Saturday at the Jewish Museum

I got a cold in Buffalo last week, while I was staying in the last room available in the entire hotel: an unheatably large Presidential Suite. In retrospect, I probably should have hung out in the in-room sauna or demanded wood and matches for my two fireplaces. Oh well.

But since I was feeling a bit under the weather, I really tried to take it easy on the weekend. Saturday was my day of rest (no soccer games), so what better way to rest up than to take a peaceful stroll through Central Park on my way to the Jewish Museum (for the sabbath, admission is free).

The trees are finally starting to turn. Sort of.


I passed my favorite obelisk near the Met and continued north:



The exhibit that drew me to the Jewish Museum this time was the impressionist paintings of Pissaro. I wasn't familiar with his work, and for the most part, I wasn't really taken with his portraits and subject matter; too much romanticized peasantry for my taste. But I did like his landscapes, especially this one (yes, this too is a farming scene - ploughing - but really lovely in person):

After a relatively short time with Pissaro, I turned to the William Steig exhibit, which turned out to be a lot of fun. I've thought of him largely as a New Yorker cartoonist and cover artist (and not my favorite, either), but it turns out I've been exposed to more of his oeuvre than I'd realized. For instance, I knew some of his children's books -- I've actually read them to my niece. (I think my sister-in-law was responsible for the purchase of Dr. DeSoto and Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, since they weren't part of my or my brother's childhood.) Also, it had somehow escaped my notice that Mr. Steig was behind the concept of the movie Shrek. Oddly, I'm not a big fan of the books or even Shrek -- but I loved the exhibit, which should give you a sense of how cool it was.

One room was dedicated to his books for children. I enjoyed reading the descriptions of the books, and the artwork was lovely - I really liked this one, "Battles Raged":
Another room was dedicated to his cartoons. They were arranged in an interesting way, so you could see some of the themes and backstory developing.

In the cartoon room, I really liked the interactive wall of faces. Some of the faces are slightly raised, and they turn out to be doors. You can open them and discover painted cubbyholes containing 3-D interpretations of items depicted elsewhere in Steig's work. For instance, one face opened up to reveal a miniature stone and a red pebble, from Sylvester and the Magic Pebble.
Now that I think about it, it was the three large, colorful interactive exhibits that really transformed the experience. In addition to the wall of faces, there was also a fabric wall in another room with a sort of plant or jungle scene on it. On the fabric wall, the raised objects turned out to be magnetic (e.g., a butterfly, some birds, a frog, etc.) and you could move them around and change the scene. One young mother was facing an uphill battle to keep her toddler from touching that colorful wall -- she was thrilled when I pointed out the sign inviting us to touch and move things around!

The third interactive exhibit was a reading room again decorated with bright painted foam objects from the books. There I took some time to get a sense of one or two of his other books before some of the smaller set came in to take over the comfy beanbag chair.

Finally, it was closing time, so I took a nice long relaxing journey home by subway and then settled in to watch The Two Towers.