Ron's View

The show Gauguin & Polynesia: An Elusive Paradise opens tomorrow at the Seattle Art Museum. Last night, Gail and I attended a special preview, which I’ll describe in a moment. First, the show description from the website:

Seattle Art Museum presents the only United States stop for Gauguin & Polynesia: An Elusive Paradise, a landmark show highlighting the complex relationship between Paul Gauguin’s work and the art and culture of Polynesia. The exhibition, on view at SAM Downtown February 9 through April 29, 2012, includes about 60 of Gauguin’s brilliantly hued paintings, sculptures and works on paper, which are displayed alongside 60 major examples of Polynesian sculpture that fueled his search for the exotic. Organized by the Art Centre Basel, the show is comprised of works on loan from some of the world’s most prestigious museums and private collections.

Gauguin (1848–1903) is one of the most influential and celebrated artists of the late nineteenth century. From early on in his career he sought inspiration from outside French society in both his life and his work. While his Polynesian experience was a defining factor in both his art and his posthumous reputation, many exhibitions devoted to his work have treated the artist’s direct relationship with Polynesian art as only one small part of his larger enterprise. Through a balanced analysis of Polynesian art alongside Gauguin’s works, this exhibition shifts the emphasis and brings Polynesian arts and culture into the center of Gauguin studies.

We arrived around 6:40 and crowded into the south lobby with the other guests for a short cocktail reception. Close to 7:00, we were all ushered into the adjacent auditorium. Unfortunately, I seem to have tossed the program for this part of the evening, so I don’t have at hand some of the names. In any case, before the ceremonial thank yous and the scholarly lecture, the evening kicked off with a bang. The lights were dimmed and the curtain lifted to reveal five Polynesian drummers. Three younger men, naked from the waist up, appeared from the wings, and performed a haka. That might ordinarily be difficult to follow up, but Charlie Wright, the chair of the SAM board, is pretty smooth, and he agilely kept our attention as he thanked a long list of individuals and organizations for making the exhibition possible.

Next up, an engrossing presentation about Gauguin’s life, his art, and the works in the exhibition by Chiyo Ishikawa, the Susan Brotman Deputy Director for Art and Curator of European Painting and Sculpture, and Pam McClusky, Curator of Art of Africa and Oceania. (They gave repeat performances today during the general members preview.) We were released at 8:00, with the option of proceeding upstairs to the exhibition itself or hanging out in SAM’s main lobby and event space for food and entertainment.

We started with the food and entertainment. Two tables were set up with identical, Polynesian-themed offerings. There was a small placard listing the items, but to read it I would have had to hold up the line, so I just took one of everything — they were all hors d’oeuvres sized — and proceeded to the drinks table, where I grabbed the featured drink, a rum punch complete with umbrella. I’m not generally a rum punch drinker, or a rum drinker at all, but I didn’t want to be ungracious, so I took it. We found a couple of the rapidly disappearing empty seats, ate our food (pretty darn good; I would happily have had seconds, or thirds, but the lines were long and we had art to see), took our drinks, and squeezed in through the crowd for a view of the entertainment. The same musicians who were the haka drummers, along with a few more, were playing music to which three trios danced: the half-dressed men and two trios of half-dressed women. Well, more than half dressed. One trio of women had bikini tops that looked like molded plastic. Gail explained to me later that they were to be thought of as coconuts. The other trio had fabric tops. And they had little wrap skirts. I was ready to abandon them and my punch so we could see the exhibition, but Gail, who was standing closer up with a better view, seemed to be enjoying the dances, so I waited.

Round about 8:20, we headed upstairs and entered the exhibition. As the blurb above explains, and as the curators demonstrated during their lecture and slide show, the distinctive feature of the exhibition is its juxtaposition of Gauguin’s paintings (presented chronologically) with Polynesian sculpture and artifacts. This is surprisingly effective, as one passes from a room of paintings to a few artifacts, more paintings, an entire room of Polynesian objects, a room of woodblock prints, and so on. I wasn’t entirely convinced that I would want to see a show of 60 Gauguins, but the alternation helps to keep one’s eyes fresh and one’s interest piqued. Plus, the opening lecture oriented us well. Many of the objects were already familiar, allowing us to examine the art without fussing with the signs or bothering with the accompanying audio headsets.

Of course, it was late, we were hungry (those hors d’ouevres not quite adding up to a complete dinner), and I didn’t want to be out too late. So we didn’t give the show its due. We got a pretty good overview, which had to do. We have until the end of April to return for a closer examination. And we will.

If you’re in the area, get your timed entry tickets and go too. Or, have a look at the exhibition catalog. In the meantime, below is one of the paintings on loan to the exhibition, Gauguin’s famous Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, usually residing at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

I mentioned throughout the fall that when the Wall Street Journal would finally stop being delivered (they kept delivering it long after I stopped paying), I would miss the book reviews, and the arts and culture coverage in general. Thanks to WSJ book reviews, I was led to two books that I would not have read otherwise, Robert P. Crease’s World in the Balance: The Historic Quest for an Absolute System of Measurement and Max Egremont’s Forgotten Land: Journeys Among the Ghosts of East Prussia. Add Larry Silver’s Pieter Bruegel to the list.

The last day the Wall Street Journal was delivered was December 23. A few days later, I used my iPad WSJ app to find out how much content was available, and sure enough, it knew I no longer had full privileges. But I discovered that I still had access to a significant amount, including most of the Saturday book reviews and the food-wine-auto coverage. On New Year’s Day, I checked online for the WSJ’s weekend reviews from the day before, and there was Jonathan Lopez’s review of Pieter Bruegel.

I can’t remember when I first became a Bruegel fan. One of his most famous paintings, The Harvesters, is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art — the cover of Silver’s book is a detail — but I can’t say I remember admiring it in my childhood. During a stay in Antwerp to attend a conference in 1978, with side trips to Bruges and Brussels, I fell in love with Flemish art. I began to read about it, made sure to stop by The Harvesters when in Manhattan, and checked out the Flemish paintings whenever passing through other major museums, such as the National Gallery in London. In 1983, I returned to Antwerp for another conference and spent more time in museums. In 1985, during our honeymoon, I arranged for us to pass through Antwerp for a couple of days between longer stays in Paris and Glasgow so Gail could share my little hobby. But I haven’t been back to Belgium since.

Regarding The Harvesters, here is its reproduction at the Metropolitan’s website:

The Harvesters, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1565

And here is what the gallery label says:

This panel is part of a series showing the seasons or times of the year, commissioned from Bruegel by the Antwerp merchant Niclaes Jongelinck. The series included six works, five of which survive. The other four are: “The Gloomy Day,” “Hunters in the Snow,” and “The Return of the Herd” (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna); and “Haymaking” (Lobkowicz Collections, Prague).

This remarkable group of pictures is a watershed in the history of Western art. The religious pretext for landscape painting has been suppressed in favor of a new humanism, and Bruegel’s unidealized description of the local scene is based on natural observations.

For years, those Bruegel seasons paintings in the Kunsthistorisches Museum made me eager to visit Vienna. Three decades later, I still haven’t made it, and the list of places Gail and I want to visit keeps growing. Some day. In the meantime, perhaps I can content myself with the book. In the WSJ review, Silver writes that

“Pieter Bruegel,” a superb and sumptuous monograph by the scholar Larry Silver, is an object of beauty in its own right. This large-format volume presents all 40 or so of Bruegel’s surviving paintings and a wide selection of his drawings and prints in color plates that render tone and hue with scrupulous accuracy. Mr. Silver’s text offers an indispensable introduction to Bruegel’s achievement—in Mr. Silver’s phrase, “the epitome of naturalism in art, the climax of the Netherlandish tradition.”

The book isn’t cheap. List price $150.00. But only $91.30 from Amazon, in stock, a lot cheaper than a trip to Vienna.

The Ladies' Club, 1886, unknown photographer

[From the British Golf Museum. Reproduced at the High Museum website by kind permission of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews.]

We love art. We love golf. And if we can get ourselves to Atlanta some time between February 5 and June 24, we’ll be able to see the exhibit The Art of Golf at the High Museum of Art. Regrettably, I don’t think this is going to happen. But I can dream. And look at the exhibition website.

At the site, the show has the following blurb: “Explore the history of golf through paintings, drawings, and photos by artists as diverse as Rembrandt, Andy Warhol, and Norman Rockwell. Featuring memorabilia from the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, as well as the largest collection of Bobby Jones portraits ever assembled.” We also learn the following regarding the photograph above:

Formed in 1867, the St Andrews Ladies Club grew to include 500 members within twenty years—a total close to that of the exclusively male Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrew’s membership of 795. Strict conventions governing acceptable dress meant that women were obliged to play in the restrictive, tightly laced, full-length clothes then deemed fashionable and appropriate. More practical golfing attire became popular at the turn of the century.

Here’s another work featured at the website:

Winter Landscape, ca. 1630, Hendrick Avercamp

[From the Scottish National Gallery]

Regarding this one, we learn that

Hendrick Avercamp’s winter scene conveys a message about democratic social values: various classes – rich and poor, old and young, male and female – are bound together through leisure. Nevertheless, kolf was connected to elite status in seventeenth-century Dutch society, here evidenced by the players’ colorful, elegant clothing. The copper support, unusual for Avercamp, provides a smooth surface appropriate to the gemlike quality of the depiction. Two thin tree trunks enclosed in the ice provide the goal for the group of four kolfers in the right foreground.

You know, I’m pretty sure I saw this painting at a show in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., not that long ago. Yes, I must have. I just found this post that I wrote in May 2010 about a visit to the National Gallery, and in it I briefly mention what I describe as an “intimate” temporary exhibition, Hendrick Avercamp: The Little Ice Age. The painting was surely there.

I wonder if we can squeeze in an Atlanta trip.

[Thanks to Tim Murphy for drawing my attention to the exhibition in this week's Golf World Monday, the online accompaniment to Golf World Magazine. (And, yes, Golf World Monday came out today, even though today is Tuesday, because the PGA Tour's opening event, the Tournament of Champions, concluded yesterday.)]

According to its website, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain was “initiated in 1984 by Alain Dominique Perrin, President of Cartier International at the time, on a suggestion by the artist César.” It is described as “a unique example of corporate philanthropy in France. Since moving to Paris in 1994, the Fondation Cartier has been housed in an airy building filled with light that was designed by the architect Jean Nouvel. In this unique setting, exhibitions, conferences and artistic productions come to life.”

One of the Fondation Cartier’s current exhibitions looks like it should be awfully exciting for us mathematicians, and an opportunity for non-mathematicians to discover the beauty of mathematics. It is Mathematics: A Beautiful Elsewhere, created “with the aim of offering visitors, to use the mathematician Alexandre Grothendieck’s expression, ‘a sudden change of scenery.’”

The Fondation Cartier has opened its doors to the community of mathematicians and invited a number of artists to accompany them. They are the artisans and thinkers, the explorers and builders of this exhibition.

A large number of mathematicians and scientists contributed to the creation of this exhibition, and eight of them acted as its overseers: SIR MICHAEL ATIYAH, JEAN-PIERRE BOURGUIGNON, ALAIN CONNES, NICOLE EL KAROUI, MISHA GROMOV, GIANCARLO LUCCHINI, CÉDRIC VILLANI and DON ZAGIER. Representing a wide range of geographical backgrounds and mathematical disciplines, they work in areas such as number theory, algebraic geometry, differential geometry, topology, partial differential equations, probability, mathematics applied to biology…

They were accompanied by nine artists chosen for their exceptional ability to listen, as well as for their great sense of curiosity and wonder. All of these artists have exhibited at the Fondation Cartier in the past: JEAN-MICHEL ALBEROLA, RAYMOND DEPARDON AND CLAUDINE NOUGARET, TAKESHI KITANO, DAVID LYNCH, BEATRIZ MILHAZES, PATTI SMITH, HIROSHI SUGIMOTO and TADANORI YOKOO, as well as Pierre Buffin and his crew (BUF). They worked together to transform the abstract thinking of mathematics into a stimulating experience for the mind and the senses, an experience accessible to everyone.

The list of participating mathematicians is extraordinary. Take my word for it. Plus, David Lynch! Patti Smith! Is that cool or what? However, I haven’t gotten far yet in my explorations. I downloaded the iPad app, only to find that it’s overly complicated, not easy to navigate, and crashes. (Yes, there’s an iPad app, “designed to complement the exhibition Mathematics: A Beautiful Elsewhere. It features the contributions of the exhibition’s scientists, as well as those of its artists, and includes videos, images and texts from their past exhibits at the Fondation Cartier.”) Maybe I should wait for the exhibition catalogue, which is due out May 1.

You may have better luck. I suggest you take a look at the website, try the iPad (if you have one) app, and discover for yourself the beauty of math and the artists’ takes on it. I’ll keep trying.

Thomas Moran, Valley of the Catawissa in Autumn, ca. 1862

[Steven Watson, from the Crystal Bridges website]

Roberta Smith has a piece in today’s tomorrow’s NYT on the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art that had me heading to google maps to find out how to drive to Bentonville, Arkansas from Tulsa International Airport.* I checked flights, too. Not that we’re leaving in the next week or two, but I’d sure like to.

I suppose it would make sense, if we go, to combine the visit with other activities in the region. For example, Branson, Missouri is only 85 miles away. We could take in a concert. Or we could head down to Little Rock for the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site and the Clinton Library, except that Little Rock isn’t all that close.

We’ll take our time planning the trip. The longer we wait, the richer the Crystal Bridges collection will be. And I haven’t even discussed the idea with Gail. (Are you reading this?) In the meantime, I can enjoy studying the art at its website.

Charles Sheeler, Amoskeag Mills #2, 1948

[From the Crystal Bridges website]

Here’s the opening to the NYT article:

By just about any measure, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, which opened last month in this small town in northwest Arkansas, is off to a running start. The dream-come-true of Alice Walton, an heir to the Walmart fortune, it is characterized by people both inside and outside the museum as a work in progress, with plenty of room for improvement. But there it stands, a big, serious, confident, new institution with more than 50,000 square feet of gallery space and a collection worth hundreds of millions of dollars in a region almost devoid of art museums.

Much more than just a demonstration of what money can buy or an attempt to burnish a rich family’s name, Crystal Bridges is poised to make a genuine cultural contribution, and possibly to become a place of pilgrimage for art lovers from around the world.

See also the accompanying slide show.

Harry Sternberg, Thomas Hart Benton, 1944

[From the Crystal Bridges website, courtesy of the artist's estate]

*Addendum: Somehow, it didn’t occur to me that one might be able to take a commercial airline flight into Bentonville, Arkansas. I should have realized that with the size and importance of Walmart, and the Clinton presidency, commercial flights would have been introduced some time in the 1990s, and so they were, in November 1998. (See here for a history.) No need to fly into Tulsa, the closest city of significant size. Instead we can fly, for instance, into O’Hare and then on to Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, just 14 miles outside Bentonville.

Yesterday I wrote about the new book by mathematicians Persi Diaconis and Ron Graham on the math behind magic tricks, which I learned about thanks to the Wall Street Journal’s Saturday book review section. On the next page was another interesting review, Karen Wilkin’s look at Fragonard’s Progress of Love at The Frick Collection, written by Frick curator and associate director Colin B. Bailey. From the Frick’s museum shop website, where the book is the featured item (at the moment), one finds the following description:

An invaluable and engaging resource on the sequence and meaning of the panels in the series, the book explores the history of the work from its conception in France to its rediscovery by two great American collectors more than one hundred years later and tells the fascinating story of how the group of canvases found a permanent home in the New York City mansion of Henry Clay Frick, where the museum’s visitors enjoy them today. The tale, however, has resonance and appeal beyond the walls of the institution. A study of these beautiful panels offers a window into the complex world of art and architectural taste-makers and patronage in eighteenth-century France, as well as the history of collecting in Europe and America during the two centuries that followed their creation.

Many years ago, when I first fell in love with The Frick, I would zip through the Fragonard room as quickly as possible, or bypass it. I found the paintings — how do I say it — too pretty? Like this one:

The Progress of Love: Love Pursuing a Dove, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, 1790-1791

One day, years after my first visit, I decided to spend some time in the Fragonard room, examining each painting to see if I could overcome whatever bias was clouding my vision. It was a good exercise, because I quickly realized that the paintings weren’t just pretty, they were stunningly beautiful. Now, whenever I get to the Frick — which isn’t often — I head straight to the Fragonard room and linger. Vermeer can wait.

Mistress and Maid, Johannes Vermeer, 1666-1667

Ingres too.

Comtesse d'Haussonville, Jean-August-Dominique Ingres,1845

(What a collection!) I’ll get to them. Fragonard first.

Regarding the book, Wilkin explains in her WSJ review that

when new lighting was created for the Fragonard Room in 2007, Colin Bailey, the Frick’s associate director and a specialist in 18th-century French painting, began a study of the cycle. This slim, copiously illustrated volume is the result. A combination of scrupulous research, informed interpretation and what can only be described as well-documented gossip, it is almost as pleasurable to encounter as the paintings themselves—and it will send you rushing to the Frick.

For now, I’m ready to rush to the book.

[Speaking of which, if any family member is reading this and thinking of buying the book for me, let me point out that one can buy it from the Frick at the list price plus a hefty shipping fee, but it is available at a significant discount through Amazon, with no shipping fee. On the other hand, Amazon won't have it available for a while, but that's okay. I'm in no hurry.]

Narragansett Bay, 1861, John Frederick Kensett

Two new exhibitions opened two days ago at the Seattle Art Museum, Beauty and Bounty: American Art in an Age of Exploration and Reclaimed: Nature and Place through American Eyes. Having upgraded our SAM membership level half a year ago, we were invited to attend a preview Tuesday night that included the art, lectures, food, and even free parking. Hard to pass that up (though we did three months earlier for the opening of the Nick Cave exhibition).

We arrived around 6:15, checked in, got our parking validation coupon, and headed down to the area that served as the museum’s main entrance until the recent expansion. There, just outside the auditorium, we joined the crowd in partaking of cocktails and hors d’ouevres while awaiting the program. After a few minutes, people began to head into the auditorium and we followed.

Charlie Wright, chair of the museum board (and son of Bagley and Virginia Wright, whose gallery we had visited a week earlier), made some general remarks about the shows and the sponsors, then introduced SAM director Derrick Cartwright, who would be stepping down in two days after only two years of directing, and thanked him for his service. Director Cartwright then gave some background on the two exhibitions and their curators, each of whom proceeded to give a short slide show presentation of her given show.

Patricia Junker, the curator of American art, spoke about the Beauty and Bounty exhibition. I followed her remarks closely. But as Marisa C. Sánchez, the assistant curator for modern and contemporary art, spoke about Reclaimed, I fell asleep. That’s what happens when the lights go off. Before I knew it, Charlie Wright was back at the podium, then the lights went on and we shuffled out.

Food or art? Which one first? We chose art and headed up three floors to the special exhibition space. It was a delight to see Beauty & Bounty in relatively uncrowded conditions, as only a modest number of fellow members wandered through the rooms with us, Director Cartwright, Curator Junker, and assorted SAM board members. I’ll lean on SAM’s website for a description:

The paintings and photographs brought together in this exhibition show how adventuresome America’s artists were in the nineteenth century, and how critical their role was to enlightening the rest of the population as to the natural wonders of the far west. When the first surveyors went westward to the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific coast, they took painters and photographers with them to create images that would fire the collective imagination of a nation and draw emigrants westward.

Albert Bierstadt’s painting of Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast for example, a centerpiece of the show, was deemed a virtuous enterprise for attempting to transport viewers to a still unknown region of the country. “Few can look upon it without the desire to see this wondrous Western land,” a critic wrote, adding “the art is indeed noble that awakens these yearnings.” We tend to think of landscape art as a record of an artist’s personal, intimate experience in nature, but in the nineteenth century, artists painted the American landscape as a response to the enthusiasms of their audience, too. Art happily served commerce—railroad building, tourism, land speculation, and settlement. Artists enthusiastically portrayed America’s beauty and bounty to call their countrymen into the wilderness, onto the railroads, and across the Continental Divide. They led us to remote places of natural splendor and abundance, and we followed, leaving our own marks upon the land.

In addition to the northwest, some of the paintings in the show depict eastern sites. For instance, as you see at the top of the post, there is a painting by John Frederick Kensett of Narragansett Bay. As I looked at it Thursday night, I was transported back to a day trip I took to Newport, Rhode Island, in May 1980, when I looked out on the bay from a rock just like the one in the painting’s foreground. You can see several of the works in a slideshow here. Just click the arrow button at the bottom right corner of the screen.

It’s a great show, consisting of works mostly owned by SAM or local collectors, so as Derrick Cartwright explained in his remarks, the show gives a glimpse of what SAM’s American collection may some day look like.

We spent a little time in the Reclaimed exhibition, but will need to come back again to give both shows a closer look. It was time for food. We returned to the main lobby, to be met by a server with a plate of tiny shortcake desserts. Just as we grabbed one each, we were greeted by a delightful couple we have been fortunate to get to know in recent years who are supporters of the arts in Seattle. Soon, one of their neighbors joined us, and then the director of the Henry Art Gallery. When they moved on, we wandered over to a small buffet table set up with sliced steak, potatoes, a salad, and a couple of other dishes I can’t remember, all from Taste, the restaurant in SAM’s bottom level. Everything was good, but especially the potato dish. After eating our light supper, we went down to the parking garage, drove out, and headed home.

A lovely evening.

Painting with Frame by Helen Frankenthaler

[Wright Exhibition Space]

I’ve written twice before (here and here) about seeing exhibits at the Wright Exhibition Space. This is a small gallery that mounts shows from time to time drawn largely, or entirely, from the Virginia and Bagley Wright Collection, the largest collection of contemporary art in the Pacific Northwest. I highly recommend going, whatever the show, because the art is superb, the mix of art is interesting, you often have the space to yourself or nearly to yourself, there’s an informative little printed guide, and there’s often a docent to introduce you to the show and chat with. The gallery is open Thursdays and Saturday, with free admission.

The current show is Color Field Paintings and Related Abstractions Revisited, the “revisited” referring to the fact that much the same show was put on in 2004. We went down to see it on Thursday afternoon. Thursday was our wedding anniversary, so this seemed like a good way to mark the day, all the more because the gallery would be on the way to another stop we wanted to make in celebration of our anniversary, Albert Lee Appliance. What better way to celebrate domestic bliss than to shop for kitchen appliances?

The exhibit features multiple paintings from the Wright Collection by Helen Franenthaler, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, and Larry Poons, plus single paintings by Mary Corse, Hans Hoffman, Morris Louis, Robert Motherwell, Gerhard Richter, and Anne Truitt, 23 works in all. From the guide, Virginia Wright writes:

Dismissed as “corporate,” “lacking in human emotion” and “merely decorative,” critics attacked Color Field paintings as a dead end, of no interest or inspiration to other artists. For a long time there were few exhibitions of the work of Louis, Frankenthaler, Noland and Olitski, and only modest sales of their works. For example, Olitski’s Thigh Smoke in this exhibition, a painting that had been included in the Venice Biennale in 1966 and in Geldahler’s important 1969 exhibition at the Metropolitan, came up at Sotheby’s at a morning sale in 1997 and failed to make the opening bid of $20,000. We acquired it after no one else showed any interest in it, and regard it as one of the most important works in our collection.

[snip]

Matthew Kangas and Bagley Wright had been after me for some time to organize a Color Field show because our collection includes many Color Field paintings. They felt that after some thirty years, it was time to take another look at these “merely decorative” works. The hope was that in 2004, as a new century was beginning, we would perhaps begin to look back at the 20th century with new eyes, and Color Field painting might get a reprieve. In fact, there were already some indications of a change of heart. …

I have been pleased that the Color Field show of 2004 did help to retrieve the reputation of the artists on view. It was so popular that we decided to repeat it. This show is almost identical to the earlier one, but with a few changes we hope will intrigue viewers. Our hope is that Color Field painting will come to be seen not as a dead end but as a stunning chapter in the development of abstract art, capable of inspiring other artists and, above all, providing pleasure of the very highest order.

On Thursday, we spent a few minutes getting an overview of the show by the docent, then explored on our own for 40 minutes or so. We each had our favorites, and some of the works we had seen in previous shows, but as much as the individual works, we loved the impression they make as a group. We will return before the show ends in September, and you should go too if you’re in the neighborhood.

I wrote Thursday night about how, in getting ready for our Friday-Sunday trip to Portland, I looked up what was going on at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts. I discovered that the center has several components, the principal one being the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, which abuts the Heathman Hotel, where we would be staying. The hall seats 2776 and is home to the Oregon Symphony, which gets a rave review from Alex Ross in the latest New Yorker for their recent appearance in Carnegie Hall.

I thought maybe we could see them, but they weren’t performing this past weekend, at least not in Portland. Instead, the symphony was sponsoring a special appearance by Tony Bennett and his band. After consulting with Gail, I bought tickets. There were no pairs together on the main floor, so we checked in the balcony and got the last two seats in the dress circle, which consists of the first four balcony rows. (As we would discover, they hang down below the level at which one enters the balcony. The rest of the balcony seating rises way above the entry level.) I had never thought I would go out of my way to see Tony Bennett, but this didn’t qualify as out of the way. All we would have to do was walk next door from our hotel. The more I thought about it, the more excited I got.

Friday, we pulled out around 11 AM and headed south, stopping for lunch in Centralia and arriving at the hotel around 2:45. The Portland Art Museum is just a couple of blocks from the hotel. Once we were unpacked and settled, we headed over. The museum has an older building and a 2005 addition, connected underground. We wasted a few minutes figuring out how to get around, but eventually worked our way through the underground passage to the new building. I think we might have proceeded differently if we took even a moment to look at the map the receptionist handed me. The old building houses the older art — Asian, Native American, American and more — but we found ourselves embedded among the newer art, from a modest display of impressionists on to contemporary artists. An enthusiastic guard urged us to take the elevator to the top and work our way down, which we dutifully did, but which had the consequence that we viewed the art in reverse chronological order.

Highlights? Let’s see. Among many, a 1981 George Segal sculpture, Helen with Apples, that I can’t seem to get a decent image of from their online catalog. A Roy Lichtenstein Goldfish Bowl that I can’t find an image of. A large 2010 piece by Anselm Kiefer, Entrance to Paradise, that dominates the basement passageway between buildings. This seems to be on loan from Eli Broad. I can’t find an image of it either at the museum site or the Broad Foundation site. Oh well. Maybe I should move on. One more thing. There was an excellent selection of photos from the Fae Heath Batten Photography Bequest.

We headed back to the hotel. It was 5:30 by then, with Tony starting at 7:30, so we had to figure out a dinner plan. Just get room service? Go down to the hotel restaurant? We decided to go down, got changed first, and then headed to the lobby. To our alarm, but not surprisingly, what with those 2776 people due to descend on adjacent Arlene Schnitzer Hall within the hour, all the hotel eateries were packed — restaurant, bar, lounge. It was hopeless. We decided to retreat to our room for room service. As we waited for the elevator in the library, Gail nudged me. I couldn’t figure out why. The elevator door had opened, but a couple was coming out and I couldn’t very well run over the couple standing in front of us who were also waiting to get on. I looked at Gail in puzzlement. Then the couple blocking our way moved on to the elevator and we followed. Suddenly I knew what the nudge was for. The door shut and there we were, sharing the elevator with Tony Bennett and his wife. I said hi, he said hi back, we ascended. We had 8 pushed. They had 9. Do I make conversation? Leave them in peace? We chose silence. Then, as we reached 8, Tony wished us a good evening and I reciprocated. If I didn’t know it was him — if moreover I hadn’t checked concert events the night before and had no idea he was in town — I would have known the moment he spoke to us. There was no mistaking that voice.

I proceeded to spend the next few minutes imagining all the missed opportunities, all the comments I could have made, like that we were definitely going to have a good evening, we were going to hear my favorite singer. Maybe it’s just as well we didn’t make a fuss.

After dinner, we walked over to the concert hall and took our seats. Just after 7:30, the lights went out and the band came on: Lee Musiker on piano, Gray Sargent guitar, Harold Jones drums, Marshall Wood bass. A voice over the PA system then asked us to welcome Antonia Bennett, Tony’s daughter. That was a surprise, and not an entirely welcome one, especially because we had no clue how much of the program she would occupy. Four songs, as it turned out. She was okay, but nothing special. On the other hand, the band was fabulous. She thanked us after the fourth song, headed off stage, and Tony came on. I can’t imagine a more receptive (or older) audience.

The rest was pure magic. Okay, so, he’s 84. His voice is fading. His stamina too, no doubt. But he sure knows how to pace himself, how to entertain us, how to put on a show. For many songs, he would barely sing, which is to say, he changed pitch a little, but it was as much talking as singing. That voice, though. And the band. It worked. He would sing quietly, the band would play at just the right level to ensure audibility, then perhaps he’d hit a climax and shout out three words, leading into a musical interlude during which they cranked it up, and just as quickly they’d settle down and he’d sing softly for the rest of the song. Add in a few well timed twirls, a few steps, and he had us in his hands. Antonia came out once for a duet with her father of Sondheim’s Smile. He wove in some of the expected songs: The Way You Look Tonight, The Best is Yet To Come, I Left My Heart in San Francisco. And for his final encore, he talked to us about how this hall, this intimate setting, is where he likes to perform, not arenas or TV shows to millions. (It turns out that he was on TV just the night before, on American Idol.) He then asked the tech to shut down his microphone, and he closed with an unmiked performance of Fly Me to the Moon. I didn’t really think a concert hall that seats 2776 was quite the level of intimacy he had in mind, though it sure beat a sports arena, and he was indeed audible. Hearing him unmiked was a splendid way to end the evening. We walked out grinning, in awe of his consummate professionalism. If he makes it to Seattle, I will happily hear him again.

Harry Jackson, 2006, Cody, Wyoming

[Chris Gimmeson/Buffalo Bill Historical Center]

The artist Harry Jackson died on Monday. William Grimes gives an overview of his rich life and career in today’s NYT obituary. Jackson’s art and friends ranged widely, from Abstract Expressionism and Jackson Pollock to cowboys and John Wayne. Check out the obit for more details.

As a footnote, I’ll point out one error. The obituary concludes with mention of six marriages, all ending in divorce. There were, in fact, just four marriages. Harry’s fourth wife, Tina, is immensely talented in her own right, as a singer-songwriter and, more recently, a composer for the musical theater. The oldest of their three children, Jesse, was a classmate of Jessica’s years back at the Hyde School, in Bath, Maine, as a result of which we got to know Harry (a little) and Tina (well).