Whirlwind of Snow and Art in New York City

I got back late last night from a quick but busy trip to NYC with my boss and his wife. They nicely invited me along on a 2-day art-filled trip down to the "big city." The trip began at 3am on Friday morning, when I awoke to get myself ready to meet them at 4am for our drive down to the Amtrak station on Rt. 128 in MA. Luckily, I was a passenger on the car ride and slept most of the way! When we arrived at the station, it had just begun to snow and as we headed south on the train, we were even happier with the decision to not fly or drive down, as there was quite a bit of snow on the ground and even more swirling through the air as we sped through RI and CT. Traveling any other way would have no doubt meant some delay and frustration.

Arriving around 11am, we checked in the Surrey Hotel, a nice old-world feeling hotel on 76th near Central Park. The city, and particularly the park, looked beautiful covered with snow. After a quick lunch, we headed to the 67th Street Armory for the Art Dealers Association of America show. 70 dealers were set up in the Armory, showcasing their 'best of the best.' It was almost like going to a museum - we saw an Edward Hopper watercolor and several pencil studies for his larger oils; numerous Charles Burchfield watercolors; a William Zorach scultpure; mobiles by Alexander Calder; two oils by Fairfield Porter; two beautiful ink drawings by Henri Matisse; plus works by Andy Warhol, Walt Kuhn, Cy Twombley, Arthur Dove, Reginald Marsh, Guy Wiggins and many others. A neat mix of works.

After several hours at the show, we headed over to the MOMA, where admission was free on Friday nights starting at 4pm. We stopped in the museum cafe for an early dinner and a bit of a pick-me-up to fuel before our tour of the museum. I think the highlight of the visit was Matisse's "The Dance" but of course there were many other masterpieces to feast our eyes on. There was a neat exhibit of Lucien Freud's slightly distorted and disturbing thickly painted portraits along with etchings. However, as the crowds grew, the air grew thick and we had to escape... so we wandered up to the Whitney to see more art. The museum was pretty quiet and we took a quick tour of the open exhibits (many of the floors were closed in preparation for their Biennial opening in early March), before going back to the hotel to collapse into our beds (mine being the sofa sleeper).

Saturday started off with a 3 mile, 27 minute run on the treadmill in the hotel fitness center. I caught up on the news, including a clip of President Bush attempting to jive along with an African tribal dance, as I plodded along, all the while thinking how glad I was that I did not have to use the treadmill much for my training!

We were at the Met entrance by 9:30am, and spent two hours enjoying the art. You could literally spend days if not weeks in the Met, but we focused on the 19th and 20th century paintings. I could have stared at Van Gogh's "Irises" all day... A few other favorites of course included the museum's large collection of Monets and Degas, "Madame X" by John Singer Sargent, the long, gangly sculptures by Giacommeti,
a small Marsden Hartley of the Maine mountains...and on and on. What a wonderful collection.

Not wanting to waste a minute in the city, we headed to Chelsea, a rather seedy part of town, which has recently become populated with many contemporary galleries. This industrial section of town is being transformed; the brick buildings now hold gallery upon gallery. With only about an hour to explore, we only hit a fraction of the spaces, but saw enough to realize that we were pretty happy with the art we are currently exhibiting in our gallery. There was some interesting art out there, but nothing truly memorable. Regardless, it was fun to see the area and get a feel for the pulse of the New York art scene.

All in all, a full weekend of art! It was a great trip, but I am very happy to be back in Maine relaxing today! :-)