Tuesday, April 15, 2014

World Art Day at the Getty Center

Pee-wee Herman's Facebook post announced today as World Art Day, and I celebrated accordingly at the Getty Center. It was an excellent decision!














This Queen Victoria exhibition was pretty spectacular! On display are hundreds of images, dating from the start of the photographic process in 1839 (which coincided nicely with the beginning years of Victoria's reign), to many private family photographs, and the expansion of the art form, including some hand-tinted images. Queen Elizabeth II is the great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and QEII lent multiple images to the exhibition. It was very touching to see how Victoria and Prince Albert gave each other photographs for special occasions; she was devastated by his death as we can see in the photos. What she would have thought of the iPhone snapshot of her grand exhibition!




















Hatched! was even more worldly, with artwork by Dutch masters Rembrandt and Vincent van Gogh, among many others. Vincent crafted this image, and you can totally see his individual lines and dots giving shape and dimension to the postman. Hatching (with lines) and stippling (with dots) are drawing techniques I have used, so it was phenomenal to see the work of the masters!

There was also an Ansel Adams gallery, with a cool comparison of different printing techniques from the same negative, and a Jackson Pollack mural that had been conserved by Getty. It was truly an out-of-this-world dive into all kinds of art!

Click here for the Getty's Web site and more details about each of these exhibitions.

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