This was a million times better than I expected it to be. I think I even preferred it to MoMa. This was because it had the incredibly rare quality of being an almost empty gallery. This was something new to me, and I think maybe a symptom of California's incredible sunshine. San Francisco however comes ready made with a sense of avant-garde, after all it was the home of Gertrude Stein, and you can tell this is not a lonely collection. I'm sure when Winter comes and there's snow on the beaches and the Golden Gate bridge looks a little less golden the hippies flee here. Pretty sure I saw Joni Mitchell eating Mondrian Cake. This is what most of the visitors looked like:
Robert Arneson "California Artist" 1982
There was a selection of some of my favourite paintings, too. I feel the galleries in America rest a little less on their laurels than those in Europe and the information labels in this place were the best I've ever seen. The place was heavy on Picasso and Matisse, abstraction and colour. I was sure this was down to the influence of Stein, and I was sad to miss the upcoming exhibition of her re-created collection, which must have been incredible. She said "Matisse is the better painter but Picasso is the better artist". You can kind of see that here, though these aren't my favourites of either artist.
Henri Matisse "La Conversation" 1938
Pablo Picasso- "Less femmes d'Algier (Women of Algiers)" 1955
However, my real favourite was the abstract collection. I like to think that I've built up some sort of understanding of Post-Modern art over the last few years, however sometimes it still stumps me. Recently I've got really into Rothko. Two really important things to remember. Firstly, make sure you stand close enough for the painting to envelope your entire field of vision, that's the only way for it to hypnotise you. Secondly, the red ones are the most hypnotising, as it is a colour field that rarely occurs in nature, as opposed to blue (which just feels as if you are staring into the ocean) so therefore the experience is more disconcerting and strange. This is perhaps a perfect example
Mark Rothko, "No. 14", 1960
