Thursday, July 12, 2018

Let Them Draw Cake

Sketch of cake by artist Wayne Thiebaud
I just enjoyed a great day of inspiration for any artist. My trip to the city was a lonely one, but it was a trip I was happy to do for myself. If an exhibit looks promising, the weather fair, and no other pressing needs were keeping me home, why wouldn't I make the $6.80 senior fare bus trip into Manhattan? I tried reaching out to a few friends to meet me at the Morgan Library and ended up on my own, having just as much fun talking to strangers in each of the galleries of the Museum.

I love discovering art on the streets of Manhattan.
This oversized needle was a surprising find on a corner of the garment district.

Thomas Gainsborough

My brisk walk to the Morgan Library on Madison Avenue was filled with thoughts of a few exhibits I was excited to see. Street art along the way made the day all the more special. At the museum I started my self guided tour with the sketches of Thomas Gainsborough. His sketches resemble the style of his paint strokes. I discovered the same startling comparison years ago in an exhibit of Vincent van Gogh's drawings. Vincent's small repetitive marks of pen and ink in his drawings were a perfect match to the small directional strokes of his paintings. I remember thinking this was obviously how Vincent visualized the world and expressed his observations. It was just as startling to remark on the same fluidity of work with Thomas Gainsborough.

Do my drawings look like my paintings? I'll have to think about that.


The next room I visited at the Morgan featured the drawings of Wayne Thiebaud, an artist famous for painting cake. I meant to teach this artist to my art classes and never got around to introducing him to the kids. How much fun would it have been for them to paint a picture of cake? Without planning a lesson on the artist, I never did the research or learned much about him. Turns out he was a draftsman and a cartoonist before he ever painted cake, and this exhibit clearly was not about his paintings. The display began with his early cartoons, and his wit brought a smile to my face.
He was also asked by Wimbledon to attend their tennis matches and visually record the tennis players. Here I thought Norman would not appreciate being dragged through another museum, yet we would have both enjoyed this particular exhibit for our own separate reasons.

I was most taken by Thiebaud's quick sketches of people as they could have been drawn by the hand of my dad. It must have been the drawing style of mid 20th century art, and they were both wonderful artists of that era. I felt a close bond with Daddy, even if he was not with me at the museum.

Thiebaud's obsession with food came from a fascination he had in the 1950's with displays of food in shop windows. The geometric patterns and colorful renditions of his rows of cake, candy and hamburgers eventually brought him fame.

Seeing the quick pencil and ink sketches of Gainsborough and Thiebaud was almost like having a glimpse into the personal lives of these artists. Just like handwriting can reflect the personality of the writer, so can the drawings of an artist.

A final exhibit, "The Magic of Handwriting," connected all the rooms of the museum in a well curated theme. Upstairs in the Morgan was a room filled with the handwriting samples of many people in history, world leaders, artists, scientists, and celebrities. A glorious and oh, so fascinating room to wander through. I examined each torn slip of paper that someone before me had written on as the most precious of all finds in any museum. Sigmund Freud wrote a letter to his 94 year old mom, giving her six dollars on her birthday. That was very typical of the small notes I took a long time to read and enjoy. I witnessed the signature of the Grand Duchess Anastasia along with her imperial family days before their death, I looked at the shaky hand of an older Winston Churchill, the bold script of Andy Warhol, and the feminine scrawl of Marilyn Monroe. Hands down, the most beautiful writing in the room belonged to Benjamin Franklin. Those were the days. Kids are no longer taught script in school.

I was ready to record all these treasures with the camera on my phone, but what got my notice with the most glee was a letter written and signed by Vincent van Gogh. Shana Lindsey at Ranney once questioned my use of the lower case "v" for van and wanted it changed to a capital letter before report card comments were sent out. I was pretty sure my usage was correct, but I could never be positive that I was not following some other incorrect information on the internet. And as Vincent usually signed his work with just his first name, it was hard to prove my case. But here was a letter signed in full. Sure enough, it was written as Monsieur V. van Gogh! It was a joyful feeling to be validated by the artist himself. Best exhibit ever. I was inspired by the hands of many brilliant people and I was even given credit as an art teacher who knew her stuff. Not a bad day.







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