Mary Cassatt: After Impressionism at the Art Institute of Chicago.
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Category Archives: art
At the Art Institute again
We arrived in time to take advantage of member hour, entering before the rains began. My photos show “Public Park” by Ker-Xavier Roussel, “Mother and Child” by Julius Gabri Melchers, “Untitled (Fumage)” by Wolfgang Paalen, “Portrait of Joaneta Obrador” by Joan Miró, “Casaguba” by Ben Nicholson, “New York” by Hedda Sterne, and “Woman on a Forest Path” by Ben Enwonwu.
New books
A reading friend sent me the Brooks and the Quashie; an article in The Atlantic led me to the Rosenberg biography; and because I owned only a tattered mass paperback of Frank’s diary, I picked up the definitive edition. (If you’re considering Anne Frank: The Exhibition, I would say, Go. It’s moving and important if a bit basic.) Late last week we visited the Kenosha Public Museum for fossils and the watercolor exhibition. (I cast my “people’s choice” vote for “A World of Design” by Thomas Schaller. See below.) On the way home, we stopped at a delightful independent bookstore, where I picked up The Stone Catchers.
At the Art Institute
Detail of images I took on Saturday.
Field trips
On Tuesday, we visited the Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art, which I first heard about on WBEZ. The scrimshaw of Richard Kovanda caught my attention at the end of our visit. (Yes, I’m reading Moby-Dick for the third time this year, this time with Roundtable.)
This is the time of year when my flute is at the shop for its annual COA, and I’ve taken to using the shipping and repair time (approximately ten days) as a break of sorts; hence, a recent flurry of field trips. In addition to the Lizzadro, I’ve been to the Art Institute to see the Willem de Kooning exhibit, into Wilmette to see the Shakespeare Project of Chicago in Antony and Cleopatra, back into Chicago for the spectacular TUTA Theater production of Crime and Punishment, and to the Milwaukee Art Museum to see the exhibition of German Romantic artists.
Monday
Friday
Seen at “Willem de Kooning Drawing.”
Art in Bloom
Horses
My image of one of the works of art at “Korean National Treasures: 2,000 Years of Art.”
“Queequeg, my fine friend, does this sort of thing often happen?”
“Queequeg” by Heidi Whitman (2025); seen at the New Bedford Whaling Museum.
From Chapter V. Breakfast:
But as for Queequeg—why, Queequeg sat there among them—at the head of the table, too, it so chanced; as cool as an icicle. To be sure I cannot say much for his breeding. His greatest admirer could not have cordially justified his bringing his harpoon into breakfast with him, and using it there without ceremony; reaching over the table with it, to the imminent jeopardy of many heads, and grappling the beefsteaks towards him. But that was certainly very coolly done by him, and everyone knows that in most people’s estimation, to do anything coolly is to do it genteelly.
And, yes, I will have reread Moby-Dick twice before the first quarter of the new year is behind us.
Nerdishly 