The AIA announced in January hat the Menil Collection in Houston designed by Renzo Piano, Hon. FAIA, is the recipient of the 2013 25-Year Award for architecture.

In sad irony as the Nasher faces growing concerns from the glare of the towering building to its east, The Museum Tower, Menil is noted for including indirect natural daylight in museum spaces, a technique that the AIA jury called “innovative” and noted has been “applied to other building typologies and evolved in Piano’s ongoing work.”

The inventive use of natural light represents a mainstay of Piano’s museum design in the United States and abroad, appearing in the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, completed in 2003, the Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago, completed in 2009, and the High Museum in Atlanta, completed in 2005.

Praised by the jury as being “a monument to 20th century architecture that still resonates today,” the Menil, which opened in 1987, marks Piano’s first-ever U.S. project.

The de Menils settled in Houston after fleeing Europe during WWII, were not strangers to architectural patronage as well: They also commissioned the nearby Rothko Chapel, designed by Mark Rothko and Philip Johnson, which opened in 1971.

The $25 million gray-stained cypress and white-painted-steel Houston museum is laid out with the majority of the galleries and public spaces to the north of a 320-foot-long corridor, which provides a central circulation spine.

Piano’s designed the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, completed in 2003, the Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago, completed in 2009, and the High Museum in Atlanta, completed in 2005.

The 25 Year Award is given each year to a project that has continued to be influential after 25 to 35 years.

Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy: A Lost Generation Love Story [Paperback]
Amanda Vaill (Author)

Book Description

Release Date: April 20, 1999

Gifted artist Gerald Murphy and his elegant wife, Sara, were icons of the most enchanting period of our time; handsome, talented, and wealthy expatriate Americans, they were at the very center of the literary scene in Paris in the 1920s. In Everybody Was So Young–one of the best reviewed books of 1995–Amanda Vaill brilliantly portrays both the times in which the Murphys lived and the fascinating friends who flocked around them. Whether summering with Picasso on the French Riviera or watching bullfights with Hemingway in Pamplona, Gerald and Sara inspired kindred creative spirits like Dorothy Parker, Cole Porter, and F. Scott Fitzgerald (Nicole and Dick Diver in Tender is the Night were modeled after the Murphys). Their story is both glittering and tragic, and in this sweeping and richly anecdotal portrait of a marriage and an era, Amanda Vaill “has brought them to life as never before” (Chicago Tribune).

43 new from $7.20 114 used from $0.99 3 collectible from $5.00

The painting which hangs at the Dallas Museum of Art by Gerald Murphy will appear on a ‘forever’ stamp from the U.S. Post Office.

Paul Gaugin: Under Pandamus

Paul Gaugin was a roué. He abandoned a wife and five children in Paris after the crash of the stock market. In 1891 he left for Tahiti and the rest is colorful history. He died on the remote South Pacific island of Hivaoa in 1903 and was not well appreciated until after his death.

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903). I Raro te Oviri (Under the Pandanus) (1891)

Oil on canvas (73.03 cm x 91.44 cm). Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, gift of the Adele R. Levy Fund, Inc.

Tahiti was under rule of French and British colonialists he used brilliant colors beginning with his own unique version of Impressionist painting.

He worked in the style of Cloissonist painters, with its firm outlines, Synthetist painters with broadly generalized forms, Symbolist painters with its mysterious contrasts.

Childe Hassam – Duck Island - Oil on Canvas

Childe Hassam was an American Impressionist; he was popular and prolific with over 3,000 oil paintings.  Hassam, Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam championed American Impressionism.

First, I must apologize for not capturing the pale shades.  The colors are a bit wrong here, too deep.  This is one of my favorite paintings at the DMA.

Simply, stunningly beautiful.

Childe Hassam was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts and studied at the Boston Art School.

Although he began his career as an engraver, studying art in Europe developed his sparkling impressionistic style.  In Paris, in 1883, he studied with two academic artists, Louis Boulanger and Jules Joseph Lefebvre as impressionism reached its peak of influence.

He brought his unique Impressionistic style to American and, in 1898, he joined with Twachtman, J. Alden Weir, and seven other American artists to form a group called “The Ten”.

The Greek Slave is a momentous work by sculptor Hiram Powers which toured the United States and served as a commentary on slavery. The Smithsonian has an extensive collection of Powers’s work, including two versions of The Greek Slave, at its American Art Museum. “He represented the type of subjects—mythological, religious, political and literary—that appealed to people in the day,” says Gurney.

This is Faith, by Hiram Powers found at the Dallas Museum of Art. Carved in 1855.

This is America, sculpted by Hiram Powers in 1860.  She wears a tiara and references ancient Greece, birthplace of democracy.

Powers sculpture of Thomas Jefferson stands at the foot of the east staircase on the House side of the Capitol and is opposite a Hiram Powers statue of Benjamin Franklin at the foot of the east staircase in the Senate wing. The likenesses of both Jefferson and Franklin were commissioned by President James Buchanan in 1859, and Powers was paid $10,000 for each. The statue of Franklin was installed in 1862 and Jefferson in 1863.

Powers made six replicas of the Raby Castle Greek Slave for sale to various collectors: One is currently in the Smithsonian American Art Museum; one in Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. one in the Vermont State House; one Westervelt Warner Museum of American Art in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The design of the statue was based upon the Venus de’ Medici in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

Hiram Powers was born in Woodstock, Vermont, on June 29, 1805. In the mid 1830′s Power created sculptures of prominent politicians in Washington, D.C. and in 1837, established his studio in Florence.

Hiram Powers died, in Florence, two days before his 68th birthday. As was tradition at the time, friends and fellow sculptors Thomas Ball and Joel Tanner Hart molded a mask directly from Powers’s face. The Death Mask of Hiram Powers can be found on the third floor of the Luce Foundation Center.

The Dallas Museum of Art and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth contain recognized collections of Precolumbian Art.

The pictures are not as crisp as I would like.  Check back — will update soon.

At the Dallas Museum of Art the extensive collection includes the two bird-form finials from Colombia, Sudi Region c. A.D. 500 to 1500. These were a gift from the Nora an John Wise Collection.

Crown with deity figures

This remarkable work in sheet gold portrays three images of the Staff God, the primary Chavín deity. The iconography of the crown links it to the ancient ceremonial center of Chavín de Huántar, where a famous and influential image of this deity was engraved on a granite slab.

Symbols of powerful predators—jaguar, harpy eagle, cayman, and serpent—define the image of the Staff God. The large head features a snarling mouth with feline fangs. Serpent heads emerge from the figure’s head and waist. Heads in profile accent elbows and legs. Talons mark fingers and toes. Rows of teeth with pointed incisors form a vertical band on the torso and the upright staff in each hand.

The sculptural clarity of the forms and the dramatic use of negative space distinguish the crown among the known examples of Chavín goldwork.

Lee Ann Torrans Looks at Precolumbian Art in Dallas:

This acquisition further enriches the broad representation of ancient American gold in the DMA’s Nora and John Wise Collection, acquired in 1976, with tremendous strengths in gold from the Sicán culture of Peru (A.D. 900-1100), Colombia, (500 B.C.-A.D. 1500), and Panama (A. D. 700-1500).

Dallas Farmer’s Market

The produce at the Dallas Farmers Market is always beautiful!  There are good restaurants and beautiful nurseries.

There is ample marketing at the Farmer’s Market.  Drive on through to the south and you will find underground parking.

Dallas Farmers Market
1010 S. Pearl Expressway
Dallas, TX 75201
Map and Directions

The Dallas Farmers Market has been located in downtown Dallas since 1941 and is one of the largest public markets of its type in the country.  The local producers are certified and offer a wide array of seasonal produce, from tomatoes to sweet potatoes, peaches to watermelons.

It is open seven days a week from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm, 362 days a year.

Farmers from 150 miles around come to the Dallas Farmers Market, giving you the chance to “buy locally.”

At the Dallas Farmers Market, you can also find specialty and prepared foods, flowers, shrubs, and trees, and the opportunity to buy produce in bulk.

Enjoy a new Cajun Restaurant!  Les Bon Temps.

La Popular Tamale House.  The Best Host Sauce in Dallas!

Bather with a Cigarette — Dallas Museum of Art

Yasuo Kuniyoshi was a painter, photographer and printmaker. Born in 1893 in Japan, Kuniyoshi came to the United States in 1906.

He moved to New York in 1910, to study with Robert Henri at the National Academy of Design and the Independent School of Art.

From 1916 to 1920, Kuniyoshi worked with Kenneth Hayes Miller at the Art Students League where he met artists such as Reginald Marsh and Peggy Bacon, who were known for their depictions of everyday life in the city.

• Kuniyoshi had his first one-person show at the Daniel Gallery in 1922.
• He worked on the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration and taught at the Art Students League in 1933.
• In 1935 he became one of the founding members of the American Artists Congress.
• He served as the first president of the Artists Equity from 1947 to 1951.
• He received the first one-person show of a living artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1948
• He exhibited at the 26th Venice Biennale in 1952.
• Kuniyoshi died in New York in 1953.

David Newton’s 10-foot bronze sculpture of a Vaquero on horseback by artists David Newton and Tomás Bustos arrived in Fort Worth June 4, 2012 and was placed on a specially constructed 4-foot high base in the plaza at North Main Street and Central Avenue. Information plaques also were placed to give the history of the vaquero, or Mexican cowman.

David Newton is a classically trained sculptor, and has worked on many public monuments in North Texas, including the Freedman’s Memorial of Dallas and large commissions for the State Fair of Texas. Dallas native Tomás Bustos served a seven-year apprenticeship with well-known sculptor and artisan Octavio Medellin. Bustos’ work has been shown at the Dallas Museum of Art and the Latino Cultural Center of Dallas as well as in many galleries in the Metroplex.

The sculpture will be dedicated 11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, at Vaquero Plaza on North Main Street at Central Avenue

The ceremony included performances by Ballet Folklorico dancing and Mariachi music.

The Dallas Arts District

The 60-acre Dallas Arts District is located on the north end of the Central Business District. The Arts District is the home of the Dallas Museum of Art, the Morton H. Myerson Symphony Center, Winspear Opera House, The Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, the Nasher Sculpture Garden and now the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts. This is the largest urban arts district in the country and has been thirty years in the making. The long term development process has contributed varied and distinctive architecture of the Arts District.

The Sasaki Plan was initiated with the opening of the Dallas Museum of Art, designed by Edward Larabee Barnes (1984). Dallas adopted the plan to relocate its major arts institutions from different parts of the city to the northeast corner of downtown, known as the Dallas Arts District.

• The Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center was designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect I.M. Pei (1989)
• The Nasher Sculpture Center was designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect Renzo Piano (2003)
• The Winspear Opera House was designed by Foster + Partners under Pritzker Prize-winning architect Norman Foster and Senior Design Partner Spencer de Grey
• The Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, recently opened a new addition designed by Brad Cloepfil (2008)
• The Wyly Theatre was designed by REX/OMA, Joshua Prince-Ramus (partner in charge) and Pritzker Prize-winning architect Rem Koolhaas

Winspear Opera House

Designed by Foster + Partners under Pritzker Prize-winning architect Norman Foster and Senior Design Partner Spencer de Grey, the Winspear Opera House is engineered for performances of opera and musical theater, with stages equipped for ballet performances, as well as other forms of dance.

A 21st century reinterpretation of the traditional opera house, the 2,200-seat Winspear Opera House’s principal performance space, the Margaret McDermott Performance Hall, is designed to be the environmentally conscious, state-of-the-art standard against which future opera houses will be measured.

The transparent façade provides dramatic views of McDermott Performance Hall, which is clad in vibrant red glass panel. The Grand Portico provides shade over three acres of the Performance Park, creating new outdoor spaces for visitors and nearby residents to gather and relax.

Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre

The Wyly Theatre is 575-seat “multi-form” theater with the ability to transform between proscenium, thrust, arena, traverse, studio, and flat floor configurations with only a small crew in a few hours; and to open the performance space to its urban surroundings.

The Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre is one of the world’s most innovative theatre facilities. The 12-level building features a groundbreaking design with an unprecedented “stacked,” vertically organized facility that completely rethinks the traditional form of theatre. The Wyly Theatre was designed by REX/OMA, Joshua Prince-Ramus (partner in charge) and Pritzker Prize-winning architect Rem Koolhaas.

Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center

The Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center opened in September of 1989. The Meyerson is located in the Downtown Dallas Arts District and is home to the world-class Dallas Symphony Orchestra and other Dallas-based cultural organizations like the Turtle Creek Chorale, the Dallas Wind Symphony, and the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra.

Designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect I.M. Pei, The Meyerson’s impressive architectural features, open spaces, touches of elegance, and unsurpassed acoustics make the building the preeminent environment for exceptional events in Dallas. The hall has been acclaimed as close to acoustical perfection.

Dallas Museum of Art

The $54 million dollar facility, designed by New York architect Edward Larrabee Barnes, was financed by a 1979 City bond election, together with private donations.

Dallas Center for the Performing Arts – Recently Completed