Gems of Museums – May/June 2000

In the course of fairly extensive travels by sea (on my 31-foot ketch), air, and land, I’ve had the good fortune to visit a number of art locations—be it museums or archeological sites—and I have compiled a mental list of what I call “Gems of Museums.”

These are not the major, massive, monumental, multi-faceted, mega-museum behemoths of world renown, such as the British Museum, the Louvre, The Prado, Uffizi, Vatican Museum, the Met, the Cairo Museum, etc., where a mindnumbing encyclopedic array of masterpieces exhilarate and then exhaust one with the sheer volume of sensory overload that eventually sets in. True, these are great places to study selectively given art periods, artists or schools, but they demand time and often many revisits.

The Gems of Museums that I love to discover are those that may be small and not as well known, but have on display an exquisite, uncluttered collection of the finest representative works of the region or artistic epoch. Furthermore, the works are tastefully presented and informatively ordered in a building or setting that is in itself a work of art that complements the collection it houses.

Perhaps the best contrast of the massive and the Gem that comes to mind is in Egypt. On arrival in Cairo for a two week visit we spent the first day being overwhelmed by the sheer mass of Egyptology in the incredible Cairo Museum. When we eventually reached Luxor a week later, the process of creating some order out of the chaos of dynasties and their artistic output was vastly enhanced by a visit to that Gem: The Luxor Museum. The pleasing building housed a beautifully selected array of the finest works of the various periods in a lovely setting where one could appreciate in uncluttered fashion the exquisite workmanship of their masterpieces. By the time we returned to Cairo at the end of our visit the different dynasties were beginning to fall into place for us, thanks to our having visited a number of sites, and especially the Luxor Museum.

My mental compendium of other such Gems include the lovely museum at Paestum in southern Italy, the museum at Selchuk near the ruins of Ephesus in Turkey, the Gulbenkian in Lisbon, and others.

One doesn’t have to go that far afield to find gems and/or contrasts. On a recent trip back to my old L.A. stomping  grounds, I went through the hoops of getting in to visit the new Getty Museum, perched in impressive fashion in the Santa Monica Mountains overlooking the L.A. Basin. The buildings and the setting are really impressive, far more so, in fact, than the collection housed therein. The use of the space seemed unnecessarily wasteful, and navigating the galleries was so distracting that I didn’t really enjoy the visit that much. (Parenthetically, another instance of the building outshining its contents is, of course, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim in New York.)

I next went from L.A. to visit friends in Santa Barbara. We dropped in on the Gem of a Museum there. A modest but tasteful collection including good impressionists greeted us in a handsome period building. That’s the one I remember with clarity and delight, while my experiences at the Getty is in shades of gray, fading fast.

Another favorite Gem is the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.—a preference undoubtedly influenced by the emphasis on sculpture of a period that I particularly fancy. Also, in D.C. the Phillips Gallery meets the criteria.

There are surely many other Gems of Museums that are favorites of our members in their travels. I would love to have feedback from readers about their Gems. Always nice to consider adding a side trip to such an attraction when mapping out a trip.

Let’s hear from you on the ones that have delighted you.