Wednesday, May 27, 2009

SFMOMA and more

Today, I was fortunate to attend a media preview of the "Gerogia O'Keeffe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities" exhibit which will be showing at the SFMOMA May 30 – September 7. We also had the opportunity to view the Robert Frank "Looking In: Robert Frank's 'The Americans'" exhibit, which runs through June 27.




I got into town almost an hour early, It was a glorious day and the Financial District looked beautiful...a combination of San Francisco's old and new architecture against perfectly blue skies.



I decided to take a little walk around Yerba Buena Gardens, taking advantage of the view of the front of SFMOMA



and enjoying the Heart sculptures that are part of the art in the Gardens.




As is often the case on my wanderings through San Francisco, I spotted something that I've never seen before: what looks like a large sea creature, atop the W Hotel, next door to SFMOMA!



The Georgia O'Keeffe and Ansel Adams exhibit is an interesting pairing of the works of both of these artists, who were friends and admirers of one another's work.

Georgia O'Keeffe painted scenes from nature, particularly from nature in New Mexico. Ansel Adams photographed nature.

These are some of the pieces that particularly caught my attention.

"Waterfall II"



"Sand Dune, White Sands National Monument, New Mexico"



"Black and Purple Petunias"


"Dogwood Blossoms"



"Black Mesa Landscape"



Two O'Keeffe works, "Clam and Mussel" and "Red and Pink Rocks."



And, hung side by side, Adams' "Saint Francis Church, Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico" and O'Keeffe's " Ranchos Church No. 1"



The Robert Frank exhibit celebrates the 50th anniversary of Frank's publication, The Americans. All 83 photographs are exhibited in the order they appear in the book. It's a dramatic exhibit, well worth seeing before it closes in another month. These are a few highlights from it:








After my morning at the museum, I met Harriet for lunch at Mixt Greens, which is across the street from 555 Mission Street. She chose this popular create-your-own salad place partly because we both like salad lunches and partly because of the public art in front of 555 Mission.

Jonathan Borofsky is the artist who created the human sculptures and Ugo Rondionone is responsible for the moonrise sculputres.




Mixt Greens is a place where you have a choice of selecting the ingredients of your salad or of ordering one of their creations.



For my first time here, I decided to order one of their creations, "The Dagwood," composed of greens,roasted red peppers, roasted zucchini, roasted portabella mushrooms, caramelized onions, goat cheese, garlic croutons, lemon herb vinaigrette. It cost $8.45 and was a very substantial lunch.



I got home late in the afternoon and had just made myself a cup of tea, when our friend Palmer and his French Bulldog pup, Astro, stopped by for a visit and some playtime with Louie.



My day ended with going to dinner with J at Chow Lafayette.



We both ordered the day's special sandwich, today a Chicken Cutlet with tomatoes and broccoli rabe. The daily sandwich special, priced at about $10, is a meal on a plate and includes your choice of soup, fries, or salad. We both chose the Broccoli soup.

1 comment:

mary ann said...

Great post! I didn't know about the public art ~ I'll go see it soon. Thanks for the photos and reports.
We didn't see the sun all day out at the GGPark.