December 2020

The massive Palace of Fine Arts (the only surviving permanent building constructed for the 1904 World's Fair) in Forest Park now houses the St. Louis Art Museum

Port-en-Bessin: The Outer Harbor (Low Tide), Georges Seurat, 1888; this Surrealist has always been a favorite of mine and is known for creating the pointillism style of painting

St. Paul, El Greco, 1598; working in Toledo, Spain, El Greco was renowned for his brilliant color, distinctive overall arrangement, and the extended bodies of his figures

Pair of doors from the Convent of Saint Isabel, Toledo, Spain, 15th or 16th century; the inlay technique, created from small pieces of wood pieced together in complex geometric shapes, originated in the Islamic world

Vessel with Painted Motifs, Mississippi County, Missouri, c. 1100-1400; this piece was part of a collection of works from the native settlers of this area

Wall Clock from the Casa Mila, Barcelona, Antoni Gaudi, 1909; my favorite architect who had seven of his works declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO between 1984 and 2005,

The Plaza after the Rain, Paul Cornoyer, 1908; this was my favorite piece by an artist I had never heard of (but who happens to be from St. Louis)

Cradling Wheat, Thomas Hart Benton, 1938; the artist (a native of Missouri) was known for elevating the life of the working class, making their every day labors seem heroic

Charles I, Kehinde Wiley, 2018; the artist visited Ferguson, Missouri in 2017 and selected local Ashley Cooper as the model for this painting

The County Election, George Caleb Bingham, 1852; I'm always impressed with the detail and personality Bingham is able to give each person in his paintings

Ankh-pa-khered with Osiris, 664-610 BC; adjacent to Forest Park, where the museum is located, is the attractive campus of prestigious Washington University at Saint Louis

The Country School, Winslow Homer, 1871; the artist began his career as an illustrator following daily life with the troops during the Civil War

George Washington, Rembrandt Peale, c. 1845; after his death, public demand for images of Washington as a strong leader increased with Peale creating 79 versions of this portrait over 40+ years

Sapphire and gold necklace from the Hellenistic period, 2nd or 3rd century BC; 500,000+ guests visit the museum each year and admission is free

This marble and limestone fragment of a floor mosaic came from a house in Antioch, Syria, 526-540 AD; the museum has the most confusing floor plan with no logical routes

Water Lilies, Claude Monet, 1915-1926; this canvas originally formed the centerpiece of a triptych with the other two pieces now with the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City and the Cleveland Museum of Art

The Dream, Max Beckmann, 1921; the day after Hitler's radio speech about degenerate art in 1937, Beckmann left Germany with his wife for the Netherlands

Interior at Nice, Henri Matisse, 1919; this painting seemed so sad to me with this woman lost in thought while outside exists the sunny French Riviera

Dish with Design of Peony Garland and Chrysanthemums over Checkerboard Pattern, late 17th or early 18th century; this piece is part of the museum's very large collection of porcelain

Still Life, Basket of Apples, Vincent Van Gogh, 1887; van Gogh rarely signed his paintings but here used only his first name as his signature, perhaps the first artist to do so in the history of Western art

Bust of Victor Hugo, Auguste Rodin, 1883; Hugo, best known for writing Les Miserables and the Hunchback of Notre Dame, is depicted in a style resembling Hercules or Jupiter

Mary, Lady Guildford, Hans Holbein the Younger, 1527; the model's husband, Henry Guildford, was the comptroller for King Henry VIII

Dining Chair, Frank Lloyd Wright, 1903; this uncomfortable chair appears to designed for someone with stubby legs and a huge torso

Vessel in the Form of an Armadillo, Chiriqui, Costa Rica, c. 800-1500; this unique piece illustrates the breadth of the collection of the museum