Andy and I usually make our annual pilgrimage to New York in November which always includes great jazz and great art.  This year we went to The Met and the Guggenheim and here are a few strategies and recommendations for these two incredible museums.

The Met – The Metropolitan Museum of Art, located on museum mile at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street, can be completely overwhelming.  There are usually a number of different exhibits going on at any given time, so it can be hard to choose what to see.  It is the largest art museum in the United States and has a permanent collection that contains artwork over the centuries and from a variety of different cultures from around the world.  This includes a fairly large collection of Egyptian architectural and cultural items and other artifacts from Greek and Roman classical antiquity.  There are also Middle Eastern, African, and Columbian exhibits in the permanent collection. I find this intersection between world art and history compelling.

Andy and I always recommend going to the American Wing.  It can be a little difficult to find, but it is worth hunting for it.  On the second floor, in gallery 760, you’ll find the very large and famous “Washington Crossing the Delaware” by Emanuel Leutze, which was painted in 1851.

And on the adjacent walls, there are two huge landscape paintings that are associated with the Hudson River Valley School.  On the left is Albert Bierstad’s 1863 painting “The Rocky Mountains Lander’s Peak” and equally notable, on the right is “Heart of the Andes,” which was painted by Frederic Church in 1859.  These enormous landscapes had to be absolutely stunning to viewers in a time period before photography.  Andy always says that Church was a rock star of his time.  He was commissioned by the richest and biggest celebrities of the day and became a celebrity himself, charging admission for the public to view his paintings. To get an idea of how big he was, you can rent a car and drive to upstate NY to visit his extravagant mansion, Olana, in the Hudson River Valley.  Of course if you do this, be sure to go to the national historical park at Seneca Falls to see the location of the famous 1848 convention on women’s rights that sparked the lengthy effort for women’s suffrage.

But back to the Met.  While you are in the American Wing, you should also check out a couple of famous portraits of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart in gallery 755 and visit the John Singer Sargent portraits in gallery 771.

To find out more and to check the current exhibits, go to the Met’s website that is located at www.metmuseum.org.

The Guggenheim – Also located on museum mile at 1071 Fifth Avenue, the Guggenheim works perfectly if you check their main exhibit and it looks good/interesting.  The Frank Lloyd Wright architecture is very graceful and the exhibit spirals around, ascends gradually with plenty of room between pieces.  And when you get to the end, it feels like just the right amount of time – not too short, but you aren’t exhausted.  The artwork is usually very modern, but much more accessible than the avant garde artwork you can see at the New Museum. This year at the Guggenheim, we saw an exhibit of extremely minimalistic paintings by Agnes Martin that was pretty good.  

Also, if you do go to see the exhibit at the Guggenheim, I recommend that you save a few extra minutes to take a quick peek at some really great Kandinsky paintings in the permanent collection.  This year in one of the back galleries, there were four Kandinsky’s on display.  This one is called Black Lines and was painted in December 1913.  Vasily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was an abstract expressionist artist from Russia, who connected his artistic practice with his spiritual life.  In April 1914, he even published a book “On the Spiritual in Art,” that gave expression to this connection.  I haven’t read it yet, but it’s on my list to read at some point.

In any case, be sure to check which exhibit will be open during your trip to NY.  The website for The Guggenheim is at www.guggenheim.org.

For a rundown on some more of my favorite art museums in NY both big and small, check out my Art Museums in New York Part 3 blog post that is coming soon.

Reference: Soloman R. Guggenheim Foundation, “Kandinsky,”  Guggenheim Museum Publications, New York, NY, 2009.

Photo Credits: Andy Hong.