Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago

About 10 days ago, we took the train into Chicago to see the Edvard Munch exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago. (Yes, it is Edvard, with a “v,” not a “w.”)

While it was the institute’s current big exhibition, it was thinner than some blockbusters the museum has had in the past. However, for Munch, this worked out really well.

Munch is not one of those prolific artists like Picasso, who would crank out drawings and paintings until they filled his apartment…and then he’d move.

Since there are not as many “big” paintings of Munch, the museum curated an exhibition that highlighted some of Munch’s influences, including some Impressionist-era paintings from the Art Institute’s private collection (Monet, Seurat).

Munch really was a sponge; you could see examples of him almost directly ripping off another painting, but putting his own twist on things.

Much more than just “The Scream.”

We picked a bad Friday to go, however (3/27/2009) – it was spring break, and the museum was lousy with packs of students doing just about anything other than looking at art.

Yeah, “those damn kids!” [shakes fist….].

The photography exhibit going on was “Yousuf Karsh: Regarding Heroes”. Karsh is one of the best portrait photographers ever, but his images are almost sometimes too iconic. Yes, shows the man (think Churchill or Hemingway), but rarely broke through the idealized image of the individual like Arnold Neumann or Irving Penn did.

I think one of my favorite Karsh portraits was his very un-Karsh take of cellist Pablo Casals. Instead of a giant head – an icon – filling the frame, it’s taken from the back, shows the player small in the frame…just lost in the music.

That’s nice.

That’s one of the benefits of living in/near a big city that I appreciate: Hey, that was two major exhibitions we saw in one day, same building. This is going to only happen in a handful of cities across the world, to be honest.

Even though I haven’t been to many of the Chicagoland area’s major (or minor) museums in decades – Shedd Aquarium, Adler Planetarium for just two examples – they are right there if I do suddenly wake up some morning with an itch to see some fish or stars.

It is an embarrassment of riches, and one I should take advantage of more often than I do.