Some weeks ago, when I saw in blurb in the Channel 57 weekly newsletter about a special exhibit at the Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts, I decided I would check it out at some point. Normally, the Springfield Museums are not open on Mondays, but this is school vacation week for Pioneer Valley grade school students, so I got lucky with my decision to head over there today.
It took me about an hour to get to the Museum Quadrangle from my house; late morning must be a peak visiting time because the parking lot was full. I circled the block a couple of times but no spaces opened up, so I turned the corner on to Chestnut Street and found a metered parking space about a block from the intersection with Edwards Street. Good enough.
The Springfield Museums advertise themselves as four-in-one: one admission ticket entitles you to visit the Springfield Science Museum, the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum, the D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts, and the Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History. So if you’re up for it, it’s a good place to spend a day. As for me, I get “museum feet” fairly quickly, and I knew I’d only be able to manage a two-hour visit. At the Welcome Center, I purchased my pass, discounted because I’m a Triple-A member, and headed across the lawn toward the D’Amour. It was a sunny day, though chilly, and the Dr Seuss Sculpture Garden swarmed with families:
Dr Seuss Sculpture Garden
At the D’Amour, to my dismay, I learned that there was an additional charge to view the special exhibit, Old Masters to Monet: Three Centuries of French Painting, which I’d expressly come to see. Well, I can go to the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford to view these treasures whenever I want, I said to myself, so I passed on seeing them today. Besides, there was plenty to see in the rest of the museum. I started on the second floor and visited all the galleries, from Northern European and Italian Renaissance through French Impressionism. On the first floor, I wandered through all the American galleries, from Eighteenth Century to Modern and Contemporary.
There weren’t any signs forbidding visitors from taking photographs, so I have a random set for you to enjoy. Of course, the photos don’t do the works justice!
This painting is possibly by a woman painter, the well-known Sofonisba Anguissola:
Portrait of an Elderly Gentleman with his Granddaughter, Unknown, 1550
This painting also has a possible attribution to a woman painter, either Constance Marie Charpentier or Ceserine Henrietta Flore Davin Mirvault:
Portrait of Madame de Servan, Unknown, 19th Century
I just liked this one — I think because it was on a postage stamp or something like that:
Madonna and Child, Giovanni Batista Tiepolo, 1759
I picked this one because my older niece recently visited Venice, and I wondered if she’d recognize it:
Church of SS Giovanni e Paolo, Bernardo Bellotto, 1740-41
This is a portrait of a woman painter:
Anna Boch, Theo van Rysselberghe, 1889
Here’s some local color, a landscape which is recognizable today:
View of Mt Tom from the West, George Newell Bowers, 1884
Who else but Georgia O’Keeffe could paint this scene:
New Mexican Landscape, Georgia O'Keeffe, 1930
Here’s a piece by a woman sculptor:
Goats Fighting, Anna Hyatt Huntington, 1905
Although he is named, the model for this piece by another woman sculptor has not been identified:
Head of Tiger Flowers Johnstone, Emily Miles, 1934
By this time, I was tired and hungry, so I headed back to my car to rest and eat my snacks. Fortunately, it had not been stolen or broken into, which fact alone probably contributes greatly toward this being a worthwhile expedition.
