Jeff Wildin Dallas, Culturally Speaking on the Hammer Musuem in Los Angeles
Jeff Wildin, who runs "Culturally Speaking" a firm which promotes cultural awareness, visits the Armand Hammer Museum in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) May 3, 2006
Some individuals are more interested in world affairs and success than others, but Armand Hammer set an important standard. Born in New York City, Mr. Hammer enjoyed a long and successful business career, was an admired philanthropist, and an important art collector. His mother being Russian, he had a long-held interest in all things having to do the Russian culture and life, having first travelled to the former Soviet Union after graduating from Medical School in early part of this century. Although he wanted to help the Soviets with their then-health concerns, he realized they also had a great need for food, and he developed an arrangement to ship grain to the Soviet Union in return for being able to sell Soviet goods back home. This was the beginning of a long association with the former Soviet Union and was the beginning of his passion for international art and culture.
The Armand Hammer Musuem is currently undergoing some important re-freshening, but for the most part the, his collection is still on view. In a very friendly layout with easy parking, its worthwhile to visit this small, but important collection of art. Hammer collected art throughout his lifetime, with the help of his brother, an Art History Graduate from Princeton University. The works on view at the Hammer musuem consist primarily of paintings and works on paper by French nineteenth-century masters including Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, Camille Pissarro Paul Gaugin and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. The works by these artists are beautiful and provide an excellent overview of the genre. The collection includes portraiture and landscape painting and several of these artist have more than one painting in the collection.
The collection also includes works by Rembrandt, Reubens, Tintoretto and Titian. A very compelling piece by Rembrandt, "Portrait of a Man Holding a Black Hat" is quite compelling, but the centerpiece of the old master collection is Rembrandt's "Juno" which is simply wonderful.
Any trip to Los Angeles would be incomplete without having a short visit to this musuem, conveniently located off Wilshire Blvd. in Westwood.
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