Museum of Fine Arts Visit and News from Beauty Spotlight Team

Museuming!

This has been a big museum week for me. First, the “Shoes” exhibit at Peabody Essex Museum with friends on Tuesday. On Friday, Jeff and I went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. I’ve been eager to see the William Merritt Chase exhibit for a while now.

Chase was a renowned painter and teacher during the latter quarter of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. He studied painting in Munich, and was influenced by German painting, 17th century Dutch painting as well as Impressionism. After studying abroad, he opened his studio in New York City in the 10th Street Studios building. His rooms were filled with oriental rugs, Asian textiles, copper pots, vases, and a variety of other “props” that we see over and over again in his paintings and pastels.

The exhibit at the MFA was huge. I think there were about 10 large rooms of his works with over 100 paintings.

I loved his paintings of women most – his wife Alice Chase, his students and some patrons. The women in his paintings had real agency or personality – they were not vacant mannequins. Here are a few, though my camera wasn’t able to capture the real beauty of these paintings.

His landscapes and seascapes were fabulous too, but I didn’t snap any of them unfortunately. He had homes in Shinnecock on Long Island NY and outside of Florence Italy. His primary residence was in Brooklyn. And he painted all of them. Scenes of everyday, contemporary life interested him most.

If you are able to get to Boston before the end of January, this exhibit is well worth seeing!

Next, we saw a thought provoking exhibit of works on issues of gender and art itself by contemporary artist and writer, Frances Stark. Her videos and conceptual works on paper that combined her writing, drawing and collage gave us a lot to think about.

Last, we stopped in on an exhibit called “The Clocks”. Before looking at the clocks and clock parts in the exhibition’s glass cases, we entered a dark room with comfy couches and sat down for over an hour watching a fascinating “movie”. The movie was made up of expertly edited snippets from hundreds of old movies from the 1930s-the 2000s, American, English, and French films that had scenes of clocks and watches. Each snippet or vignette showed a clock or watch at a particular time, and as the movie went on, the time on the clocks advanced. We came in at clocks set to about 5:42 and we left at about 7:00. I wish I could get across to you how fascinating this was. We stayed and watched much longer than we intended. Though the movie snippets did not tell a story, the passage of time itself was the real story. Plus it was fun to try to identify the actors and the movies. What kept us so interested was not only how expertly the films were knit together, but seeing the passage of time from the 1930s through current times, as the clothing, decor, accents, modes of speaking and acting changed with the different time periods. It was a wow!

Thanksgiving was very nice. A smaller group than usual, but about 20. Fortunately, I was a guest. Very pleasant day.

How about you? How was Thanksgiving? What are you doing this weekend? Any Black Friday/Weekend shopping?

Lastly, if you have a bit of time to yourself, take a look at the posts below from the Beauty Spotlight Team. The emphasis is on holiday shopping and gift ideas from beauty to beyond. And don’t forget to click on my link below about my post on fabulous gift ideas from Evine as well as a giveaway to win a pair of gorgeous Pamela McCoy red suede faux fur lined long gloves.