Travel Journal
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Editor’s Note: Some New York City art galleries and museums have begun to open. However, readers should be advised that many require appointments or pre-registration, so please contact a particular venue before venturing out. In the meantime, Sandra Bertrand has given us a glorious glimpse into the treasures and experiences that can be enjoyed online – these are some of her personal favorites and include art spaces which may be less familiar to readers from outside the New York metropolitan area.
Summer Surfing in New York City's Museums
September 2020
By Sandra Bertrand
(At the time of this writing, all museums were temporarily closed due to the Covid-19 virus. As facilities reopen, please check online for information on timed visits and other restrictions for your safety.)
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Let’s face it. Most art adventures these days aren’t wearing down the soles of your shoes, but are to be found online. That said, there is one walk I recommend for your wish list. The Central Park unveiling of the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument (on August 26, 2020) is a moment for the history books. Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the passing of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (Women's Right to Vote), a 14-foot, bronze monument of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Sojourner Truth has found a permanent place on Literary Walk, and none too soon. Considering that the only women represented in Central Park to date are Alice in Wonderland, the winged angel over Bethesda Fountain and Shakespeare’s Juliet, it’s high time that history’s women of note make their mark in the real art world. Sculptor Meredith Bergmann, quoted in a New York Times article on August 7, said that she “kept thinking of women now, working together in some kitchen on a laptop, trying to change the world.” Originally conceived with two of the suffragists seated around a table, the decision to add Sojourner Truth, one of many African American women who fought for both the abolition of slavery and women’s suffrage, was a timely choice. |
Bronze Monument "Women's Rights Pioneers" Located in NYC's Central Park
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My love affair with New York City museums began decades ago when I moved from Southern California to Manhattan. My fifth floor walk-up on East 85th Street, where I still reside, has afforded me convenient access to a treasure trove of great art and memorabilia - not only to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but to many others. Over these last several pandemic months, hungry for these familiar haunts, I have turned to my laptop. It’s been a surprisingly rewarding experience.
The Museum of the City of New York (MCNY)
The Museum of the City of New York, a neo-Georgian mansion situated at Fifth Avenue and 103rd Street, is a historical art museum founded by Henry Collins Brown in 1923 to document and interpret the city’s past, present and future. It never ceases to provide an educational and frequently entertaining time for all. My own memories of good times to be had include, among many others, exhibitions of Cecil Beaton and his high-stepping friends as well as the cartoon memoirs of Roz Chast, my favorite New Yorker magazine cartoonist. A more sober but colorful show was Posters and Patriotism, the Selling of WWI in New York.
From the home page, visitors can access photographs and paintings by the social realist, Reginald Marsh (1898-1959). Another glimpse-worthy feature details the early fashion designers, Worth and Mainbocher, whose creations streamlined new lifestyles for women. If you click on MCNY Live, you will find an interview with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her quarter century on the bench.
The Museum of the City of New York, a neo-Georgian mansion situated at Fifth Avenue and 103rd Street, is a historical art museum founded by Henry Collins Brown in 1923 to document and interpret the city’s past, present and future. It never ceases to provide an educational and frequently entertaining time for all. My own memories of good times to be had include, among many others, exhibitions of Cecil Beaton and his high-stepping friends as well as the cartoon memoirs of Roz Chast, my favorite New Yorker magazine cartoonist. A more sober but colorful show was Posters and Patriotism, the Selling of WWI in New York.
From the home page, visitors can access photographs and paintings by the social realist, Reginald Marsh (1898-1959). Another glimpse-worthy feature details the early fashion designers, Worth and Mainbocher, whose creations streamlined new lifestyles for women. If you click on MCNY Live, you will find an interview with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her quarter century on the bench.
Stettheimer's Dollhouse
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Carrie Walter Stettheimer’s Gilded Age dollhouse should be added to your bucket list when museum doors reopen. Her 12-room miniatures include a 3” version of Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase.
For any true lover of miniaturist art, nothing can be compared to Mrs. James Ward Thorne’s Rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago. These European and American reproductions which fill the basement of the Institute will take your breath away. One more item I dare not forget is Starlight, a brilliant light installation suspended above the Museum’s rotunda. It awaits patiently for your future visit. El Museo del Barrio New York’s leading Latino cultural institution, just a hop, skip and jump up Fifth Avenue from MCNY, welcomes visitors of all backgrounds to discover the artistic landscape of Latino, Caribbean, and Latin American cultures. |
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El Museo was founded more than 50 years ago by artist and educator Raphael Montañez Ortiz and a coalition of Puerto Rican parents, educators, artists, and activists who noted that mainstream museums largely ignored Latino artists. El Museo’s permanent collection of over 8,000 objects, spans more than 800 years of Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino art, including pre-Columbian Taíno artifacts, traditional arts, twentieth-century drawings, paintings, sculptures and installations, prints, photography, documentary films and video.
Popular Painters & Other Visionaries features 31 artists working between 1930 and 1970, with the common experience of diaspora shared by many. This writer’s favorite is among the works on virtual display ("Restless Bodies") - Francisco [a.k.a. Chico] da Silva’s colorful bestiary of birds, referring to the mystical visions of nature. The triennial, Estamos Bien, has been inspired by exhibitions from 1999 to 2013, and its on-site show has been pushed to a later opening in March of next year. One of the online features is an invitation to share in a compilation of responses to The American Dream (1931-2020) with respondents answering the question, “When or How Did the American Dream Die for You?” A few early responders’ remarks can be found on the site. |
Chico da Silva's Piece in "Restless Bodies" Section
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The Jewish Museum
Continuing south on Fifth Avenue, at the corner of 92nd Street, the next trove of historical and contemporary treasures can be found at The Jewish Museum. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you will be simply inundated with glittery minoras, cards for the next Rosh Hashanah or infant apparel for his or her Bar or Bat Mitzvah (though such items can be found in their well-stocked gift shop). The special exhibits I have enjoyed over the years have featured such luminaries as Sarah Bernhardt, Edouard Vuillard, Modigliani and New York City’s most famous and infamous photographers of the Magnum group.
Continuing south on Fifth Avenue, at the corner of 92nd Street, the next trove of historical and contemporary treasures can be found at The Jewish Museum. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you will be simply inundated with glittery minoras, cards for the next Rosh Hashanah or infant apparel for his or her Bar or Bat Mitzvah (though such items can be found in their well-stocked gift shop). The special exhibits I have enjoyed over the years have featured such luminaries as Sarah Bernhardt, Edouard Vuillard, Modigliani and New York City’s most famous and infamous photographers of the Magnum group.
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Housed in the former Felix M. Warburg Gothic Revival mansion, you will find over 4,000 years of art and Jewish culture in its safekeeping. Founded in 1904 – and in its current location since 1947 - it is the first Jewish museum in the United States as well as the oldest in the world, excluding the Israel Museum. A particularly beneficial offering are the Zoom tours available for adult, family and school groups, which can be arranged by filling in the online form and sending it to [email protected]. Currently, Rachel Feinstein’s retrospective exhibition, Maiden, Mother, Crone can be sampled online, showing three decades of this brilliant artist’s works. She is often defined by dualities: her investigations of masculinity and femininity or good and evil are played out in her manipulation of positive and negative space. Religion, fairytales, and high and low kitsch are all given their due. |
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The Neue Galerie
At the corner of 86th and Fifth Avenue, just two blocks north of the Met [The Metropolitan Museum of Art], you will find one of the most opulent "mansion turned museum" in the city.
The Neue Galerie was conceived by two men who enjoyed a close friendship over a period of nearly thirty years: art dealer and museum exhibition organizer Serge Sabarsky and businessman, philanthropist, and art collector Ronald S. Lauder. Their passionate commitment to Modern German and Austrian art has resulted in a showcase of the finest arts and crafts to have emerged from those two cultures. Permanent and past exhibits as well as a sample of the current ones is available online for your pleasure.
At the corner of 86th and Fifth Avenue, just two blocks north of the Met [The Metropolitan Museum of Art], you will find one of the most opulent "mansion turned museum" in the city.
The Neue Galerie was conceived by two men who enjoyed a close friendship over a period of nearly thirty years: art dealer and museum exhibition organizer Serge Sabarsky and businessman, philanthropist, and art collector Ronald S. Lauder. Their passionate commitment to Modern German and Austrian art has resulted in a showcase of the finest arts and crafts to have emerged from those two cultures. Permanent and past exhibits as well as a sample of the current ones is available online for your pleasure.
"Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer" by Gustav Klimt
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I can’t help reminiscing about the grand staircase which leads to the main exhibit floors and a visit to Café Sabarsky, which draws its inspiration from the great Viennese cafés of the past. It is outfitted with lighting fixtures, furniture from the early 20th century, and a Bösendorfer grand piano gracing one corner of the Café, used for all cabaret, chamber, and classical music performances at the museum. The centerpiece is undoubtedly the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer or The Lady in Gold by Gustav Klimt. It can be found atop the mantel in the main salon, and with its shimmering gold touches, it will take your breath away. (You can glimpse her online before your future visit.) The painting was stolen by the Nazis and reclaimed years later by a niece who sold it to Lauder for $135 million. |
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The current exhibition for your online enjoyment features Dora Kallmus (1881-1963), better known as Madame d’Ora, a leading photographic portraitist and an equally fascinating character of the period. The retrospective spans her life as the daughter of Jewish intellectuals in Vienna, to her days as a premier society photographer, through her survival during the Holocaust.
Over the course of her lifetime, d’Ora turned her lens on many artists, including Josephine Baker, Colette [Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette], Gustav Klimt, Tamara de Lempicka, and Pablo Picasso. Around 1948, she embarked on an astonishing series of photographs of displaced persons or refugee camps, which was commissioned by the United Nations. With a little patience and a healthy dose of curiosity, hopefully you will find your own favorite cultural sites to enjoy and share. Even in the best of times, we are often limited in the number of visits we can make across the country and abroad. With the internet, you don’t have to settle for your local library or watering hole. The world is your own veritable oyster. |
Madame d'Ora's Portrait of Colette (a renowned French author)
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SURF AWAY!
Museum of the City of New York: 1220 5th Avenue, New York, NY
El Museo del Barrio: 1230 5th Avenue, New York, NY
The Jewish Museum: 1109 5th Avenue, New York, NY
The Neue Galerie: 1048 5th Avenue, New York, NY
Museum of the City of New York: 1220 5th Avenue, New York, NY
El Museo del Barrio: 1230 5th Avenue, New York, NY
The Jewish Museum: 1109 5th Avenue, New York, NY
The Neue Galerie: 1048 5th Avenue, New York, NY
Sandra Bertrand is an award-winning playwright and painter. She is Chief Art Critic for Highbrow Magazine and a contributing writer for GALO Magazine. Sandra was Sanctuary's Featured Artist in May 2019 and is also Sanctuary's columnist for "Travel Journal."
