Art Appreciation Group

Our January zoom by Graham was on the three Guggenheim Galleries and their collections of mainly modern art. The Guggenheim family are one of the wealthiest in the USA. Famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the New York gallery and it still looks strikingly up to date with concentric concrete rings outside which echo the spirals of the internal curved walls.  Bilbao Guggenheim was designed by Frank Gehry and is another striking shiny building with a massive seated flower-covered dog outside created by Jeff Koons, which keeps the gardeners busy! Peggy Guggenheim purchased the Venice gallery in 1949, which is a modernised unfinished Venetian palace originally commissioned in 1749 with only a ground floor completed.  We are fortunate that such wealth has given us all access to art by famous artists too many to name. We viewed many images by the such as Lichtenstein, Pollock, Rothko and Kandinsky. 

Laraine Burr, with the knowledge and a lifelong interest in costume through the ages, has recently given us a presentation on early C17 costume and portraits.  Studying portraiture from centuries ago is an ever changing jigsaw due to new technologies which can delve further into their histories. For instance a portrait of Luther allegedly by Holbein has been found to contain blue mineral dye which was not known in his time. Similarly jewellery in portraits can have discrepancies due to the known provenance of some jewels. Also dendrology can age an oak panel upon which a portrait was painted at a particular time.

English art of early C17 is sparse compared with that in Europe because we didn’t have so many wealthy families such as the Medici and the Hapsburgs who were keen to show off their wealth, strength and family lines.

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