Trip to Texas

Todd Rivers, head preparator, just got back from a trip to Texas with director Bill Eiland to work on an exhibition, and they hit up a ton of museums while there. Todd had this to say about what they say, and his slideshow of photographs follows:

On Wednesday, we visited with Charles Jones of LaNana Creek Press and viewed books that have been produced and books in progress. Overall, it is a nice collection, and it was nice as well to see the progression throughout the body of publications produced thus far.

That evening we visited with a private collector to see works of art from the Taller de Gráfica Popular. These were great works and contain very powerful and allegorical subject matter. This collector also has a phenomenal collection of hand-crafted rare books, including works by Leonard Baskin and the Gehenna Press, Michael Kuch and the Double Elephant Press, and many more fine presses and artists.

On Thursday we traveled to Fort Worth to visit some museums and see some art. We visited the Amon Carter Museum, which was designed by Philip Johnson, and viewed a wonderful collection of works by artists including William Harnett, William Hogarth, Stuart Davis, and Thomas Moran. We also viewed the exhibition “Constructive Spirit: Abstract Art in South and North America, 1920s–50s.” Next was the Kimble Art Museum, designed by Louis Kahn, which houses a collection of European masterworks by Jacques-Louis David, Diego Velázquez, El Greco, and Michelangelo. The Museum of Modern Art of Fort Worth, designed by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando, is an exquisite collection of modern art and has on view works by Richard Serra, Anselm Kiefer, Mark Rothko, Francis Bacon, Martin Puryear, Felix Gonzales Torres, Donald Judd, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

On Friday we went into downtown Dallas to visit more museums. We visited the Dallas Museum of Art and viewed works by René Magritte, Alberto Giacometti, El Lissitzky, Odilon Redon, Franz von Stuck, Claude Monet, Mark Rothko, Jasper Johns, Jackson Pollock, Charles Sheeler, Charles Demuth, Fredric Church, William Harnett, and Dale Chihuly. We also saw the exhibitions “José Guadalupe Posada: The Birth of Mexican Modernism” and “Coastlines: Images of Land and Sea.” Next was the Nasher, designed by Renzo Piano, which houses a great sculpture collection including works by Serra, Pablo Picasso, Gianlorenzo Bernini, and Giacometti and had an exhibition of Rachel Whiteread drawings. After lunch at the Nasher we headed to the Crow Collection, and saw a nice little collection of Asian art including crystal balls, jade statues, and wooden pagodas and pergolas. We also viewed the exhibitions “New Vision: Ballpoint Drawings by Il Lee” and “Modern Twist: Bamboo Works from the Clark Center and the Art of Motoko Maio.”