Washington DC April 2010 Post 4 -- Phillips, Hirschorn & Air and Space Museums

The outside side of the Phillips Art Museum














The Duncan Phillips collection includes over 3000 works.  To see the artists and their works, go to:  http://www.phillipscollection.org/research/american_art/collection/collection-artist_ab.htm

This spring, the museum has a special collection of Georgia O'Keefe abstracts.  We opted to go on the tour, and found it quite worthwhile.  We leanred about O'Keefe's life and how many things influenced her paintings--growing up in rural Wisconsin, the influence of the art critics, her marriage to the creative photographer Arthur Stiegletz , how NY affected her, her move to New Mexico, etc.  Howard had not known about her abstract paintings, so he found the talk and art works fascinating. 

This painting of a white rose really attracted me.  I took a picture of it from the cover of a book as we were not allowed to take photos of the pictures in the special exhibit.

This is O'Keefe's favorite picture.

This is another one of hers that I liked.  It is a bit har to see the green at the bottom of this hill/mountain.

A Chagall at the Phillips

A Degas painting of dancers and a similar one by another artist right next to it on display.

The Music Room....where concerts are often held during the year.

There was a special exhibit of works on Jacob Lawrence entitled "The Migration Series" with several dozen paintings in the series, chronicling the migration of African-Americans from the South to the North

Here are a few of them.

On Monday, we also stopped at the Air and Space Museum.  We enjoyed the exhibit of the early history of flight and I enjoyed seeing again some of the early airplanes, such as a mock up of the Spirit of St. Louis, hanging from the ceiling.

The first plane to go around the world--it took 174 days.

A model of Amelia Earhart's plane

The most recent plane to go around the world...without refueling.  I believe it took 8 days.

.We stopped by the Hirschorn just before heading back to the Metro on Monday.  Howard had not known about it, so he enjoyed the little he saw including the Mark Rothko's in the basement.  There was a great overlook of the Smithsonian Mall from an upper mall.

We liked this sculpture entitled Columns of Peace, dating from the 1950s, I believe.

I liked this Philosophy Rug, hanging on the wall

We walked by the newest Museum, the Museum of the American Indian.  The following photo is of a sculpture that is designed to wear away over time, from wind and rain, returning to nature.

On the way to the Metro, we passed the original and oldest building of the Smithsonian group which is now used for administration.