New York: The Museum of Modern Art
"Watching the Water Lilies #1: Love at the Museum"
(Photo by ©ClixYou)
In January 2007 I took three days off after a business meeting in Manhattan to stay in the city. I don´t go to New York as often as I would like, so each time I can do it, I try to revisit some special places I love in the city. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is one of those places (11 West 53 Street, New York, NY 10019-5497).
It was an exciting opportunity, because I hadn´t been in the
the
Museum since it was reopened in November 2004, after an extensive
rebuilding process that started in May 2002. During that period the
Museum operated in a temporary location in Queens.
It was a short visit, just a couple of hours, but I could look again at some of the artworks that I love from the Museum permanent collection. One of my favorites pieces is the Water Lilies triptych by Monet (see more about this paintings below), and I took several pictures of people looking at the painting. It is so beautiful and the environment is so peaceful that people sit and stay there for long minutes, looking at the flowers in silence.
More about the MoMA
"Understanding Picasso" (Photo by ©ClixYou)
"The museum's collection offers an unparalleled overview of modern and contemporary art, including works of architecture and design, drawings, painting, sculpture, photography, prints, illustrated books, film, and electronic media".
"Considered by many to have the best collection of modern Western masterpieces in the world, MoMA's holdings include more than 150,000 individual pieces in addition to approximately 22,000 films and 4 million film stills".
"The collection houses such important and familiar works as [...] The Sleeping Gypsy by Henri Rousseau, The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon by Pablo Picasso, [and] the Water Lilies triptych by Claude Monet [...]" (all texts between quotes were taken from Wikipedia).
The girl in this photo was looking at the "Head of a Sleeping
Woman (Study for Nude with Drapery)", painted in 1907 by
Pablo Picasso. Is is easy to see that this painting belongs to the same
period than the Demoiselles
d'Avignon,
mentioned above. Both paintings beloing to Picasso's African-influenced
Period (1907–1909) inspired by African artifacts. See Wikipedia: Picasso's
African Period.
The Monet "Water Lilies"
"Watching the Water Lilies #2: One + Two" (Photo by ©ClixYou)
"Water Lilies (or Nympheas) is a series of approximately 250 oil paintings by French Impressionist Claude Monet (1840-1926). The paintings depict Monet's flower garden at Giverny and were the main focus of Monet's artistic production during the last thirty years of his life".
"The paintings are on display at museums all over the world, including the Musée Marmottan-Monet in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Saint Louis Art Museum, and the Portland Art Museum. During the 1920s, the state of France built a pair of oval rooms at the Musée de l'Orangerie as a permanent home for eight water lily murals by Monet.
The exhibit opened to the public on May 16, 1927, a few months after Monet's death". (All texts between quotes were taken from Wikipedia). The photo at the right (from www.moma.org) shows a panoramic view of the Lilies triptych as you can see them at the MoMA.
Tips for Your Visit
"Taking notes at the MoMA" (Photo by ©ClixYou)
To plan your visit you can download the "MoMA Floor Plan" in PDF format from www.moma.org or you can give a look at the "MoMA Highlights" book.
TIP #2: You can visit the Museum for free if you take advantage of the "Target Free Friday Nights", every Friday evening, 4:00–8:00 p.m. Tickets for Target Free Friday Nights are not available in advance.
¡Thanks for your visit!
You can go now to my Flickr site to see more photos from my 2007 New York trip.