No place like home….

So many people travel all over the world and yet never visit places near their homes.  And I have to confess that I am guilty as well.  The San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park is awesome.   But its proximity to the ticky tackiness of Fisherman’s Wharf keeps most of us locals away.  Yesterday was a quiet and sunny day in San Francisco and a good day to sneak over there and play tourist-at-home.  This was my first time in the Aquatic Park Bathhouse – an art deco landmark that is now part of the museum.  It features interesting exhibits, Sargent Johnson sculpture and beautiful WPA era murals by Hilaire Hiler.  Hiler had a fascinating biography that begs to be a movie.  As well as an artist he was a color theorist.  The ceiling of one of the large rooms in the bathhouse has his Prismatarium mural – a giant color wheel on the ceiling!

So there you have it, waiting for me to discover after a MUNI ride across town, a really nice museum with one of the most unique murals I have ever seen.  And, it is even free admission.

The SFMOMA comes to the Oakland Museum

I made a visit to the Oakland Museum today.  I was aware they were having a special exhibit where they had borrowed work from the SFMOMA while that museum is closed and under reconstruction and expansion.  I assumed it was work I had seen before and was not expecting anything special – oh how silly of me.  Once again, the Oakland Museum has done an amazing job.  They have integrated their own work and included rarely seen work from both museums’ collection.  Some of the work has never been exhibited before. 

The exhibit, titled Fertile Ground: Art and Community in California is the big don’t miss museum show in the Bay Area right now.  There are four components to the show.  It begins with the 1930’s including WPA art, murals and political work influenced by the San Francisco General Strike of 1934.  The SFMOMA’s Frida Kahlo portrait of her and Diego Rivera looks better than ever and is finally show in context.  After the first section, you pass into the postwar years.  You cross over from Telegraph Hill to North Beach and are immersed in the world of the California School of Fine Arts, Rothko, Diebenkorn, Cunningham et al.  Next it’s up to UC Davis circa 1970 when that little agriculture state university became the epicenter of contemporary art in the Western U.S.  The final component of the show takes viewers to the 1990’s and includes an emphasis on political activism.  There is a series of videos of different demonstrations and political actions back then.  The videos got me all excited when I realized I was at many of those demos.  I have to go and watch them again and look for myself on the walls of the museums.  I already spotted a few people I know.

The show runs through April 12, 2015 and I’ll be back to look a few more times before then.

A stop in Tucson

Heading home from New Mexico to California I decided to come via Tucson.  Sultry and 104° with thunderstorms moving in, humidity in the desert is not exactly pleasant – but its one of the perils of monsoon season.  I did enjoy a nearly empty Saguaro National Park late in the day.  On Saturday morning it was already a scorcher at 10:00 am.  I see that Downtown Tucson has been a victim of 1960’s and 1970s brutallist excess that, if not for the sunny desert climate, might suggest the former Soviet Union.  But not to get too dishy, they have some really great public art (unlike my own City).  I was downtown in order to visit the Tucson Museum of Art.  If you follow my blog, you know what a big advocate I am off checking out the smaller city museums along the way.   I knew they were having a show of the WPA artists in their collection.  The Millard Sheets etchings were a good find and the museums older, historic buildings contain a nice collection of Western art.  I always will go out of my way for a look at some Maynard Dixons.

What I also found was a perfect example of why you check out the local art museum.  I should have known, but I didn’t, all about Rose Cabat.  I caught the retrospective of her work on the day it closed.  This year marks the 100th anniversary of Cabat’s birth – and she is still alive and working!  She is well known in Tucson and another artist we should be seeing in a museum in San Francisco.  Rose Cabat one more reason to hit the road now and then and escape the City.