Gumby was a Friend of Mine and Sir You are no Gumby
To Tell the Truth will the real Gumby stand up
Funny story about the mascot for the Shanghai World Expo and China being accused of raiding the “G”s, first Google and now Gumby.
LACMA Showcases American Art
Previously at the Met in NYC, “American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915” is now installed in LACMA until May 23, 2010.
The exhibit includes “seventy-five paintings, from before the Revolution to the start of World War I, that tell these stories in scenes of family life and courting, work and leisure, comic mishaps and disasters… Major artists such as Thomas Eakins and Winslow Homer, John Singleton Copley and George Caleb Bingham, John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt, are included in this important survey, the first of its kind in over thirty years.”
LACMA/ Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles
(Images: John Singleton Copley, “Watson and the Shark”, 1778, oil on canvas, and William McGregor Paxton, “The Breakfast”, 1911)
Picasso at the Met
Picasso exhibits have sprouted up all over the country and now its NYC’s turn:
“Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art“ – April 27 – August 1, 2010 
“This landmark exhibition is the first to focus exclusively on works by Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) in the Museum’s collection. It features 150 works, including the Museum’s complete holdings of paintings, drawings, sculptures, and ceramics by Picasso—never before seen in their entirety—as well as a selection of the artist’s prints. The Museum’s collection reflects the full breadth of the artist’s multi–sided genius as it asserted itself over the course of his long and influential career.”
The Metropolitan Museum
New York, N.Y.
Paul Klee at SF MoMA Until August 1st
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art continues to celebrate its 75th anniversary with exhibitions of works from artists associated with its beginnings. This time, it’s Swiss/German painter Paul Klee, 1879-1940.
There will be “drawings, prints, and watercolors…an association began in 1984 what would become an ongoing series of exhibitions devoted to this beloved artist. The current presentation looks back to three early exhibitions that were held in the museum’s first home in the War Memorial Veterans Building on Van Ness Avenue.”
Paul Klee’s style was influenced by expressionism, cubism and surrealism.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art/ SF MoMA
151 Third Street, San Francisco, CA
Traveling Tut!
King Tutankhamun has ended his San Francisco visit and is now scheduled to appear in New York City at the Discovery Times Square Exposition on April 23, 2010. 
This exhibit features 130 pieces spread across 10 galleries. The presentation includes jewelry, statues, masks, gold objects and of course that famous golden sarcophagus– all are more than 3,000 years old from the life of Tutankhamun and other royals of the 18th Dynasty (1555–1305 BC).
Amazing!
“Tutankhamun and The Golden Age of The Pharaohs” * 4/23/10 – 1/2/11
Discovery Times Square Exposition, 226 West 44th Street, NYC
Alice Neel at MFAH
Two Girls, Spanish Harlem
There is a ton of information in Neel’s
portraits and I find it easy to identify with her subjects. For those of us who are traveling to Houston Texas, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston will have an exhibit of Neel’s work as part of their “An American Season” series, until June 13, 2010 at the Caroline Wiess Law Building
Alice Neel: Painted Truths both traces the evolution of Neel´s style and examines themes that she revisited throughout her career, including her social and political commitment, her stylistic evolution, and her reversal of the typical artist/model gender roles, maternity, and old age. MFAH
The painting “Two Girls” was my introduction Alice Neel and an inspiration for me.
[ad#Adsense Link Unit]
Cartier-Bresson at MoMA
The Museum of Modern Art, NYC has gathered over 300 photographs for a retrospective of photojournalist Henri Cartier- Bresson (1908-2004) – “…one of the most original, accomplished, influential, and beloved figures in the history of photography. His inventive work of the early 1930s helped define the creative potential of modern photography, and his uncanny ability to capture life on the run made his work synonymous with “the decisive moment”—the title of his first major book.” 
Cartier-Bresson describing the “decisive moment” in photography:
“To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms [as they are perceived visually] which give that event its proper expression.”
Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century * Until June 28, 2010
The Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53 Street, New York, NY
FYI- The exhibition travels to The Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta.
(Images: Gold Distribution, Shanghai, China 1949 and Srinagar, Kashmir, 1948)
At MOMA“Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century”
Dessau, Germany by Henri Cartier-Bresson 1945
Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photographs are both factual and interpretive. They are not trying to sell me on anything other than “this is how it is, this is what I saw and you add, if you must, your own story line”. The New York Museum of Modern Art begins today with a retrospective of his work.
Many of the photographs that fascinate me are simple recordings of the aftermath of devastating events. The series entitled “After the War, End of an Era” depicts the inevitable changes that war brings about, the question of what’s next and how can the past be reconciled.
[ad#Adsense Link Unit]
[ad#Google Mobile]
Bobby Kennedy – 1968
In a past issue of “Vanity Fair” magazine, there was a feature about Bobby Kennedy called “The Last Good Campaign”. It is a meld of a collection of pictures from “A Time It Was: Bobby Kennedy in the 60’s”, by Life Magazine photographer Bill Eppridge and text from a book that covers some of the same events, “The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America”, by Thurston Clarke.
It is a look back at March of 1968, when before the coming tragedies of that year, there were high expectations, hopes and joys when many Americans, both young and old, thought that they had found the man who would bring an end to the Vietnam War, wipe out poverty and make the world a better place.
We never got the chance to find out what impact, what changes, what great things might have happened if Bobby Kennedy had lived. I regret that.
Martinis & Masterpieces – Arts and Business Council of Greater Phoenix
Friday April 9th at the Children’s Museum of Phoenix, 5:30 to 8:00PM-I will be there
Martinis & Masterpieces is an after work, cocktail party celebrating the Arts & Business Council of Greater Phoenix and the Junior League of Phoenix’s work in providing capacity building tools and programs that answer the needs of the nonprofit arts/cultural and health and human services community.
Martinis & Masterpieces showcases artists’ MASTERPIECES and celebrity DOODLES. The MASTERPIECE art and DOODLES will be displayed and auctioned to the highest bidders at this fun and imaginative event.
Guests will be treated to several of the valley’s premiere restaurants and bars “masterpiece” martinis and micro-brews and “heavy” hors d’oeuvres. Guests will also enjoy music from local entertainment and other surprises.