Meanwhile, back at MOMA

 After a busy New York morning in the fall of 2012 Bill and I arrived at the Museum of Modern Art hungry. We paid our entrance fee and walked straight past the art to their great cafeteria.

We split this chickpea, beet and mesclun salad

and this delicious sausage and rigatoni pasta dish. We can't look at art on an empty stomach.

 Nice display of bentwood furniture. Must be mostly sixties designs.

We had a good look at this new purchase of de Kooning drawings too.

 That's Bill with an early Alexander Calder mobile; Lobster Trap and Fish Tail, 1939.

The Century of the Child show on the top floor

was both fun and eccentric.

Bill's view from the MOMA escalator. 

We always visit the 4th floor Twentieth Century art galleries. Here's Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907.

 and here, Henri Rouseau's The Sleeping Gypsy, 1897.

We always enjoy the many views from floor to floor created by Yoshio Tanaguchi's renovation.

 Bill and I are new to the work of Christopher Wool. Nice oil on linen painting, Untitled, 2007, over the MOMA members' information desk.

 Deiter Roth had much of his home life videotaped as an art piece in Solo Scenes, 1997-98.

Roth died in 1998.

Keith Haring's long ink drawing, Untitled, 1982 and Jeff Koons' Three Ball 50/50 Tank, 1985 in the Contemporary Galleries.

                            

Senga Nengudi's R.S.V.P.1, 1977, is made of panty hose and sand.

Another Christopher Wool on our way out.  MOMA has been featuring him lately. Hope you enjoyed our little stroll through this gem of a museum.

Reta's 93rd Birthday

 The Burlington Skyway was gloomy and wet when John and I rode over it on our way to St Catharines to celebrate my mother's 93rd birthday.

But things brightened up immediately when we joined the glowing birthday girl for lunch in the dining room of Niagara Gardens Retirement Manor.

Reta is wearing our birthday gift, a brooch made by Toronto jewelry designer, Andrea Nellis.

The food and service in the Niagara Gardens dining room is great and we were soon having our usual good time.

Back in Reta's room, Mom and I discussed some financial matters before John opened the champagne and then we tucked into ginger/saffron cookies from Clafouti and dark chocolate from Ikea.

 We watched Wes Anderson's delightful pre-teen love story, Moonrise Kingdom. It fit our mood perfectly.

When my sister-in-law, Merla, and my sister, Kathy, and her hubbie, Brian arrived we whisked off to a favourite family restaurant, Fortis, for hearty birthday fare. Happy Birthday, Reta!!

36 Bourgeois Drawings

Bill and I came up the escalator at the Museum of Modern Art and were pleased to see this installation of drawings by Louis Bourgeois.  

We weren't familiar with this series -- The Fragile, 2007.

Archival dyes on fabric.

The MOMA website has uploaded a great collection of Bourgeois drawings.

Meanwhile, back at the Met

John and I have finally had time to get back to our New York pictures from last October. Here are the rest of the pictures we took visiting the fabulous Metropolitan Museum of Art.

We passed these casually attired Upper East Side ladies as we neared the Met. Later we noticed that they were headed for a Saturday art lecture.

We loved the fellow tourists preparing to go in,

and the swirl of activity when you enter the Great Entrance Hall.

In a show of digitally altered photographs we liked this vision of exotic, urban crush by Robert Polidori.

An exhibit of the influence of Andy Warhol's work on American contemporary artists, Regarding Warhol: 60 Artists, 50 Years, ended with a reconstruction of one of his shows from the 60's with it's charming, playful, Silver Balloons and cow wallpaper.

Then we wandered almost aimlessly through the endless galleries of exquisite artwork. We both admired this elegant Bronzino, Portrait of a Young Man, c. 1530

and this trio of Renaissance profiles. That's Fra Filippo Lippi's Portrait of a Woman with a Man at a Casement, c. 1439 in the center.

As usual, the visitors are as interesting as the artwork. The Honorable Henry Fane with Inigo Jones and Charles Blair, 1761-66, by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

This group were being guided by a docent through the collections highlights. They're studying a Tiepolo here.

John loved this vivacious guide explaining an African sculpture.

Must be great to study amidst the gorgeous Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas galleries.

How hip is this fantastic pot! Dough Bowl, 1994, by Diego Romero.

This young couple were being moved by a Giacometti.

John couldn't resist going in for details of this lovely Cubist painting.

Pablo Picasso, Still Life with a Bottle of Rum, 1911.

The Contemporary Art galleries are very grand. That's Chuck Close's Lucas, 1986-87 to the left and one of Warhol's Mao paintings in the centre.

 Morris Louis' Untitled, 1960.

Andy Warhol's Ethel Scull 36 Times, 1963.

Jennifer Bartlett's Five P.M., 1991-92.

The oh so American Jackson Pollock. Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950. At this point we decided to brave the forecast wet outside.

But first a stop at the Bookshop so I can scan for new postcards

and John can wallow in the art books.

Ah, the rains have stopped. 

Now to catch a 5th Ave bus down to Union Square.