October 19th – Our first art exhibition

 

We’ve been saving ourselves for a visit to a museum/exhibition until a cold or stormy day and today we finally made our first visit to an exhibition.  It was not stormy nor was it particularly cold, but it was cloudy and cool and it seems as if that’s as close as we’re going to get for now.   Anyway we went to the Juan March Foundation for and exhibit of English art from Holbein to Hockney and what a treat it turned out to be.  I’ve been a BIG admirer of Holbein ever since I saw the queen’s collection at Windsor Palace and one of his portraits was the first painting in the exhibit.  It didn’t disappoint!   Deb was surprised at the quality of the 16^th century art and enjoyed the breadth of the 20^th century offerings.  Of course for us the art from 1900 to about 1945 was really fun to see and compare to what was going on in Colorado and the U.S.   There were interesting prints in addition to paintings and sculpture.  Best of all it turned out to be free so we went through the first 3 rooms then took a break.   They have a cafeteria in the basement but it’s really a small restaurant.   For 9.50 Euros we got 3 courses with bread and wine and it was really good.   After lunch we went back up and finished the last 4 rooms.  The modern paintings included David Hockney, Lucien Freud,  Barbara Hepworth, and Henry Moore among others.

After  the exhibition we walked down to the outdoor museum of abstract sculpture which is under a viaduct of all things, but it is really good too, with pieces by Edward Chillida, and Joan Miro among others.   We finished the day with a paseo through the Barrio Salamanca which must be the most expensive quarter of Madrid. 

Lots of opportunity to spend more money than you could launder with the Chinese Mafia here.   It’s alleged that they have laundered over 1.2 billion euros in the last 4 years; big money.

A DOH Postscript - I wanted to tell the lady docent that we were going to lunch and would return finish viewing the exhibition, but the next day we found that I had told her I was going to eat and then REVOLT.   Ah well, lost in translation again