Chihuly Collection

While in Saint Petersburg, we visited the Chihuly Collection.

A red chandelier was alone and beautifully lit in a small room.  The chandelier stood out, and the shadows were terrific.  The Bushnell Hall in Hartford also has a big, bright red chandelier like this one.

The glass ceiling of a corridor was full of colorful glass.  The ceiling was similar to the one at the Baker Museum in Naples.

I tried to remember how many places I have seen Chihuly glass.   I can remember Hartford and New Britain in Connecticut, Naples, Columbus and Chihuly's studios in Tacoma.  There are probably more.

A display case had a colorful and varied collection of glass.

Dale Chihuly communicates his ideas for glass objects to his team in large, fluid paintings.

The blue chandelier was the perfect companion.

Dali Museum

 

The Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, is an impressive concrete and glass structure.  It holds many works by noted Spanish artist Salvator Dali.  While he is best known as a surrealist, with images like melting clocks, the museum shows other dimensions of Dali through his earlier works and later works.

Dali painted his sister often.  The face at the top was painted in 1923 in a neo-classical style.  A few years later, he met Picasso and revised the painting in a cubist style. 

This is Dali's 1938 surrealist work Venus de Milo with Drawers (and Pompoms).  He cut six drawers into her body and converted the statue into a piece of furniture.  Three ermine pompoms accentuate Venus' breasts and belly.

Dali's wife, Gala, was a frequent model.  She is at the left of this painting, Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire.  Gala appears to be looking at a bust of Voltaire, but it melts into a group of figures as she looks. Voltaire's eyes become a couple dressed in 17th century clothing.

This remarkable painting is Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at Twenty Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln - Homage to Rothko (Second Version).  Seen up close, we see a nude Gala looking out into the Mediterranean.  Stepping back 20 meters -- where this photo was taken -- and instead we see the face of Abraham Lincoln.

After 1940, Dali turned away from surrealism.  He painted some huge canvasses like this, which reflect both religion and science, something he called "Nuclear Mysticism."  This 13.5 foot painting is The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus.  

I was lucky to be there for a new exhibition that paired some Dali works with works by Alberto Giacometti, the Italian surrealist sculptor.

I enjoyed seeing some Modigliani works, but frankly I couldn't see any connections between his and Dali's despite the shared "surrealism" label.

Columbia Restaurant

 

Columbia Restaurant in Tampa opened in 1905.  It is the oldest and biggest Spanish restaurant in the United States.  It was originally a cafe for the cigar makers in the Ybor City neighborhood of Tampa. 

It wouldn't be a trip to Tampa without visiting Columbia for a meal. 

The front of the restaurant has gorgeous tile panels.

I booked too late for a table in the room with flamenco dancers, but after the meal we stood along the back wall and watched for a bit.

Cesar Gonzmart was a classically trained violinist.  He married the daughter of Columbia's founder and was persuaded to give up his touring musical career and work at Columbia.  He eventually became general manager, then chairman, and expanded the restaurant group considerably.  While GM, Gonzmart strolled the restaurant and entertained guests with his violin.

Downtown Tampa

 The Plant museum and Tampa Art museum are both in Tampa's downtown Riverwalk area.  While I was there, I kept looking up at the interesting contemporary architecture of the nearby office buildings. 

 The cylindrical South State building is the star of the neighborhood.

Tampa Museum of Art

 The Tampa Museum of Art is in a riverfront park in downtown Tampa.  

It has a somewhat eclectic collection.  

An entry hall had big panels with colorful "X" patterns on each of four walls.  They are by an American artist, Vaughn Spann.  Frankly, I didn't understand a word of Spann's explanation.

The museum has several rooms with Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities.  This sculpture is from the first century A.D. and is thought to be based on an earlier work from the third century B.C.

A deceased Tampa photographer and collector, David Hall, has a room displaying 40 photographs from his collection.  This is a photograph Hall made.  The subjects are identical twins from the Midwest who lived in San Francisco.  Every day they dressed identically and went out to talk with passersby.

This superb 1948 image of Georgia O'Keefe is by Philippe Halsman, from a project for Life magazine.

This is a photograph of Nico, the lead singer of the Velvet Underground by the photographer Lisa Law.

Cuban artist Esterio Segura explains why he attached airplane wings to an old Chrysler better than I can.

A gallery showed walls of paintings by self-taught artist Purvis Young, who displayed them from the ground to the rooftops of abandoned storefronts in his impoverished Miami neighborhood. 

 

Doesn't the woman studying the Purvis Young works make you think of Waldo?

Henry B. Plant Museum

Henry B. Plant became a successful and wealthy railroad magnate in the second half of the 19th century.  He arrived in Tampa when it had 760 residents.  With a rail terminus and a deep port developed by Plant, Tampa grew to a bustling city of 15,000 people within ten years. 

Plant decided Tampa should have a hotel.  He had traveled extensively and acquired rail carloads of stylish furnishings in European auctions.  His architect persuaded Plant to build a Moorish-styled hotel with minarets.  The 511-room resort hotel called the Tampa Bay Hotel was opened in 1891.

The hotel was a hit with wealthy visitors.  At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, it was the U.S. military's base of operations.  Theodore Roosevelt had a suite at the hotel.

The financial strains of the Depression put an end to luxury tourism and the hotel closed.  A junior college was given the right to use one end of the building.  Today it is the University of Tampa.  College offices and classrooms still use one end, while a museum is at the other end. 

The Henry B. Plant Museum displays a pretty random assortment of Victorian items that had been in use in the hotel's heyday.  We were there at the start of the Christmas season.  All of the museum rooms were extensively decorated.

John Philip Souza often stayed at the hotel.  The stairwell to his suite is colorfully decorated with nutcrackers and garlands.

Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience -- II

 We enter a big hall with projection on all four walls.  I will show scenes without trying to explain each one.  There were irises, starry night scenes, sunflowers, virtual sliding panels introducing images, rolling waves, Japanese-influenced scenes, etc. etc.