Assorted Updates

Over the last month or two we have seen more than the usual number of items in the press that tie into places we have visited recently. Here is a sampling:

La Brea Tarpits History. The Los Angeles Times ran a retrospective article, A mammoth move to the tar pits, on November 1, 2015 (November 2 print edition), pulling from coverage they did in 1967 explaining the history of the outdoor mammoth sculptures in and around the large tar lake in Hancock Park. The article included several striking photos of the sculptures being transported and put in place. The famous fiberglass mammoths at the La Brea tar pits have kept watch over Wilshire Boulevard for five decades. But few who gaze at the tourist attraction know how the prehistoric “creatures” got there. It turns out the first one got a lift from a 1958 Volkswagen.

Urban Planners Give Olvera Street a Shout Out. Also in the Los Angeles Times, we saw an article reporting on Olvera Street’s grand honor, namely national recognition as a “great street,” based on architectural features, accessibility, functionality, and community involvement. Downtown’s historic Olvera Street, one of the oldest streets in Los Angeles, was named this week as one of the country’s top five “Great Streets” by the American Planning Assn. The brick pedestrian street “is a place where visitors can get a taste of Mexican culture and a sense of the history that still stands preserved in the buildings and plazas that surround the street,” the association said in its designation.

Everybody Loves Vermeer. The Vermeer painting we loved so much when we saw it at the Timken Museum in San Diego — Woman in Blue Reading a Letter — has moved on, this time to the National Gallery in Washington, DC, where it will be on display just until December 1. NPR ran this story about the exhibition.

Timken Acquires New Art. Not content to rest on its laurels after the Vermeer and Raphael special exhibitions, the Timken Museum has purchased a painting, Saint Francis in Meditation by Francisco Zurbaran. The San Diego Union Tribune reported on the acquisition in an article in its October 30, 2015 online edition (November 1 print): The Timken Museum of Art has purchased Zurbarán’s 1635 masterpiece “Saint Francis in Meditation,” the first acquisition in a decade for the 50-year-old Balboa Park institution and the second Zurbarán acquired by a San Diego museum this year.

Hammer Museum Acquires More Room to Spread Out. Just after we had been on our most recent visit to the Hammer Museum in Westwood, we saw an article in the Los Angeles Times, More space, more room for art, which appeared online October 26, 2015 (October 27 in the print edition). The Hammer Museum at UCLA is expanding its footprint in Westwood, taking over five floors of the Occidental Petroleum office tower that will give the contemporary art institution more than 30% additional exhibition and administrative space. Until recently, the Hammer had leased its space from Occidental. Officials at the Hammer and UCLA said Monday that the expansion is part of a recent real estate deal in which the university has become the Hammer’s new landlord. UCLA said it has acquired a full city block of property from Occidental that includes the office tower and the museum building, both of which had belonged to the oil company. The acquisition also includes the 634-space underground parking garage.

Skirball — Manzanar

Skirball Cultural Center
November 7, 2015
Sepulveda Pass

We took Margaret to see two special and related exhibitions: Manzanar: The War Time Photographs of Ansel Adams, and Citizen 13660: The Art of Miné Okubo. Both exhibitions run through February 21, 2016.

Skirball_Manzanar

The Manzanar exhibition, offered in association with the Japanese American National Museum, is centered on photographs taken by Ansel Adams during World War II at the Manzanar internment camp in the Owens Valley. The exhibit also features work of two other photographers, Dorothea Lange and Toyo Miyatake. We signed up for the docent led tour of the exhibit and learned a great deal about the background of all three photographers.

Lange’s work was commissioned by the government but turned out to be too stark and realistic for the authorities. Her photos were suppressed at the time, buried in government archives and only released several decades later. Adams went to the camp later and was given a better reception, in part perhaps because of his acquaintance with the camp commander. Also, his focus was more on the everyday life of the inhabitants, and less on the grim aspects of their life in the camp. Adams published a book of those photos in 1944 while the war was still going on, Born Free and Equal, and through it he criticized the government’s policy of relocating Japanese-Americans to the camps. The entire book can be seen online at the Library of Congress website. The third photographer whose work is displayed in the exhibit is Toyo Miyatake, a Japanese American who was himself incarcerated during the war. Although cameras were not allowed in the camp, he smuggled in a lens and film holder and managed to construct a camera which he used to document life inside the camp.

The exhibit also contains other artifacts from the time, including anti-Japanese propaganda, pamphlets put out by the Society of Friends protesting the relocation and internment policies, and everyday objects from the Manzanar camp, such as the camp newspaper and high school yearbook. Several videos and other displays explain the controversies that arose with the government questionnaires camp inhabitants were required to fill out, including key questions about whether they would fight for the United States and renounce loyalty to the Emperor of Japan.

We next went on to the exhibit Citizen 13660, featuring the art of Miné Okubo. She was a Japanese American artist who studied in Europe. She came home to the United States after World War II broke out and was soon caught up in the forced relocation and internment. She sketched scenes of her experience from throughout her journey: from Europe, back to the U.S. hearing the news of Pearl Harbor, then at the Tanforan transfer station in San Bruno, and then at the Topaz camp in Utah to which she and one of her brothers were sent. In 1946 she published a book, Citizen 13660, containing those sketches together with narrative explanations. Today we might call her book a graphic novel. It is an important first person witness to the entire relocation and camp experience. We bought a copy in the museum gift shop which Meredith is currently reading. She promised to pass it along to Margaret, who expressed interest in it.

We then spent a little time in the museum’s permanent collection, Vision and Values, about the Jewish experience through history and particularly in America. The area has been re-organized since we last visited it. We enjoyed the display cases on life stages and also on religious holidays.

We ate lunch at the museum restaurant, Zeidler’s. The food there is consistently excellent, and the prices are reasonable for what they serve. Margaret and Meredith each had cheese blintzes; Bob had the salmon burger. Both dishes were served with ample sides of fresh fruit.

The Skirball is just one of three museums in Los Angeles which participates in the Bank of America Museums on Us program. On the first full weekend of each month, Bank of America debit or credit card holders can get in for free. Regular adult admission is $10 for adults. Parking is free.

We skipped our usual Starbucks stop and had our coffee break at the Skirball’s snack bar, then took Margaret home and rushed back to San Diego. We wanted to get home early, to be there when our middle daughter brought us the latest addition to our household, Casey, a mellow and friendly cat whose foster owner felt he would be happier in a home where he is the only cat.

Casey_with_Meredith