Art Institute

We finally made it to the Chicago Art Institute (together - J has been a couple of times) on Saturday. We didn't have a lot of time but we got to see some really amazing stuff. It didn't bother me too much that American Gothic was on loan - it's never been one of my favorites. What I really enjoyed was actually seeing Nighthawks in person finally - it's a wonderfully intimate size and it bugs me that intimate is not a word used often about the painting. Most of what I've read about it talks about alienation and loneliness - I guess it says something about Lady J and I that we think of it as being warm and inviting.

There were some gorgeous O'Keefes that I liked much better than some of her huge canvases, including one that J pointed out that looked very much like a Steiglitz photograph of sun reflected on the New York hotel she was living in. Actually my favorite item that I saw in the museum was a photo that Steiglitz took of O'Keefe when he was first pursuing her - it's one of the most remarkable portraits I've ever seen and one of the first of the hundreds he was to do of her over the years. The Eames chair at the top was another favorite - and pretty damned inviting after a day of walking. We left the apartment at around noon-thirty and the photo of Lady J is taken in front of the Wrigley Building as we were walking towards home around 8:30 (before stopping off at Virgin to pick up the Arctic Monkeys CD that my friend Dave told me I had to buy) - we'd been on our feet most of the day and were pretty beat by the time we got home.