| |
| TODAY |
| Spas |
| Salves |
| PureBath |
| Contact Carolyn's World |
 |
| Rich with Riches by Carolyn Donovan |
It came as a surprise to find out that the LOVE stamp from when I was a kid:
Honey, all you need really IS love Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston I love seeing the choices other people make: the Honda or the Toyota? Bar Harbor or Chatham? The Monet or the Modigliani? If you're Bill Koch, you can take both the Monet and the Modigliani. And also if you're Bill Koch, you can lend part of your private collection to the MFA, so people will stop asking if they can stop by your house and see it.. |
The men boys turn into
When my nephew was five years old, I took him to the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston. I wanted him to know about creativity in the world, and how sometimes thinking about the creative things that other people do might help you solve a problem or express a feeling in your own life.
Okay, so that was the big philosophical idea, in reality I had to wrestle a super-ball from him before I let him open the door. Once inside, he saw the biggest painting he’d ever come across in his entire life. “Who’s the man in the middle,” I asked him, “the one standing up in the boat?” He screwed up his freckled little face in intense concentration. Finally he blurted out, “It's the guy on the money!” “That's right ,” I said, “and his name is George Washington." We a conversation about how a long time ago cameras didn't exist ("You mean when Granma was little?") and the only way to have pictures of people/events was to paint them, and how, if you got up close to the canvas (“But don’t touch it, or the guards will kick you out”) you could see actual paint strokes, but if you stepped way back, you saw just the painting. His response? “Cool!”
My nephew is studying to be a pilot now, which is his own version of personal expression, so perhaps our little MFA visit had the tiniest tidge of an impact on him. Well, so hopes the aunt.
I saw the same little kid my nephew used to be in the MFA’s “Things I Love: The Many Collections of William I. Koch.” This exhibit showcases some, um, stuff, that Mr. Koch likes, things that you can tell he said “Cool!” when he saw them. Okay, so his cool stuff includes wines initially purchased by Thomas Jefferson, the gun that shot Jesse James, works by artists whose names you actually know, and two extremely big yachts, but there’s that saying about the only difference between men and boys…
This is not an illusion, the masts really ARE taller than the Museum
Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
All this is yours?
The “Things I Love” exhibit takes up a four-room-plus-entrance-hall location just off the Lower Rotunda. When you go through the glass doors you see a “Room of Marvels” installation, that gives you an idea of just how eclectic I mean wide-ranging Mr. Koch’s collection is. You get the feeling he bought these items, not some curator hired to fill in the empty spaces of his house. In the first case are some empty – alas – bottles of wine from his 30,000 bottle collection (quick, how much wine can a Methuselah hold? Eight bottles), some fine pieces of ancient statuary (including the only known example of a lynx from that time), some pistols in presentation boxes, and a very energetic painting of a crowd of faces by Boilly.
The next room is devoted mostly to paintings, nicely grouped together: the Fitz Henry Lane with the two Winslow Homers, the Monets together near the Cézanne, and some Degas bronzes in the middle. It actually feels like you’re in a museum gallery, but that’s not a bad thing.
POP-pies, POP-pies...
Isn't this John Wayne's living room?
The back room, though, is I’m sure a unique place among museums with the international caché of the MFA: I call it “Cowboys and Indians” but the Museum calls it “Artifacts from the American West.” In it is a wall of guns, which is the first time the MFA has exhibited firearms (the time the former director of the museum put a cannon on the front lawn and actually fired it doesn’t count).
These are guns from the somewhat mythical Wild West and the more terrible Civil War, and yes, the gun that killed Jesse James is in there.
The opposite wall contains Native American artifacts: a beautiful Sioux dress (possibly a wedding dress), Geronimo’s beaded cane, children’s moccasins, among them. He owns an amazing collection of Remingtons – the artist, not the gunmaker – and Russells.
Seeing the future, praying for wisdom
William I. Koch Collection
Maybe it was my heavy exposure to John Wayne films when I was little, but I felt very much at home in this room, guns aside. Oh wait, I know what it is, it’s that bronze “Appeal to the Great Spirit” by Dallin: not only is the original on the front lawn of the Museum, a half-size version of it sits in my high school entrance hall!
Hope and hopelessness
The Girly Show
The final room contains his female nudes (paintings, sir, this is not the Playboy Mansion), which he displays in one room of his house when everybody’s “home”: Degas, Chagall, Matisse, Picasso, Dali, and just a wonderful Modigliani, which, when it's not being lent to museums, goes where all favorite paintings go in everybody’s house: over the fireplace. There’s a little surprise on the back of the Picasso, but you have to visit the exhibit to find out what it is…
Really darling, it WAS good for me too
William I. Koch Collection
Photograph by C. J. Walker
Huzzah! Oh wait, that’s them, not us
You might not realize that the passageway in front of the exhibit hall is part of the exhibit as well. It showcases Mr. Koch’s maritime ancestry, which includes the Commander James Lawrence, who said, “Don’t give up the ship!” when mortally wounded in a battle during the War of 1812 and thus gave the US Navy their motto.
I'll shiver your timbers!
William I. Koch Collection
Spilling out all over the place
There are over 200 pieces from Mr. Koch’s collection here, including the two yachts on the front lawn (the white one is what he won the America’s Cup with in 1992, the red one is what lost to him), and those kooky, unctuously plump bronze figures by Botero all around the museum (one of which Mr. Koch’s neighbors nicknamed “Roseanne”).
Just too hot for clothes
I love “Things I Love”
You personally may collect teapots and license plates from Oklahoma, or maybe glass buttons and Occupied Japan tablecloths. Everybody’s taste is different, and some people’s pocketbooks run deeper than others. The “Things I Love” exhibit is so worth going to, if only to see what one guy who knows what he likes and has the means to obtain things can collect."Things I Love: The Many Collections of William I. Koch
August 31st, 2005, November 13, 2005
Exhibit included in the price of General Admission
|
| DESTINATIONS | ||
Wan has his own exhibit review... Read more>
|
||
