A day at the art museum

On our recent trip to Duluth I saw billboards for the Minneapolis Institute of Arts along the highway.  The one that grabbed my attention said Picasso.  And I love Picasso!  And so here is an instance where marketing actually worked.  That billboard gave me the desire to visit this fine museum again.  I believe the last time I went was on a field trip with my daughter’s 2nd grade class.  She’s now in 7th grade so that tells you how long it’s been.  Alas, I saw no Picasso!  We will just have to go back again soon.  There is too much to see in one visit.  And since it’s free, all the more reason to visit more often.

Since it was noon we decided to have lunch in their restaurant, the Mezzanine before perusing the art.  We grabbed a museum guide so that we could decide over lunch what we wanted to see.  Here’s hubby waiting for lunch:

We each got their combo special today.  You had your choice of soup or salad, or soup and sandwich.  I had one, he had the other.  He chose the potato bacon soup with a half chopped salmon sandwich.  I chose the wild mushroom soup with their roasted beets salad.  We each had a cup of chianti as well. We were pretty happy with our choices. I definitely recommend this restaurant even if it’s on the spendy (that’s Minnesotan for pricey) side.  I took photos of our food but mine was too blurry so you only get to see his lunch:

Hanging in the entryway of the museum is a beautiful, bright yellow Chihuly sculpture which can be seen at the restaurant:

We knew we wanted to see the impressionist art but we were intrigued by the Prairie School Architecture and Design section that we saw on the map of the third floor.  Since it was on the way to the impressionism and we love Frank Lloyd Wright we stopped by this exhibit.  We were surprised and delighted to find such an interesting exhibit!  We saw models of Frank Lloyd Wright homes, chairs, a dining table and chairs, windows and doors.  One of the houses was demolished in 1972 and the bench seat was salvaged and rebuilt in the exhibit.  The house overlooked Lake Minnetonka and there is a large photograph behind the window to give the illusion of what it looked like within the actual house.  We spent about 20 minutes here, it was so cool!!  Here is a gallery of some of the things we saw.

Bench seat with window overlooking Lake Minnetonka that was salvaged

The model of the house that was demolished

Bench seat up close

Purcell-Cutts house model

Wright: One side of doors(elevator doors?)

Other side of the elevator(?) doors with a view of downtown Minneapolis

Wright chair

Wright dining set

Wright doors at end of bench seat

I couldn’t resist snapping this great view of downtown Minneapolis:

Downtown Minneapolis from MIA with 24th Street below

On our way to see impressionist and other art I stopped to capture an architectural view of the museum from the inside:

The museum allows you to photograph anything as long as it’s not on loan and you cannot use a flash.  Luckily there is plenty of light that flash is not needed.  I was able to snap several pieces of art that I enjoyed today.  I hope you enjoy this mini tour of some of the art at the MIA.

Renoir

James Ensor (“Belgium’s famous painter”)

One of Monet’s many Hay Stacks paintings

Van Gogh’s Olive Trees – I got tired of waiting for people to move out of the way. This was the best that I could do as it’s very popular.

The clockmaker by Ivan Vasilievich Kliun. I never heard of him but I loved this painting.

The Spanish playing cards – Joan Miro

Head of a Woman by Joan Miro

Not your typical Georgia O’Keeffe

Salvador Dali with a piece of Velazquez’ Las Meninas painting within – very interesting!

Being full with many works of art we decided to call it a day.  On our way out I saw this huge picture of a man at the end of a few successive rooms and thought this was a pretty cool view:

And since we were so close to our favorite music store, The Electric Fetus, we decided to stop in.  I needed to buy the CD by the Grammy winning group “fun” and hubby always needs to check their used vinyl section.  He found two that he absolutely could not live without and I got the one I wanted plus Yo La Tengo’s latest.  Here he is with one of his “prizes” outside the front door:

It was a great outing complete with a nice, warm lunch, some great art and new music to listen to.  If you’re an art lover and live in or are visiting the twin cities, I highly recommend this museum.  What we saw today just barely scratches the surface of all the museum contains.  There is something for everyone here so do stop by!