Saturday March 3: Guggenheim (finally :-)

Given that this is the last weekend where I will be al by myself (ok, I'll have one weekend before I leave but my guess is that I will be busy packing and Fedexing all my stuff home by then) I thought it might not be a bad idea to go and visit the Guggenheim museum at last. I didn't visit it until now since I figured that some of my visitors would want to do this anyway. It turned out that everybody wanted to visit the MoMA and the Metropolitan instead of the Guggenheim.

Part of the museum's fame originates from the building (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright) that accomodates the collection. Unfortunately, it is impossible to see the facade for the moment due to a refurbishment. The interior (see picture) remains splendid however. I visited the Guggenheim back in '98 and I had lively memories of the modern art collection. In winter & spring however, the museum dedicates most of it's space to special exhibitions, the current exhibition being 'El Greco to Picasso', which displays Spanish art since the 16th century. Most of the paintings depicting portraits, the collection on display was somewhat of a disappointment to me. Luckily some of the galleries contain parts of the permanent collection, such as Pissarro's 'L'hermitage à Pontoise' (see picture).