Museums you've visited (or want to see)

Started by (poco) Sforzando, June 27, 2016, 02:02:00 PM

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(poco) Sforzando

Having started a theater/theatre topic today, why not start a museum topic as well.

As an art lover and sometime traveler, I try to take in as many museums as I can. Traveling through the US, I've seen quite a few of the best-known museums in cities like Boston, Philadelphia, DC, Chicago, and San Francisco. In Europe, I've been to the Louvre and d'Orsay in Paris, the National Gallery and British Museum in London, the Prado and Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Uffizi in Florence, the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna, and other collections I can't recall the exact names of in Munich, Berlin, Brussels, Rome, Venice, possibly more.

But being an unashamedly chauvinistic New Yorker, my most frequent museum experiences are with the city's often magnificent collections - the Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim, Frick, Rubin, Jewish Museum, Whitney, Neue Galerie, Brooklyn Museum, and above all my home-away-from-home the Met, whose main building is gigantic in itself but also comprises two subsidiary branches including the beautiful Cloisters in upper Manhattan where you don't feel you're in the city at all. Some consider the Met to be the greatest single museum in the Western Hemisphere, and while comparisons may be odorous, I still feel after 50 years of visiting the place that I haven't exhausted it - for in addition to the permanent collection there are dozens of special exhibitions small and large each year. It's generally said that you can't see the whole place in one visit, which is why I recently told a first-time visitor here that I would give him an 8-hour tour and do just that. We managed to see about 90% of what I had planned (partly because some galleries were closed), and if any GMGer wants to visit New York and repeat the experience, I make a standing offer.

Museums I especially want to see? The Hermitage in St. Petersburg. The Getty in Los Angeles. The Gulbekian in Lisbon. The Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain.

How about you?
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

Ken B

Not as many as you, but quite a few. Best: Borghese Gallery, Rome. By appointment only, limited crowd, two hour viewing.

NikF

Victoria and Albert - I worked in London for a little while when I was a young man and was taken to visit the V&A by a girl I met. It was an afternoon which increased the size of my world.

Egyptian Museum in Cairo - the sense of age, of time, almost overwhelming.
"You overestimate my power of attraction," he told her. "No, I don't," she replied sharply, "and neither do you".

(poco) Sforzando

Quote from: Ken B on June 27, 2016, 02:06:32 PM
Not as many as you, but quite a few. Best: Borghese Gallery, Rome. By appointment only, limited crowd, two hour viewing.

Didn't get to that one, but I have seen the Vatican Museums including that big thing on the ceiling.

After spending four hours there one morning including 40 minutes with the Michelangelos, I remember they closed the Chapel about 1pm, and as I was leaving a Spanish family came up to me excitedly asking, "Capella Sistina? Capella Sistina?" I pointed them in the direction and said, "RUN!" I truly hope, but doubt, that they made it.

"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

kishnevi

I will tout two museums more or less local to me
The Norton in West Palm Beach
http://www.norton.org
The Perez in downtown Miami
http://pamm.org

The Norton is rather general but with fine collections of European art and Chinese art.

The Perez is distinctly modern.  Make sure you are wearing your 21st century aesthetic if you ever visit.

kishnevi

#5
Out of town
Boston MFA
Florence: the Medici Chapel

I have been to a couple of the big Italian museums but there were too many other tourists doing the tourist thing to let me have a proper view of anything
Except,(in the Sistine ), the Last Judgment.

Almost forgot
The best little museum you never heard of
https://m.facebook.com/White-Oak-Civil-War-Museum-327383247340436
The official website seems to have been taken down.
The holdings are Civil War stuff all collected by one local resident.

Ken B

Quote from: Jeffrey Smith on June 27, 2016, 07:16:08 PM
Out of town
Boston MFA
Florence: the Medici Chapel

I have been to a couple of the big Italian museums but there were too many other tourists doing the tourist thing to let me have a proper view of anything
Except,(in the Sistine ), the Last Judgment.

I was able to snag a bit of that as a souvenir.

XB-70 Valkyrie

#7
A few of my highlights:

Vatican Museum (Rome)
Hermitage (St. Petersburg, Russia)
Russian Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia)
Zoological Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia)
Museum of Wooden Architecture (Veliky Novgorod, Russia)
British Museum (London)
National Gallery (London)
National Gallery (Oslo)
Viking Ship Museum (Oslo)
Neues Museum (Berlin)
Altes Museum (Berlin)
Gemäldgallerie (Berlin)
Pergamon Museum (Berlin)
Gemäldgallerie (Dresden)
J.S. Bach Museum (Leipzig)
Air and Space/Smithsonian (Washington D.C.)
Museum of the American Indian/Smithsonian (Washington D.C.)
National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.)
Exploratorium (San Francisco)
SFMOMA (San Francisco)
SFO Museum (San Francisco)
De Young Museum (San Francisco)
Norton Simon (Pasadena, CA).
Huntington Library/Art Museum/Gardens (San Marino, CA)
Getty Museum (Hell A)
Seattle Art Museum (Seattle)
Mud Island (Memphis, TN)
Vancouver Art Gallery (Vancouver, BC)
Guggenheim (New York)

Still have to make it to the Louvre, Prado, Field Museum (Chicago), Udvar-Hazy, etc., etc.,






If you really dislike Bach you keep quiet about it! - Andras Schiff

Spineur

#8
I just saw a beautiful Modigliani exhibit at Lille Art Museum.  One of my sister is actually its director.  I also saw a Frits Thaulow (Norwegian painter) exhibit at the Caen art museum.  There was also an impressive exhibit of pieces found in the the submarine searches off Alexandria (Egypt) with some of Cairo museum scultures at the Arab museum in Paris.
This summer I'll visit the Krakow National art museum and the Chopin museum while in Poland.  I'll end my holidays in Budapest where I'll visit the Beau Art museum.
There are very few museums I havnt visited.
The only big one I would really like to visit is the Hermitage.

Jo498

#9
Have been to:
- most well known musems in Berlin, usually several times, Munich, Dresden, Cologne, Basel,... probably Prague (too long ago, don't remember the details) and several smaller German cities.
- Unterlinden, Colmar ("Mathis der Maler" Grünewald's altar piece)
- Louvre, Musée d'Orsay (both about twice)
- Uffici, Florence
- Greek National Museum, Athens
- National Gallery?, London
- Metropolitan (I think, it was one of the big ones.. but almost 20 years ago) in NYC

want to see sometime
Vatican
British museum
Ermitage
Prado
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

mc ukrneal

A few of my favorite smaller/less-travelled museums:
London: Sir John Soane's Museum (which was actually his house), Wallace Collection
New York: Frick (a favorite), Pierpont Morgan Library (a surprise for me, having walked past it to work for years, in a past life)
Rome: Now the Borghese is a treat, but to see Bernini under less pressure, you can go elsewhere to find some gems - for example, the Ecstasy of Saint Theresa at the Santa Maria della Vittoria
Paris: Cluny Museum (great for tapestries and medieval stuff)

it's hard to even remember everything. Loved the Da Vinci museum/house in Amboise. That was an unexpected treat. But there are tons of smaller museums in smaller locales all over the world. Thinking of places like the Norman Rockwell Museum. And then there are places like Colonial Williamsburg, which are living museums of sorts...
Be kind to your fellow posters!!

Spineur

Quote from: mc ukrneal on June 27, 2016, 11:58:45 PM
A few of my favorite smaller/less-travelled museums
In Rome all the (small) french places are great: by order of preference
1-Eglise St Louis les francais.  Not a museum, but as good as Borghese villa already mentionned.
2-Palais Farnese (the french ambassy)
3-Villa Medicis (The musician heaven)
"Small" Paris museum: Marmottan, Picasso.  Two other great places: Guimet museum and "Art premier", quai Branly.

vandermolen

Been to most of the London ones, the Louvre, Anne Frank Museum etc in Amsterdam. Been to the Hermitage twice (brilliant) plus the ones in Florence. Would like to visit Museum of Modern art in New York but have never been to the USA  :(
Home of Sibelius and Mannerheim Museum in Finland - both great.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Florestan

#13
Outside Romania:

Louvre, Paris
Quay d'Orsay, Paris
Prado, Madrid
Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Reina Sofia, Madrid
Rijksmueum, Amsterdam
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Vatican Museum, Rome
Museo Correr, Venice
Galleria dell'Accademia, Venice
Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venice
The Doge's Palace, Venice
Delphi Museum, Delphi, Greece

Dozens of cathedrals, churches, castles and palaces in France, Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Greece and Turkey.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Ken B

Quote from: Spineur on June 28, 2016, 12:56:13 AM
In Rome all the (small) french places are great: by order of preference
1-Eglise St Louis les francais.  Not a museum, but as good as Borghese villa already mentionned.
2-Palais Farnese (the french ambassy)
3-Villa Medicis (The musician heaven)
"Small" Paris museum: Marmottan, Picasso.  Two other great places: Guimet museum and "Art premier", quai Branly.

Soane's is very cool.

Brian

I'm especially enjoying the comments on lesser-known and interesting/eccentric museums from around the world. In that spirit, I'll quickly toss off the names of a few famous museums I've seen (Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, Tate Modern, National Gallery, British Museum, the Met) and proceed to a few more obscure/unusual places:

- The Musée Tinguely (Basel, Switzerland). Maybe the most childlike glee I've felt at a museum. It's dedicated entirely to the kinetic sculptures of Jean Tinguely, who made "perpetual motion machines" and chaotic creations with imagination and sheer silliness. He's maybe most famous for the Stravinsky fountains in front of the Pompidou, Paris. The museum has bold colorful sketches, plus all sorts of crazy contraptions, like a massive sculpture which, when you stomp on a big red button, blares trumpets and bangs on drums. A rotating art installation outside the entrance, on my visit, was a wacky jukebox which played things like the sound of a stomach growling.

- Sir John Soane's Museum, London, which is starting to look like a GMG favorite! I can only echo Neal:
Quote from: mc ukrneal on June 27, 2016, 11:58:45 PM
London: Sir John Soane's Museum (which was actually his house), Wallace Collection
(The Wallace Collection is very nice too.) The Soane's is a must for its ingenious Hogarth room and for walking through the creepy basement, with its Egyptian sarcophagi, by candlelight.

- The Kimbell (Fort Worth, Texas). The Kimbell Collection is funded by a substantial endowment, but has almost no space, with essentially just three small galleries. The result is a hyper-concentrated collection of western masterworks, from teenage Michelangelo's first painting to just one well-selected piece each by the likes of Velazquez, El Greco, Monet, Van Gogh, Mondrian, and Picasso. Also, it's free.

- The Musée Rodin, Paris. Ahh, Rodin. I went to the Louvre on a late night and even got to see Mona Lisa without the crowds; I went to Orsay and Pompidou; but the Musée Rodin is going to be my top Parisian pick, both for the great sculptures and the beautiful setting. Also, for being slightly off the beaten track.

- The Mosaic Museum, Istanbul. There are these little signs between the Hagia Sophia and the Sultan Ahmet (Blue) Mosque, the kind of signs that people put on their lawn for garage sales. They say "Mosaic Museum." It looks like a dumb tourist trap - the kind of sign that might point you to a seedy bar. Except that the mosaic museum preserves truly enormous mosaics from the floors of Byzantine palaces - indeed, you're basically walking on a catwalk over the archaeological site itself. Istanbul's most underrated stop, and an essential companion to the great mosques. Ignore the sign at your peril.

- Also tons of fun: the Musical Instruments Museum, Brussels, the Vasa Museum, Stockholm (a massive 1600s warship, preserved nearly perfectly and housed in an architectural marvel), No. 1 Royal Crescent, Bath, England (a well-preserved Georgian townhouse with phenomenal tour guides), the Luce Center in Washington, DC, which is the Smithsonian's browsable, sort-through-able storage area for overflow art, and that fabulous/cheeky Houston landmark, the Beer Can House, which is completely covered in beer cans.

Despite living in San Antonio, TX, for three years, I have sadly never been to the Toilet Seat Art Museum.

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on June 27, 2016, 02:02:00 PM
It's generally said that you can't see the whole place in one visit, which is why I recently told a first-time visitor here that I would give him an 8-hour tour and do just that. We managed to see about 90% of what I had planned (partly because some galleries were closed), and if any GMGer wants to visit New York and repeat the experience, I make a standing offer.
If any GMGer wants to take up this offer, the aforementioned first-time visitor is happy to provide (p) Sfz with a recommendation/endorsement!

(poco) Sforzando

Quote from: Brian on June 28, 2016, 08:06:41 AM
- The Musée Tinguely (Basel, Switzerland). Maybe the most childlike glee I've felt at a museum. It's dedicated entirely to the kinetic sculptures of Jean Tinguely, who made "perpetual motion machines" and chaotic creations with imagination and sheer silliness. He's maybe most famous for the Stravinsky fountains in front of the Pompidou, Paris. The museum has bold colorful sketches, plus all sorts of crazy contraptions, like a massive sculpture which, when you stomp on a big red button, blares trumpets and bangs on drums. A rotating art installation outside the entrance, on my visit, was a wacky jukebox which played things like the sound of a stomach growling.

I'm so sorry I missed this, as I was in Basel during my one trip to Switzerland but it was pouring rain and I couldn't find the place. Hopefully there will be a next time. I have seen the fountains outside the Pompidou, another great collection in Paris.
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

Jo498

Quote from: Brian on June 28, 2016, 08:06:41 AM
I'm especially enjoying the comments on lesser-known and interesting/eccentric museums from around the world. In that spirit, I'll quickly toss off the names of a few famous museums I've seen (Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, Tate Modern, National Gallery, British Museum, the Met) and proceed to a few more obscure/unusual places:

- The Musée Tinguely (Basel, Switzerland). Maybe the most childlike glee I've felt at a museum. It's dedicated entirely to the kinetic sculptures of Jean Tinguely, who made "perpetual motion machines" and chaotic creations with imagination and sheer silliness. He's maybe most famous for the Stravinsky fountains in front of the Pompidou, Paris. The museum has bold colorful sketches, plus all sorts of crazy contraptions, like a massive sculpture which, when you stomp on a big red button, blares trumpets and bangs on drums. A rotating art installation outside the entrance, on my visit, was a wacky jukebox which played things like the sound of a stomach growling.
Yeah, this is very different. There are also few sculptures that show a "darker" side, like the ones with material from the burned out barn (my sister actually used to work there as a part-time/side job... so I really should have mentioned it).
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Spineur

#18
Quote from: Brian on June 28, 2016, 08:06:41 AM
... proceed to a few more obscure/unusual places:
- The Musée Tinguely (Basel, Switzerland).
In Switzerland, you can also check the "Fondation Gianadda" in Martigny.

Quote from: Brian on June 28, 2016, 08:06:41 AM
- The Musée Rodin, Paris. Ahh, Rodin.
Not a bad place, but I dont go back there that often.  In the same style, I prefer the "Fondation Maeght" just above St Paul de Vence.  The garden overlooking the Mediterranean sea and Nice in the distance are breathtaking.

Quote from: Brian on June 28, 2016, 08:06:41 AM
Despite living in San Antonio, TX, for three years...
In Texas, you have also the Rothko museum&chapel.  I liked it a lot.

Christo

Quote from: NikF on June 27, 2016, 02:25:13 PMEgyptian Museum in Cairo - the sense of age, of time, almost overwhelming.

The last time I saw it, in 2003, they were planning (building, I think) a new one. But the 'old' one was indeed as you describe: an almost Victorian time capsule.
... music is not only an 'entertainment', nor a mere luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual if not of the physical life, an opening of those magic casements through which we can catch a glimpse of that country where ultimate reality will be found.    RVW, 1948