Category: Trips

The day after the Ida O’Keefe exhibit in Dallas, I drove to Houston to visit the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. It was the last day for their Portraits of the Royals exhibit. I’m so glad I went! In addition to fabulous portraiture, beginning with King Henry VII, the exhibit was a visual history lesson! The signage that accompanied the portraits was very informative, giving relationships to other portraits along with personal details. Some were quite juicy!

I was intrigued to learn that Queen Victoria was a HUGE fan of publishing family photographs. She often had them made into postcards for distribution and sent them to family and friends with personal notes. And I was reminded that the current royal family, the Windsor’s are not, in fact, English, nor was their name Windsor. It was changed to that after World War I because they are actually German, which at the time was not, how shall I say, fashionable.

Apparently we were not allowed to take photographs in that exhibit because I have exactly none. Nor does the museum have any photos. I checked.

However, we could take photos in other parts of the museum, so I snapped a couple of pics of Maria Martinez’ pottery because it is just so outstanding. She is, hands down, one of my favorite artists.

As a single woman during the Depression, her resources and choices were limited. She worked very hard and moved around the country a lot, but she never lost sight of her identity as an artist.

I purchased this book, Ida O’Keefe: Escaping Georgia’s Shadow, from the museum, but you can pick it up from Amazon. In full disclosure, if you purchase through that link I will earn a small commission which I will appreciate very much and that helps me continue posting about my travels.

I am not a huge fan of Art Deco or Abstract art, but I was fascinated by the evolution of Ida’s work that was clearly displayed in the exhibit. And I was impressed that she actually printed her own textbooks for her classes. Another striking comparison was between Ida’s art and Georgia’s. There were a couple of comparison examples there. One was a famous painting of Georgia’s of a seashell. In her painting that’s all there is, the shell. In Ida’s painting of the same still life, you see the shell in its surroundings, quite a charming scene.

Both Ida and Catherine were talented artists but Georgia let it be known that there was only room for one artist in the family and she was it. Sadly, Catherine gave up painting altogether, but Ida was not to be deterred. She left home and continued to practice her art for her whole life. Lacking a powerful sponsor like Alfred Stieglitz, she struggled become known and have her art promoted but she did not let that stop her either.

The next day I drove to Houston to visit the Museum of Fine Arts Houston with my sister. I’ll write a separate post about that experience.