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Northern California 2019, Day 4: Sacramento, Day 2

Crocker Art Museum

On the morning of Day 4, I checked out of my hipster hostel in Truckee, got some breakfast, and caught the Greyhound bus back to Sacramento.  Rather than checking into my hotel, I headed directly to the Crocker Art Museum, my sole sightseeing destination for the day.

On the way to the Crocker Art Museum, I caught another view of the Tower Bridge. This time, it was a closer-up view than I had gotten after leaving the California State Capitol on Day 1.

Crocker Art Museum Buildings

The Crocker family mansion. Edwin and Margaret Crocker acquired the mansion in 1868 and had it renovated into the Italian style.

The Crocker Art Museum is the oldest art museum in the western United States.  It had its roots when Edwin and Margaret Crocker took a multi-year trip to Europe after buying the mansion and acquiring a large collection of European art.  (Edwin, a lawyer and judge, was the brother of Charles Crocker, one of our beloved San Francisco Big Four.)  When they returned from Europe in 1871, they realized they needed more room for the collection, so they had an art gallery building built, attached to the rear of the family mansion.  When it was complete, they opened the gallery to the public.  At that point, it was the largest private art collection in the country.  In Sacramento!  Who knew?

The art gallery building, built in 1871 to make room for all the art the Crockers acquired on their trip to Europe.

The museum features art from around the world.  And even though it was built to exhibit European art, it now has a special focus on American, especially Californian, art.

The Teel Family Pavilion was built to meet the 21st-century needs of the museum.

When the Teel Family Pavilion opened in 2010, it more than tripled the museum’s size.

In the photos below, I try to focus on American art and specifically, California artists.  Then I provide a sample of other areas of the Crocker’s collection.

American Art, 1945 to Today

La Grande Jatte (After Georges Seurat), Richard Jackson (1992-2010). Look sorta familiar?

Georges Seurat created his famous painting using tiny dots of paint.  Sacramento-born, LA-based Richard Jackson created his partial reconstruction by individually dipping over 60,000 pellets into paint and firing them at the canvas from a pellet gun.

My Self Portrait as the Queen of England, Richard Jackson (2018-2019). That Dick is quite the card.
Celebrating Hubris with Hijinx, Juan Carlos Quintana (2017). Satirical art in the age of Trump? This piece by Oakland-based Quintana reminds me of 20th-century political art I saw at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.
Progress II, Luis Jiminez (1976). A revisionist take on the Old West.
Stonewall after Bataille de Mons-en-Pévèle by Charles-Philippe Lariviere, France, 1841, Sandow Birk (1999). This painting depicts the celebrated Stonewall riots of 1969. But LA-based Birk based his painting on a painting by a 19th-century French painter of a 14th-century battle.
Hers, Gale Hart (2016). You could say that the symbolism of Sacramento-based Hart’s sculpture is loaded.
Michael #4, Oben Abright (2016). Abright is San Francisco-born and Oakland-based.
Christopher Isherwood 1983 V, Don Bachardy (1983). Christopher Isherwood’s tales of Berlin ultimately became Cabaret. He and LA-born Bachardy were a couple for over 30 years.

American Art, 1800 to 1945

Port of Stockton, Paul Sample (circa 1936-37). For some reason, I’ve long been fascinated by Stockton, and I’ll have more on Stockton coming soon. This was 1 of 8 paintings LA-based Sample did of American ports for Fortune magazine.

The next 4 paintings are from the Crocker’s impressive California Impressionism collection.

Monterey Bay, M. Evelyn McCormick (ca. 1907). Monterey-based McCormick wasn’t fooling around when it came to Impressionism. She studied at Claude Monet’s Giverny studio.
Sand Dunes in Monterey, Mary Brady (1895). Brady was also Monterey-based and also studied at Giverny.
The Weekend, Mission Beach, Alson Skinner Clark (1924). During WWI, Pasadena-based Clark was an army photographer in France, where he had previously studied art.
Tree in Blossom, William Clapp (circa 1930). Oakland-based Clapp was very influenced by Monet and Renoir.
‘Winning of the West’ Street Lamp, Arthur Putnam (circa 1916). I love this! In 1916, San Francisco installed 327 street lamps along Market Street. San Francisco-based Putnam designed the bases, which feature scenes from the so-called “Winning of the West”.
Close-up on one of the scenes on the base of the street lamp.
Southern California Landscape, Charles Reiffel (undated). A rugged scene near San Diego by San Diego-based Reiffel.
Chinese Restaurant, Theodore Wores (1884). San Francisco-based Wores loved painting scenes of Chinatown.
Great Canyon of the Sierra, Yosemite, Thomas Hill (1871). Yosemite remains the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. Can you believe that San Francisco-based Hill was artist Norman Rockwell’s grandfather?

European Art

River Landscape with Anglers, Johannes Hilverdink, Dutch (1869).
Pietà, Portuguese (16th century). A wooden sculpture.

Asian Art

Standing Buddha, Pakistani (3rd-5th century). Greek-influenced stone sculpture.
Jina, Indian (11th century). A depiction in marble of a jina, an enlighten teacher in Jainism.
Funerary Sculpture of a Horse, Chinese, Eastern Han dynasty (25-220). The Chinese always have wicked cool ceramic sculptures of horses.
Suit of Armor, Japanese (17th century); Sword and Stand, Japanese (17th century); Helmet, Japanese (16th century). I love this stuff!

Ceramics

Sunbathers, Akio Takamori (1986).
A collection of stoneware and porcelain vessels by American artists.
Zero, Mineo Mizuno (2011). This large vessel is decorated with Japanese calligraphy.

Historic House and Gallery

A view inside one of the museum’s historic buildings.

Let’s take a look inside the museum’s historic structures, shall we?

Jennie Crocker’s Amethyst and Diamond Brooch, Tiffany and Co. (circa 1880).
The Crocker Ballroom.
Watch fobs made of precious gold spikes, celebrating the transcontinental railroad.
The real thing. The Arizona Spike (1869), made of silver, steel, and stone. One of the 4 ceremonial spikes created to celebrate the completion of the transcontinental railroad at Promontory Summit, Utah, in 1869.

Chiura Obata: American Modern

At the time of my visit, the Crocker was hosting an exhibition celebrating the work of Berkeley-based artist Chiura Obata.

Untitled (Dungeness Crab), January 27 (1961).
Devastation (1945). By the title and the year (and knowing that Obata was born in Japan), you can guess that this watercolor was inspired by the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.  You can barely make out a couple figures in the foreground.

African Art

Yes, we are now entering the Crocker’s display of African Art. Pictured here, Body Mask, Congolese (late 19th to early 20th century).
Zoomorphical Mask of a Mythological Character (Zamble), Ivorian (early 20th century).  A Zamble is a mix of man, crocodile, antelope, and leopard.

Oceanic Art

Lintel with Winged Lion, Balinese (19th century or earlier).

Art of the Ancient Americas

Dog, Mexican (200 BC-200).

So, the Crocker Art Museum.  Pretty cool, right?

[Factual information is primarily gathered from Wikipedia, so you know it must be true.]

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Northern California 2019, Day 1: Sacramento, Day 1 Northern California 2019 Food Diary, Day 1 Northern California 2019 Food Diary, Day 4 Northern California 2019, Day 5: Sacramento, Day 3

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