Yesterday at the Crocker

I was so tired yesterday, that I didn't have the energy to really post about our trip to the Crocker museum in Sacramento, so I wanted to post a few more pictures and write about what we saw.

The building is a lovely deco inspired mansion with winding stairwells and flowing statuary.



I was not allowed to use flash, so the images are a bit blurry, but you can still get a sense of the luxurious surroundings even with the poor focus.



The collection is particularly strong in Dutch realist painters, and I was also happy to see this Breughel in among the still lives.



The Crocker has so little space that they can only display a mere 4% of their collection, so they are building a new modern wing on the back of the building. This mixing of styles has evidently caused some controversy, but as they explained the original building was state of the art at the time it was constructed, so they felt their new addition should be so for our own time. Since part of the collection is contemporary San Francisco art, this makes sense to me.

We actually went to see the Maxfield Parrish exhibit which completely underwhelmed me,





....but I was delighted to see not only some medieval and Renaissance art, but also wonderful contemporary and modern pieces.

This table was composed of tiny, tiny little mosaic stones that were taller than they were wide. mere chips of glass stacked into very realistic pictures.



They also had a small Asian collection on display:



Although I am not a landscape fan, this was undoubtedly my favorite piece - a gorgeous mossy place by (I think) Maynard Dixon. (I generally don't like his stuff, but this one is abstract enough and uses color so sensually (and atypically for Dixon) , that I just adore it



Another cool piece was a mirror house in the center of a room with lots of windows and natural light. This image is a bit of a self portrait - Find Waldo er... I mean me....



Here is spousal unit Don in the same space!



The Presidential piece in the back was made of all kinds of tiles with skulls, and different molded images and this boat was full of ...



....tiny little rabbit sculptures.



This aluminum scupture was incredible. It was ground with a sander that caused a fantastic holographic effect.



It was quite a stimulating day!