated house structure by American artist Joan Jonas

“American People Series #20: Die” (1967) by female, Harlem-born artist Faith Ringgold. The frenzied spectacle depicted here evokes the race riots that engulfed the United States in the 1960s

“Glenn” (1985) by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988)

Young girl observing “Vir Heroicus Sublimis” (1950-51) by American painter and theorist Barnett Newman (1905-1970)

More than three thousand Bell-47D1 helicopters were made in the United States and sold in forty countries between 1946 and 1973, when production ceased. Its designer, Arthur Young (1905-1995), was also a poet and a painter and consciously juxtaposed its transparent plastic bubble (made in one piece rather than in sections) with the open structure of its tail boom. The bubble lends an insectlike appearance to the hovering craft, which generated its nickname, the “bug-eyed helicopter”. This was the “whirlybird” featured in the M*A*S*H movie and television series.

Claude Monet’s “Water Lillies” (1914-26). In this triptych of three mural sized panels, Monet depicted his Japanese-style pond covered with water lilies, at center, shimmering with reflections of clouds overhead…

One of my faves from the MoMA, Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte’s peculiar “The Menaced Assassin” (1927)

“The Lovers” (1928) by René Magritte (1898-1967)

Art lovers admiring Pablo Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” (1907)

“The She-Wolf” (1943) by American artist Jackson Pollock (1912-1956)

“The Congo Queen” (1946) by Haitian artist Hector Hyppolite (1894-1948)

“Expansion in Four Directions” (1961-62) by Swiss artist Max Bill (1908-1994)

One of the most recognized pieces of art in the world, “The Starry Night” (1889), an oil on canvas by the Dutch post-impressionist painter and one of the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art, Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). The painting depicts the view from the east-facing window of his asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence (a commune in southern France), just before sunrise…

“Masks Confronting Death” (1888) by Belgian artist James Ensor (1860-1949)

Mrs. Perez snapping a photo of Jackson Pollock’s “Easter and the Totem” (1953)

“Interior with a Young Girl” (1905-06) by French painter Henri Matisse (1869-1954)

“Goldfish and Sculpture (1912) by Henri Matisse

Young woman snaps a photograph of yet another work by Henri Matisse, “Dance (I)” which is a preliminary version of a painting made by Matisse in 1909 at the request of Russian businessman and art collector Sergei Shchukin. The final version of the work, completed in 1910 and named “Dance (La Danse)”, resides in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Before we knew it, MoMA was closing and this security guard here looked like he was ready for a nap. Another work by Matisse (yeah, I really liked his work) “L’Atelier Rouge” (1911) hangs in the distance…

Our visit to the Museum of Modern Art was over after just over three hours. Happy we returned to this gem of an art museum. We’ll be back…

Even more art museums

I’ve got a thing for art museums. Whenever I travel, I’m always looking for an art museum to visit – and I’ve been to a few. Besides the MoMA, check out my images from The Solomon R. Guggenheim, The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. I’ve also visited Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico, National Museum of Art of Romania, and the Museo Nacional de Arte and Museo Soumaya (which replicated the spiral design of the Guggenheim) in Mexico City. Yeah, I’ve got a thing for art museums.

September 17, 2018

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC (In Pictures)

by Dan Perez July 26, 2018

written by Dan Perez

Was back in New York City with the family a few weeks ago and a family trip to NYC is usually accompanied by a trip to an art museum. Last week I shared a series of photographs from our first visit to the Whitney Museum of American Art (photographs HERE). Now, the Whitney was founded in 1931 by a wealthy and prominent American socialite and art patron named Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Today, I’d like to share several photographs from our first visit to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on NYC’s Upper East Side. And guess what? That’s right, Solomon Robert Guggenheim was also rich.

Born in 1861 in Philadelphia to a wealthy mining family (some guys are just born lucky, yes?), Guggenheim studied in Switzerland at the Concordia Institute in Zürich before returning to the United States to work in the family mining business. Already a multi-millionaire in the copper business, Guggenheim later founded the Yukon Gold Company in Alaska in 1906. He retired from his business in 1919 to pursue full-time art collecting and began displaying his collection of old masters at his apartment in the Plaza Hotel in New York City.

Swiss sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti

In 1937, Guggenheim established the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, a leading institution for the collection, preservation, and research of modern and contemporary art that operates museums in Venice, Italy, Bilbao, Spain and in the United Arab Emirates. In 1939, he and his art advisor, abstract artist Baroness Hilla von Rebay, opened a venue for the display of his collection, the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, on East 54th Street in NYC.

By the early 1940s, the museum had accumulated such a large collection of avant-garde paintings that the need for a permanent building to house the art collection had become apparent. Guggenheim and Rebay commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright, a pioneering American architect and interior designer, to design a museum for a lot that Guggenheim had acquired on Fifth Avenue. Wright, a narcissist whose life was marked by scandal, debt and even murder, dispensed with the conventional approach to museum layout. His plan was for the museum guests to ride to the top of the building by elevator, to descend at a leisurely pace along the gentle slope of the continuous ramp, and to view the atrium of the building as the last work of art.

Frank Lloyd Wright, Hilla von Rebay, and Solomon Guggenheim with a model of Wright’s design for the new museum, Plaza Hotel, NYC 1945

The museum’s now-iconic spiral design recalls a nautilus shell, with continuous spaces flowing freely one into another. The open rotunda afforded viewers the unique possibility of seeing several bays of work on different levels simultaneously and even to interact with guests on other levels. Wright’s distinctive cylindrical building turned out to be his last major work, as the architect died at age 91, six months before its opening. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opened to the public in 1959, ten years after Guggenheim’s death on Long Island in 1949.

So that’s a little bit of history. The Guggenheim Museum is a must-see NYC attraction and proved to be an excellent way to spend a few hours with the family (especially during what was a rainy, sweltering summer day in the city). Admission is $25 for adults, $18 for students and kids under 12 are free. Photography is allowed (and you know I never travel without my camera and a few good lenses) so here are a few images I snapped at this remarkable art museum. Enjoy…

Check out the FULL GALLERY over at danperezphotography.com

July 26, 2018

Blog Photography Places & Spaces

The Whitney Museum of American Art (In Pictures)

by Dan Perez July 11, 2018

written by Dan Perez

So I was back in NYC last week and as I am wont to do when I travel, I decided to drag my family to yet another art museum (they pretend to hate them but I know that deep down they actually enjoy them). We’ve already been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (photographs HERE) and the Brooklyn Museum (photographs HERE) so this time, I picked the Whitney Museum of American Art – known informally as “The Whitney”.

The Whitney was founded in 1931 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), a wealthy and prominent American socialite and art patron after whom the museum is named. Mrs. Whitney was inspired to become an artist herself after visiting Europe in the early 1900s. Because of her wealth and status, she worked under an assumed name but by 1910 she became a well-regarded sculptor exhibiting her work publicly under her own name. Her sculptures can be found all over the world including at the Washington Heights-Inwood War Memorial, the Women’s Titanic Memorial in Washington, D.C. and on the Victory Arch on Madison Square on 5th Avenue in NYC.

With the aid of her assistant, Juliana R. Force, an American art museum administrator and director, Whitney had collected nearly 700 works of American art and in 1929, she offered to donate over 500 works of art to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but the museum declined the gift(!). This led Whitney to start her own museum, exclusively for American art, in a converted row of houses on West 8th Street in Greenwich Village in 1931.

In 1954, the museum left its original location and moved to a small structure on 54th Street connected to and behind the Museum of Modern Art on 53rd Street before relocating again to a larger structure on the southeast corner of Madison Avenue at 75th Street in Manhattan’s Upper East Side in 1966. After grappling with space problems, the museum returned to the West Village in a new 200,000 square foot structure designed by Italian architect and engineer Renzo Piano. Construction began in 2010 and was completed in 2015 for a cool $422 million.

Today the Whitney focuses on 20th and 21st century American art. Its permanent collection comprises more than 21,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, films, videos, and artifacts of new media by more than 3,000 artists. It was our first visit to “The Whitney” and we spent several hours perusing the offerings of this fine museum. Time very well spent. Brought along my camera, here are a few photographs – enjoy…

From the exhibition ‘Mary Corse: A Survey in Light’ which approaches the question of light through painting…

“A Woman in the Sun” (1961) by American realist painter Edward Hopper

Henry Koerner’s fascinating “Mirror of Life” (1946)

A young woman observing “$199 Television” (1961) by Andy Warhol

“Standing Lincoln” (1912) by Daniel Chester French, one of the most prolific and acclaimed American sculptors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries…

“Baptism in Kansas” (1928) by John Steuart Curry

One of my favorites at the Whitney, “The Family” (1955) by Charles Alston, an African-American painter, sculptor, illustrator, muralist and teacher who lived and worked in Harlem. Alston’s 1990 bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. became the first image of an African American displayed at the White House…

“The Lord Is My Shepherd” (1926) by American painter and muralist Thomas Hart Benton. His fluid, sculpted figures in his paintings showed everyday people in scenes of life in the United States…

“Office Girls” (1936) by Russian-born American painter Raphael Soyer

The Whitney Museum boasts four terraces and exterior staircases that let museumgoers enjoy sweeping views of the city…

A young woman takes five on one of the outside terraces of the Whitney next to “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos” (2008), a steel rendering of a rifle’s crosshairs by African-American artist Rashid Johnson. The title is borrowed from a 1988 song by Public Enemy, whose logo features an image of crosshairs…

Another one of my faves, “The Subway” (1950) by American figurative painter George Tooker

“Employment Agency” (1937) by artist Isaac Soyer, a social realist painter who often portrayed working-class people of New York City in his paintings…

“Stop The War” protest posters from the Whitney’s “An Incomplete History of Protest” exhibition which looks at how artists from the 1940s to the present have confronted the political and social issues of their day…

“Felix, June 5, 1994” by artist AA Bronson depicts Felix Partz, one of Bronson’s collaborators in the Toronto-based collective General Idea. Partz died in 1994 of an AIDS-related illness…

African-American artist Carl Pope’s brilliantly disguised installation, “Some of the Greatest Hits of the New York City Police Department” addresses the history of police brutality in New York between 1949 and 1994. The inscriptions, which include the names of people who were killed or brutalized as well as the officers who committed the acts, were written by the artist using trophies and plaques made specifically for law-enforcement use…

A young man ponders the meaning of artist Melvin Edwards’ barbed wire “Pyramid Up and Down Pyramid” (1969)

My daughter takes a break under “New No’s”, a poem written after the election of Donald J. Trump and acts as a declaration against the drift of American society toward what is most un-American. Designed by Paul Chan and Badlands Unlimited, a book publisher…

Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s “Untitled” (America) (1994–95), which consists of twelve light strings, each with forty-two 15-watt lightbulbs and rubber sockets, hangs in the museum’s grand staircase…

Colombian artist Carolina Caycedo’s “Cosmotarrayas” combine handmade fishing nets and collected objects, many from Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil. It’s part of the museum’s “between the Waters” exhibit…

My wife and daughter admiring the work of NYC based artist Cy Gavin’s “Aubade II (Spittal Pond)” (2016). The painting, made up of acrylic, chalk and oil on denim, is part of the collection of Australian singer-songwriter Nick Cave…

And a good time was had by all…

Check out my photographs from my visits to other art museums: Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico, National Museum of Art of Romania and the Museo Nacional de Arte and Museo Soumaya in Mexico City (yeah, I got a thing for art museums).

July 11, 2018

Blog Photography Places & Spaces

El Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico (In Pictures)

by Dan Perez April 4, 2017

written by Dan Perez

This past weekend, Mrs. Perez and I traveled to Puerto Rico for a little rest and relaxation at one of our favorite places, Villa Cofresi in beautiful Rincón. I was able, however, to coerce Mrs. Perez to accompany me to a place I’ve wanted to visit for some time – the Museo de Arte de Ponce.

Now, if you know me you know I’ve got a thing for art museums and whenever I travel abroad, I make sure to make time for the local art museum. Whether it be the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Brooklyn Museum in New York City, the Museo Nacional de Arte and Museo Soumaya in Mexico City, the National Museum of Art of Romania, the National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, or the Norton Museum of Art right here in South Florida – if there’s an art museum in town, I’m there.

So, I was happy to have been able to visit the art museum in Ponce, which was founded in 1959 by Luis A. Ferré, a Puerto Rican engineer, industrialist, politician, philanthropist, and a patron of the arts. Born in the southern city of Ponce, Ferré was the third Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, serving from 1969 to 1973 and was the founding father of the New Progressive Party, which advocates for Puerto Rico to become a state of the United States of America. He is also a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom (awarded by President George W. Bush in 1991), the highest civilian award of the United States.

The museum initially displayed 71 paintings from Ferré’s personal collection but today displays over 3,000 pieces including the iconic painting “Flaming June” (which he purchased at the Maas Gallery in London in 1963 for £2,000) by the Victorian painter Frederic Leighton (alas, that painting was temporarily in England during our visit). Ferré died in 2003 at 99 years old. He was survived by his wife, Tiody de Jesús (pictured above); his son, Antonio; and his daughter, the novelist Rosario Ferré, author of “The House on the Lagoon” (she passed away of natural causes in February 2016).

The museum was the recipient of a $30M expansion in 2010 making it the largest art museum in the Caribbean. The Financial Times of London states that the museum holds “one of the most distinguished private collections in the Western Hemisphere outside the United States.” It has an important collection of art that ranges from the 14th to the 20th century, Italian Baroque, British Pre-Raphaelite, Spanish Golden Age and contemporary Latin-American art.

I brought along my Lumix GH4 and a few lenses and snapped a few pics of some of my favorite pieces. So if you happen to find yourself in Puerto Rico and love art, put the Museo de Arte de Ponce on your list of places to visit (admission is only $6, $3 for students and seniors and free parking) – you won’t be sorry. Enjoy the photographs…

We arrive at the museum (there are small free parking garages on either side of the museum)

Once inside, the museum boasts an elegant double staircase designed by American architect Edward Durell Stone…

The museum offers daily guided tours in English and Spanish at 11:00am and 2:00pm

One of the main features of the museum is its hexagonal galleries, which allow natural light to enter through its corners bringing an illumination to exhibitions…

“Doubting Thomas” by Bernardo Strozzi (1581 – 1644), an Italian Baroque painter and engraver.

He is considered a principal founder of the Venetian Baroque style…

Bronze sculpture of ‘Hercules’ by French sculptor Guillaume Boichot (1735-1814)

“The Fall of the Rebel Angels” by Italian painter Scipione Compagno (1624-1680). This might have been my favorite painting at the museum (would have also made a pretty badass heavy metal album cover!)

“Susanna and the Elders” by Dutch painter Lambert Sustris (c. 1515-1520 – c. 1584). The painting depicts the biblical story of Susanna (from the Book of Daniel), a fair Hebrew wife, who is accosted by two lustful elders while she was bathing alone in her garden…

“Dolorosa” (Virgin of Sorrows) by Spanish sculptor José de Mora (1642–1724)

“San Antonio de Padua”, a Portuguese Catholic priest and friar (who is also the patron saint of lost things!)

by Spanish sculptor Pedro de Mena y Medrano (1628 – 1688)

“The Torture of Ixion” by Italian painter Giovanni Battista Langetti (1625–1676). In Greco-Roman mythology, Ixion was a king of the Lapiths who tried to seduce Hera, the wife of Zeus. As a punishment, Ixion was bound to a fiery wheel and condemned to spin for all eternity. Lesson learned? You don’t mess with the big man’s wife!

“The Awakening of the Arts” by Flemish painter Frans Floris (1517-1570). Floris played an important role in the movement in Northern Renaissance painting referred to as Romanism…

“Milo of Croton” by French sculptor Edme Dumont (1720-1775)

“Mary Magdalen” by French painter Trophime Bigot (1579–1650)

“The Wayfarers” by French realist painter Léon Augustin Lhermitte (1844-1925) whose primary subject matter was rural scenes depicting peasants at work…

“Venus and her Satellites” by William Etty (1787-1849), the first significant British painter of nudes and still lifes…

A couple of art lovers snapping photos of French painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s “Far from Home” (1868)

“Female Nude” by acclaimed Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (1863-1923)

“La consulta” by Puerto Rican painter and muralist Jorge Rechany (1914-1990)

“Noche de luna llena” by Puerto Rican painter Carlos Cancio (1961 – )

We really enjoyed our visit to the Museo de Arte de Ponce – it truly is a world-class art museum. Make sure you make the time to stop by should you find yourself in Puerto Rico…

April 4, 2017

Blog Photography Places & Spaces

The National Museum of Art of Romania (In Pictures)

by Dan Perez May 4, 2016

written by Dan Perez

Anybody who knows me knows very well how much I love visiting art museums (and how much I love dragging Mrs. Perez and my teenage daughter to them). From the Perez Art Museum and the Norton Museum of Art right here in South Florida to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to the Museo Nacional de Arte and the Museo Soumaya in Mexico City. If there’s an art museum in any city I visit, I’m gonna make the time to pop in and check it out.

So when I traveled to Romania recently and spent a day in the capital city of Bucharest, I stopped by the country’s largest and most impressive art collection, the National Museum of Art of Romania (Romanian: Muzeul Național de Artă al României). The museum is located in the former royal palace in Revolution Square, on the famed Calea Victoriei (Victory Avenue). Completed in 1837, the National Museum of Art of Romania features collections of medieval and modern Romanian art, as well as the international collection assembled by the Romanian royal family.

The museum is split into two parts, the National Gallery (which features only Romanian art) and the European Gallery (I visited only the Romanian art gallery – I mean, I was in Romania, right?) . There is separate admission for each gallery or you can pay to view both (20 Lei, about $5). Photographs are allowed but only after paying a rather hefty fee of 100 Lei (about $25) which I paid (how else would I be able to share how awesome the museum was?). It isn’t MOMA (how many art museums are?) but the National Museum of Art of Romania was a splendid museum with many fine pieces of art and well worth the few hours me and Mrs. Perez spent there.

Enjoy the photographs…

Upon entering the grounds of the museum, which is right across from the statue of Carol I and Revolution Square, you’ll find a sculpture of ‘Mihai the Madman’ by Stefan Ionescu-Valbudea (1856-1918)

Also on the grounds outside the museum, you’ll find ‘Izvorul’ (The Spring) by by Romanian sculptor Ioan Georgescu (1856-1898)

Entrance to the National Gallery (Romanian art)

‘Profile of a Young Girl’ by Ion Andreescu (1850-1882)

Two young students enjoying the assorted artworks…

‘Nude in an Armchair’ by Merica Ramniceanu (1891-1972)

‘Portrait of a Peasant Woman’ by Aurel Băeșu (1896-1928)

‘The Forester’s Daughter’ by Nicolae Tonitza (1886-1940) who played a major role in introducing modernist guidelines to local art

‘The Spear Thrower’ by Ion Georgescu

Mrs. Perez admiring ‘Toujours du Baudelaire’ by Theodor Pallady (1871–1956). A museum bearing his name is situated in one of the oldest surviving merchant houses in Bucharest, Romania and holds over 800 paintings and drawings by the Romanian artist…

‘Portrait of Maria Nacu’ (Portretul Mariei Nacu) by Nicolae Grigorescu (1838-1907), one of the founders of modern Romanian painting

Ion (Nicu) Irimescu’s ‘Girl with Grapes’ in the foreground and in the background, ‘Harvesters at Rest’ by Camil Ressu (1880-1962), one of the most significant art figures of Romania

‘The Turkish Woman’ by Iosif Iser (1881-1958)

‘Portrait of a Man’ by Marcel Iancu (1895-1984), the co-inventor of Dadaism and a leading exponent of Constructivism in Eastern Europe

Bust of Romanian poet Iulia Haşdeu by Ioan Georgescu

‘Sărutul’ (The Kiss) by Frederic Storck (1872–1924)

Mrs. Perez admiring the works of Max Hermann Maxy (1895-1971)

‘Lorica with Chrysanthemums’ by Ștefan Luchian (1868-1916), famous for his landscapes and still life works. Paralyzed and confined to an armchair by Multiple Sclerosis at age 31, Luchian was no longer able to hold the painter’s brush with his fingers and had to have it tied to his wrist in order to continue working. This was his last painting, he would die 3 years later…

‘The Prayer’ by Constantin Brâncuși (1876-1957), considered a pioneer of modernism and one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th-century. Brâncuși is called the patriarch of modern sculpture.

‘Street at the Outskirts of Bucharest’ by Alexandru Țipoia (1914-1993)

‘Nud’ by Elena Popea (1879-1941)

Oh, and the photograph at the very top of the post is a bust of Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, a Romanian writer and philologist (the study of language in written historical sources) by Carol Storck

Hope you enjoyed the photopgraphs – check out my other photoset of my trip to Romania by clicking any of the images below…

May 4, 2016