"Adele Bloch-Bauer I", 1907, by Gustav Klimt (Neue Galerie)
It’s the perfect post-holiday treat for yourself: an art-filled weekend escape to Manhattan that gives you plenty of time to take in several of the most intriguing exhibits on view in three cultural powerhouses—and a night on the town to enjoy as you like.
Art historian Ursula Rehn Wolfman leads the visit, which highlights the art of three influential and distinctive 20th-century European artists. A special feature of the excursion is a private visit to the renowned Neue Galley New York—before opening hours—to view Klimt and the Women of Vienna’s Golden Age, 1900–1918, an exhibition that has drawn around-the-block lines.
The Museum of Modern Art’s retrospective of the works of Francis Picaba is the first major American exhibition to encompass the full range of the French artist’s audacious, provocative, and profoundly influential career. In more than 200 works in multiple mediums, the exhibition portrays an artist who vigorously avoided any one singular style or medium, and whose work encompassed painting, performance, poetry, publishing, and film. Though he is best known as one of the leaders of the Dada movement, his career ranged widely—and wildly—from impressionism to radical abstraction, from Dadaist provocation to pseudo-classicism and photo-based realism.
Klimt and the Women of Vienna’s Golden Age, 1900–1918 at the Neue Gallery New York examines the artist’s sensual portraits of women as the embodiment of fin-de-siècle Vienna. The exhibition includes approximately 12 paintings, 40 drawings, 40 works of decorative art, and vintage photographs of Klimt, drawn from public and private collections worldwide. Central to the exhibition is the side-by-side display of Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907) and Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II (1912). The collection of major works cover the gamut of Klimt’s portrait style, from his early ethereal works influenced by symbolism and the pre-Raphaelite movement, to his so-called "golden style," as well as his almost-fauvist depictions of his female subjects.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Max Beckmann in New York focuses on the final years of the German artist whose thriving career in his native country was cut short by the rise of Nazism. He first came to America after WWII, and moved to New York City in 1949, a place he described as “a prewar Berlin multiplied a hundredfold.” The city energized his teaching and his art, resulting in several powerful works. He died in late 1950, suffering a fatal heart attack on his way to see one of his self-portraits included in an exhibit at the Met. The poignant circumstance of his death served as the inspiration for the exhibition.
The tour’s hotel can also be considered a work of art: the historic Roosevelt Hotel, opened in 1924, known as the “Grande Dame of Madison Avenue.” A restoration has brought back its Jazz-Age glamour, and the Roosevelt’s midtown location makes it an ideal base for your Manhattan weekend. Sunday evening is yours to fill, and an early three-course supper is included before you set off on Monday.
World Art History Certificate elective: Earn 1/2 credit
General Details
- Cost includes includes Sunday boxed lunch en route and Monday breakfast and supper.
- Tour departs by bus from the Mayflower Hotel, Connecticut Ave. and DeSales St., NW, with a pickup at the DoubleTree Hilton, 15101 Sweitzer Lane, Laurel, Maryland, at about 9:10 a.m.
- Single-room supplement $105 (factored into the Single Room Member and Single Room Non-Member pricing).
- Singles registering at the double-room rate are paired (on a nonsmoking basis) if possible, but must pay the single-room supplement otherwise.
- Detailed information is mailed to registrants about four weeks prior to departure.
- Registrants may want to consider purchasing trip insurance.
