Philadelphia Museum of Art: Part 4

I have read that the artwork of Marcel Duchamp is one of the strong collection of Philly museum--and it was. I have never seen his works on retrospective, and it was really interesting.

And there were some Brancusi...his Birds are one of my best favorite sculptures.

Philadelphia Museum of Art: Part 3

The color of those southeastern islands are so closely connected to what I would imagine from the short stories of Somerset Maugham...

 This is rather rare still life picture by Picasso---kind of look like in-between Cezanne and  Gaugin?

 I have never heard of this artist before, but I loved this picture. William Baziote was born in Pittsburgh, PA and was an artist in NY around the same time Rothko. Apparently he had strong style of "mysterious and poetic," and he had influence from Joan Miro---I see.

 A beautiful modern architectural design, very suit to the picture below

Fantin-Latour is the artist who draw the flowers very realistically, and yet adding something far beyond...

Philadelphia Museum of Art: Part 2

I like the clarity of the air. Looks like a winter picture.

Sorry the quality of the panel is pretty bad. The picture is by Henri Rousseau. It was painted in 1886, but so surprisingly modern and beautiful.

Philadelphia Museum of Art: Part 1

After long long time of planning, I finally had a chance to visit Philadelphia Museum of Art. It was everything and more than I expected---I did not have enough time to finish the museum, I definitely have to go back!

Philadelphia is a very unique city with a rich history. Apparently the billionaires who settled in and around the city used their enormous wealth to transplant the "arts & culture" into the New World---meaning, they collected excellent artworks from all over the world. I am often very impressed by the collection of American museums, even in medium size cities (like Indianapolis, Austin or Minneapolis).

The Philadelphia museum (or the educational entity which later became the museum) was built in 1876.  The collection is very diverse and have excellent pieces. Here are some of my favorites.

View of Philly from the entrance

The artist Augustus Saint-Gaudens is an American artist. The original sculpture is made for Madison Sq.  Garden, NY. in 1891.

I remembered this work from Munch exhibition at MoMA (2006). It was an excellent collection...I remember it very vividly it surprised me that it was 5 years ago...

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/85