San Diego Museum of Art
Balboa Park
February 27, 2016
We used our Macy’s Museum Month pass for a 50% discount at the Museum of Art, which we had not visited for several years.
Bob had spotted an article in the Union Tribune about a triptych of paintings on display, the Virgin of Sorrows, an altarpiece painted during or about 1564 by a Flemish artist, Pieter Claeissens the elder. We found the Madonna on display in the gallery devoted to religious art. That same gallery includes pieces by El Greco, Murillo, Sanchez Cotan, and Zurbaran, among others. Meredith lingered in that gallery while Bob moved on to other works.
We then viewed the special exhibition of works of Harry Sternberg, a 20th century artist who first worked on the East Coast then moved to Escondido. His paintings are powerful, but the most moving pieces were the simple black and white works featuring the gritty reality of steel mills in Pennsylvania and the artist’s youth in New York City. The Sternberg exhibition closes May 8, 2016.
Margaret has struggled recently with several health problems. Last week we visited, planning to take her for a stroll around the Lake Balboa park. On the way to the park she felt ill, and we ended up taking her to the hospital instead. She spent a couple of nights there, being treated for atrial fibrillation and congestive heart failure. She is back home now, this time on oxygen. We visited on Sunday and brought sandwiches in. Meredith read her several Robert Service poems, and all three of us looked through recent letters and photos that Min, Bob’s aunt, had sent to Margaret.
We wonder whether and when Margaret will recover enough strength to resume our customary outings. Or have the many decades of heavy smoking left her heart and lungs too weak to be up to that level of activity? Too soon to tell; we will just have to take things as they come.