A Tale of Two Museums

I have been in England for a couple of days now visiting my sister, Rena, in Ipswich. Today we had our big outing to London, which l we always do when I visit. It's our time to hit the museums together. First it was the Tate Modern to see an exhibition of Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia. I was familiar with the first two, but had never heard of Picabia before. The three were close friends and sometimes collaborated on each others' work. As painters, photographers, scuptors and poets they were pioneers in the Dada and Surrealist movements.

My sister and I like to play a game when we go to the museum. We are each allowed to choose our favorite work of art which we can bring home. Because this was an exhibition of three artists we could choose one piece from each. One of my choices was Duchamps' most famous painting: Nude Descending a Staircase #2. I'd seen it in books before, but to see the real thing up close was fascinating. When it was first exhibited it caused an uproar because people thought a nude shouldn't be shown doing something as prosaic as walking down some stairs. But for Duchamps it was a study of movement.

The painting is often referred to in Anais Nin's novel, A Spy in the House of Love. The main character, Sabina, feels a connection to the many nudes in Duchamps' painting because she believes she herself has many separate selves.  

After the Tate Modern we walked along the Thames to the National Portrait Gallery where they were having a retrospective of Vanity Fair photographs throughout the magazine's history. It was amazing to see photographs of Virginia Woolf, GB Shaw, Hemingway. One of my favorites was a beautiful black & white photo of the opera singer, Jessye Norman. Another - interestingly enough connected to the earlier exhibition we had seen - was Man Ray's photos of La Nijinska (the sister of the great dancer, Nijinsky) done up in dramatically grotesque face make-up.

My sister, who has recently started taking photographs herself, fell in love with all the Annie Leibovitz photos. And with good reason: they are stunning!! She has a way of manipulating light that makes her work look like paintings. Amazing to see the real things up close.

Afterward we went to Chinatown and shared a plate of crispy aromatic duck, fried noodles with prawn and pork dumplings. Yum!!! Finally we made it just in time to catch the 9:30 train back to Ipswich. After 7 hours of being on our feet it was good to get back home. We have a couple of more days to chill out and then on Monday we are off to Amsterdam. Tell you all about it in a week or so.