Andrew Wyeth at the Palm Springs Art Museum

"The only virtue to it is to put down an idea quickly without thought about what you feel at the moment. It's one's free side. Watercolor shouldn't behave.”
-Andrew Wyeth

Palm Springs Art Museum is winding up its long exhibition "Andrew Wyeth in Perspective." About 30 paintings filled the walls, including a few from the "Helga" series. I was thrilled to see many of Wyeth's graphite sketches in the show. Once again, as I walked through the show, I admired his subtlety, his attention to fine details, his sense of value, and the overall loneliness of his subjects.

When Wyeth died in 2009, I wrote this blog post and painted this piece as a remembrance. My reference is the servants' staircase at the Bidwell Mansion in Chico, CA.

Missing Andrew, 18 x 12, pastel

Palm Springs Art Museum

"Before Missionary School" by John Nieto

When it's 103 degrees, even the rocks seem to melt!

Mom was a great sport today and we drove in her air conditioned car over to the air conditioned Palm Springs Art Museum. We looked at all of the exhibits, including the special exhibit of John Baldassari. 

The museum has a great collection of western art, including work by Remington, Russell, Moran, and Clyde Aspevig! Love it!!

John Nieto's painting "Before Missionary School" took my breath away. Do you know Nieto?

Floral painting by Fechin

Palm Springs Art Museum
floral by Nicolai Fechin

Whenever I see that a museum has paintings by Nicolai Fechin, I make sure that I give myself plenty of time to drool, er, I mean, look at them. Study them. Try to figure out why they are so beautiful and captivating.

Today was no different. Fechin, Russian born but American emigre, is known for his portraits. But, every so often I see a landscape or floral of his and it takes my breath away. Like this painting I saw today at the Palm Springs Art Museum. The calla lilies glowed with light and I didn't want to stop looking at it.

Even if I didn't paint (but I did sketch some palm trees and a few folks playing shuffleboard!), it was an artful day.