French Moderns, at the Frick Art Museum through October 11, brings an impressive collection of Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, and more to Pittsburgh. There are even a couple of Academics thrown in to show us what the moderns were rebelling against. Here is a selection from the show.
Many visitors to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History bolt right past the Hillman Hall of Minerals and Gems on their way to the dinosaurs, but it’s worth a stop. There are informative exhibits of various sorts, including a gallery of glow-in-the-dark minerals that will catch children’s attention. And then there’s the room full of properly categorized minerals. Wall mirrors make the systematic collection look practically infinite, but even without the mirrors it is an impressive collection. There is certainly no better place in Pittsburgh to learn to recognize various minerals, and examining them in three dimensions is much more educational than seeing pictures in a book.
It was one of the oddest things in the Carnegie, and few people ever made it that far after an afternoon of gawking at dinosaurs: a whole gallery on the third floor, the Wyckoff Hall of Arctic Life, dedicated to the “Polar World.” Now, after decades of informing visitors one or two at a time, the exhibit is finally being taken down. But it is being taken down slowly and carefully; and since the hall is also the only route in and out of the Alcoa Hall of American Indians—an exhibit even more invisible to most museum visitors, but one well worth your time—the few visitors who make it to the third floor have a chance to see what happens when a longstanding exhibit vanishes.
The space will be used for a greatly expanded Egyptian gallery, which will doubtless be more popular. But it will not be as odd. Every museum that can afford one has a good Egyptian gallery; few museums below the Arctic Circle had a gallery of Polar Life.
Who else would do this for you? Here is a huge composite photo of the dedicatory inscription on the Carnegie Institute building in Oakland: “This building dedicated to literature science and art is the gift of Andrew Carnegie to the people of Pittsburgh.” If you enlarge the picture below, it is 19,662 pixels wide. You can use it for all kinds of illustrations. For example, suppose your magazine has a department devoted to literature. Well, here is the word “LITERATVRE” cut in stone, big enough for any practical purpose. Or “ART IS THE GIFT”—you could make something of that.
The Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science was the big science museum on the North Side before it merged with the Carnegie and moved into the Science Center.
For a while the Art Deco classical building, designed by Ingham & Boyd (or Ingham, Boyd & Pratt; Father Pitt is not sure when Pratt came into the partnership) was sparsely used for classes and other activities, but after the Carnegie moved everything into the Science Center, the Children’s Museum took over the building for a huge expansion.
The Hall of Sculpture in the Carnegie (as seen by the ultra-wide auxiliary camera on old Pa Pitt’s phone, so don’t expect too much if you enlarge the picture), designed in imitation of the interior of the Parthenon.
The vestibule at the original entrance to the Carnegie Institute building, seldom used now because visitors come in through the modernist Scaife Galleries addition. This picture was taken hand-held in dim light with the ultra-wide auxiliary camera on old Pa Pitt’s phone, so please forgive its obvious flaws.
A rainy November afternoon is the perfect time to spend an hour or two in the art museum. Here are a few of the things you might see if you visited the Carnegie right now.
Aurora Leigh, by John White Alexander, 1904: an imaginative portrait of the heroine of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s verse novel. Alexander’s last and greatest work was the decoration of the Grand Staircase in the Carnegie, so you’ll have a chance to see those murals, too.
Sunrise Synchromy in Violet, by Stanton Macdonald-Wright, 1918.
Rue de L’Abreuvoir, by Maurice Utrillo, 1911.
Harbor Mole, by Lionel Feininger, 1923.
Rue de Beaujour, Pontoise, by Camille Pissarro, 1872.
The building was designed by Longfellow, Alden & Harlow; the murals were painted by John White Alexander.
