Back From New York City

Gawking at a massive meteorite at the MoNH

I've been to the Big Apple a few times over the years, but it was always very briefly and always for business. So I never have had a chance to see much of the city. Recently, The New Criterion ran a review of the "Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs" exhibition at MOMA. It's an entire exhibition of 100 works brought together to provide an overview of Matisse's last period of creativity. As often happens when I read about such shows, I thought: "Wow, I would love to see that! Maybe I will just go to New York." In one hemisphere of the brain and out the other; I never act on this impulse.

However, as fate would have it, the same issue of The New Criterion also had a review of the Met's exhibition "Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection". This privately held collection of cubist painting and sculpture is being donated to the Met and includes 81 pieces by Picasso, Gris, Braque, and Leger. I looked up from the magazine and said to Jim: "I'm going to New York."

He decided he wanted to go too, so it instantly became a trip. For the first time, thought was transformed into action! Of course, once it became a trip, we planned other things to do as well. We decided to buy a Wolf Kahn...until we got the dealer's preview and saw that prices on his work have gone up quite a bit since I last priced them. Fail. More successfully, we went to see The Book of Mormon, bummed around Times Square, and hit the highlights at the Museum of Natural History.

It was a short but very enjoyable trip! Sometimes it's a good idea to act on impulses.