The Road to Albuquerque

Terrain becomes hilly

Driving to New Mexico results in yet another terrain change. The wide open flat grasslands are now more hilly. I have to love the fact that Exit 0 is the last exit in Texas.  Exit 0 ???

Exit 0 !!!

 New Mexico wins the prize for state welcome signs. As can be seen below, a large banner sign over the road proclaims that you're crossing into New Mexico.

Welcome to New Mexico

 We're in New Mexico, set the cruise control to 80, lay back and enjoy the ride.

Relax and enjoy the scenery at 75 MPH

Route 66 icons are everywhere in the Southwest. Shopping centers capitalize on their association with "the Mother Road". On any segment of the old Route 66 business is a mixed bag. Some diners and motels seem to be thriving while others are rapidly fading into oblivion with only deteriorating skeletal remains, reflecting an era of travel that has passed along with tail fins and whitewall ties.

The descent into Albuquerque is quite picturesque as the road winds and turns through the mountains.

New Mexico road bridges are some of the prettiest I have ever seen. Each one is decorated as a work of art.

I-25 interchange Painted Bridges in blue and pink

Bridge Ornamentation

Ornamentation

Artistic roadside landscaping

Once in Albuquerque I had some time to explore while I waited for Libbie's plane to arrive in the evening. I proceeded to Old Town Albuquerque to visit the New Mexico Museum of Art. It's a nice building, has lots of sculpture on the grounds but is lacking any major art inside.

NM Museum of Art entrance

The great news was a major art show was in the museum, "From Turner to Cezanne" art from the Davies Collection of the National Museum of Wales. This is a dazzling collection of art rarely seen outside of Europe.

 

The Davies sisters  were daughters of a Railroad baron in Wales, UK. From 1908-1923 they collected art in an attempt to enhance the cultural life of Wales. They managed to collect major pieces of art from most of the European impressionists. Works by Cezanne, Corot, Bonnard, Millet, Monet, Morisot, Manet, Pisarro, Renoir and van Gogh among others are on display in this collection valued at almost one billion dollars. Albuquerque Museum lacks the facilities to properly display this collection in my opinion. They did the best they could which was to basically hang the art on the walls of a large room the size of a gymnasium. That said, the art wasn't any less enjoyable.

My favorite was a large floor to ceiling Renoir painting, "The Parisienne". Beautiful! The blues were vibrant, the sheer size of the painting dominated and overwhelmed everything in the room. Renoir's parents were a tailor and a dressmaker. The detail in the dress of this painting probably reflects some of that upbringing. Even though this is an impressionistic painting, having been exhibited in the first impressionistic exhibition in 1874, the details in her face are very sharp and well defined. By making the face so clear in contrast to the nebulous nature of the background and dress, she stands out or "pops" to use a term from the current vernacular. Besides the size and color, this fact is probably what draws people into the artwork. A very sharply defined face staring at the viewer from amongst the hazy and patchy but bright colors of the rest of the painting grabs your attention. Of course, I'm somewhat prejudiced since Renoir is one of my favorites of all time.  This work just reaffirms his genius for me.

La Parisienne (1874), Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Outside the Museum of art is an incredible collection of sculpture. All the following are sculptures by Glenna Goodacre who is rapidly becoming my favorite sculptor. I keep crossing paths with her sculptures from the Regan library, Cowboy Museum and now at the Albuquerque Museum. 

Western Heritage Museum, OK City, Oklahoma

Entrance Gate

"Sundown" at the entrance of the Western Heritage Museum

The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum is a large complex in Oklahoma City surrounded by well landscaped gardens and fountains. The buildings are huge,  housing incredibly larger than life sculptures and full recreations of early Western towns as well as a full rodeo.

Larger than life sculptures are one of the Hallmarks of this museum. "End of the Trail" by James Earl Fraser (1876-1953) is an 18 foot tall sculpture that humanizes the American Indian. Popular literature pictures the Indians as savages but here an Indian warrior is captured in a timeless pose, tired and defeated. The sculpture is one of the Museum keystone pieces, featured on all their literature.

 

End of the Trail

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Another of the very large pieces of art is this Abraham Lincoln sculpture by James Earle Fraser. At the turn of the 19th century, entrepreneurs were promoting a Lincoln Highway as a New York to San Francisco National Highway. The start of this highway is denoted by a large bronze monument of Abraham Lincoln. This is the plaster original for that bronze.

Abraham Lincoln by Fraser

A surprise treat was this Ronald Regan sculpture, "After the Ride" by Glenna Goodacre. We stumbled into artwork by Glenna later on this trip and when I googled her name, I found she was the sculptor for the Sacagawea dollar. I have seen this sculpture before, a casting of it is in the Ronald Regan Presidential Library.

After the Ride

The Western Heritage Museum has many full size recreations of cowboy life when the West was Wild. I didn't care too much for this aspect since it seemed such a large devotion of space to a questionable endeavor. Who needs a full scale replica of a Western town in air conditioned space? This is more the stuff of movie studios. My preference of course is for more Western Art in gallery exhibitions. Despite this, the recreations are astounding.

Recreated Western Town

I particularly liked this recreation of an old western photographers studio.

Photographers Studio

A peek into the auditorium revealed many large murals on the walls such as this one of Monument Valley.

Western Heritage Museum Auditorium

The highlight of the museum for me was the Prix de West, a juried invitational art show that takes place every year. The museum benefits greatly since they buy the winning artwork each year.  The galleries containing the paintings and sculptures of past Prix de West winners are incredibly nice. The museum has had a splendid opportunity to purchase works of art from well known artists before they were famous. The artist gains as well since the winning painting or sculpture can easily have a price tag of $100,000.  Unfortunately photography is not allowed in the Prix de West but LCD screens throughout the facility display an ongoing slide show of winners. I used that opportunity to photograph the winners as my memory of the show. The photo below is an  example of this.

One of my favorite sculptures did not win anything. I wrote down a description of the artwork, the artists name and the title of the piece. It stands about 12 inches high and was priced at $3,000. Once home I went a-googling and found not only the artist, Blair Buswell, but a photograph of his entry, "Reflection". The image I found online is below.

Reflection by Blair Buswell, a Prix de West entry

If you're there for the day, the museum features a very nice cafe with large expanses of glass over-viewing the fountain and water garden. This truly is an architecturally superb complex of buildings.

Cafe

Lightpole banner

Dixon Gardens and Gallery, Memphis TN

Dixon Art Gallery, Memphis TN

West Nashville is only 172 miles from Memphis. This is the total extent of my travels for today but speed is of the utmost essence. I want to get to Dixon Gardens and Gallery, a Botanical garden and museum with art of the European Impressionists. The rush is because Dixon is free on Saturdays between 10 AM and Noon. Luck was with me and I arrived at Dixon around 10:30. It's not a botanical garden outside the city on acreage but instead is right there in Memphis surrounded by city streets.

The Dixon formal gardens

Since it was July and this is Memphis in the deep south, the temperature and humidity were up there. It was hot but enjoyable. After touring the formal gardens I took a nice walk in the woods of the Woodlands Gardens surrounding the Art Museum. One of the themes was art in the garden and featured sculpture on exhibit in the garden. The sculpture was all garden related and was everywhere, even in the woodland garden although more of it was featured in the formal areas.

One of the traveling Art shows in the Gallery was a new artist for me, Helen Turner. I really enjoyed her art. Looking at the birth date and death dates of Ms Turner, 1858-1958, I realized this woman lived to be 100. Her art resembles that of the European Impressionists which is probably why this show is at the Dixon. The Dixon mission is to collect high quality artwork of the European Impressionists. While inside I saw two Renoirs that I have never seen before, art of Monet, Degas and others. The quantity is low but the quality is very high. The subjects of Helen Turner's paintings are women, flowers and women in the garden.

The Woodland Gardens, Dixon Gallery

Dixon formal planting