Museums you've visited (or want to see)

[Christo]

Home of Sibelius and Mannerheim Museum in Finland - both great.

Agreed. 

[XB-70 Valkyrie]

If you are ever in SoCal for any reason, I feel deeply sorry for you. However, all is not lost. Amid the horror of this sprawling, hot, ugly(!), horribly polluted, overcrowded, overpriced, boring, dangerous, urban hellscape with the worst traffic in North America, an epic homeless problem, riots, fires, mudslides, etc., there is a little oasis of culture and beauty--Pasadena!

One of my favorite museums--which we visit at least a couple times a year--is the Norton Simon. It is a relatively small museum, and can be seen easily in one day. However, they have a very nice collection of Impressionists, Dutch Masters, and some earlier works. The collection includes a few wonderful Van Goghs, as well as Monet, Degas, Rembrandt, Rafael, Kandinsky, Picasso, Braque, Zurbaran, etc. They also have a famous collection of Asian art from ancient to modern times--including a number of interesting sculptures. The outdoor sculpture garden has examples from Moore, Brancusi, et al.

http://www.nortonsimon.org

There is also this: http://www.huntington.org

and this: http://www.pacificasiamuseum.org

and this: http://www.thebunnymuseum.com

[Artem]

I have just returned from the business trip to New York and with little time that I had I still had managed to visit Museum of Modern Art that was running a very interesting exhibition of DADA art and also the Metropolitan, mostly to view the American abstract expressionists and Van Gogh. Maybe I should post some photos.

Whenever I visit Moscow I always go to Pushkin's Museum, specifically the part of the museum with the European and American art. Their collection is not very big, but the presented pieces are all amazing, especially impressionists.

Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow is great for Russian art, but it is very big and I rarely want to go there as opposed to the Pushkin's.

I'd love to visit more museums in the US, especially those devoted to abstract expressionists, like the Clyfford Still museum.

[Spineur]

I was fortunate to be invited for the evening innauguration of the new exhibit "Hodler, Monet, Munch" at the Marmottan-Monet museum in Paris.
Hodler painted mostly mountains, and this painter did not "knock my socks off".
The Monet part comes mostly from the vast museum collection, which is probably the best woldwide.
The most interesting part of the exhibit was Munch, with paintings which I had never seen before.  Stylistically, I found the paintings with more structure than his most famous works.  I spent an inspiring time there....
http://www.marmottan.fr/fr/exposition_%C3%A0_venir-musee-2590

[Turner]

I´ve travelled Europe extensively for probably around 3.5 years totally of my life, at times writing a long series of articles about local cultural history for a very small magazine here, and I tend to visit the usual bunch of "must-see" sights + lesser known, unusual attractions, when visiting a place.

On top of my head, as for composer´s and musician´s museums, I´ve visited those of

- Elgar, near Worcester
- Szymanowski, in Zakopane
- Bartok, in Budapest
- Liszt, in Budapest
- Liszt, in Weimar
- Smetana, in Prague
- Smetana in Litomysl
- Dvorak, in Prague
- Jezek, in Prague
- Valen, in Valevåg
- Grieg, in Bergen
- Sæverud, Bergen (only from the outside)
- Ole Bull, Lysøen near Bergen
- Lyudkevich, Lviv, Ukraine
- Krushelnytska, Lviv
- Kosenko, Kiev, Ukraine
- Ravel, Montfort, near Paris
- Chopin, Mallorca
- Ciurlionis, Kaunas, Lithuania
- de Falla, Granada
- Martinu I-II, Policka


Those of Ole Bull, Grieg, Ravel and Chopin are very charming environments in particular, Ole Bull´s is that of a fairy tale come true.

There are however dozens of other, similar museums. Janacek´s in Brno is one of those I´d like to see soon.
I once played with the thought of publishing a book on that subject, but it´s already been done, though it doesn´t contain an actually complete list of such museums.

[Christo]

I´ve travelled Europe extensively for probably around 3.5 years totally of my life, at times writing a long series of articles about local cultural history for a very small magazine here, and I tend to visit the usual bunch of "must-see" sights + lesser known, unusual attractions, when visiting a place.
On top of my head, as for composer´s and musician´s museums, I´ve visited those of

Absolutely great list, no doubt the outcome of impressive cross-European journeys. It helps me to realize, suddenly, that over the years I myself also saw, out of your list:

- Smetana, in Prague
- Dvorak, in Prague
- Lyudkevich, Lviv, Ukraine  [!]
- Ciurlionis, Kaunas, Lithuania
- de Falla, Granada
- Janacek, Brno ("There are however dozens of other, similar museums. Janacek´s in Brno is one of those I´d like to see soon.")

And some more, like:
- Tchaikovsky, in Votkinsk (Udmurtia, Volga region)
- Rimsky-Korsakov, in Saint Petersburg
- Ciurlionis, in Vilnius
- Ciurlionis, in Druskininkai
- Enescu, in Bucharest
- Puccini, in Lucca
- Hummel, in Bratislava
- Röntgen, in Bilthoven

[Turner]

Absolutely great list, no doubt the outcome of impressive cross-European journeys. It helps me to realize, suddenly, that over the years I myself also saw, out of your list:

- Smetana, in Prague
- Dvorak, in Prague
- Lyudkevich, Lviv, Ukraine  [!]
- Ciurlionis, Kaunas, Lithuania
- de Falla, Granada
- Janacek, Brno ("There are however dozens of other, similar museums. Janacek´s in Brno is one of those I´d like to see soon.")

And some more, like:
- Tchaikovsky, in Votkinsk (Udmurtia, Volga region)
- Rimsky-Korsakov, in Saint Petersburg
- Ciurlionis, in Vilnius
- Ciurlionis, in Druskininkai
- Enescu, in Bucharest
- Puccini, in Lucca
- Hummel, in Bratislava
- Röntgen, in Bilthoven

Interesting, some of those I haven´t heard of (Hummel, Röntgen).

Concerning the Lyudkevich museum in Lviv - was it a visit accompanied by the very old lady there, his former assistant, as fas as I remember? For me, it was roughly 5 years ago, at first she kept the doors closed and it was certainly not so easy to get into that place, until staff of the Krushelnytska museum facilitated it. I then brought a gift to that lady, and a staff member of the other museum would translate her guided tour.

[Florestan]

- Enescu, in Bucharest

That´s great, an architectural and interior design jewel, but you should know that it´s somehow artificial as an "Enescu memorial museum" because he actually dwelled there very little, only in 1945-46 and not in the main building (first photo below) but in a smaller one behind it (second photo below). The whole complex of building was actually the property of his wife who in her turn inherited it from his former husband, son of one of Romania´s wealthiest men of the time.



There are three more Enescu museums in Romania and they are places where he actually lived longer and cherished more.

First, the place where it all began, the house in Liveni, Botoșani County, where he was born in 1881 and where he spent his childhood and teenage.



Second, the house in Dorohoi, Botoșani County where his parents lived from 1910 on and where he came often for rest and composition.



Third, Vila Luminiş (the Glade Villa) in Sinaia, Prahova County, built in 1923-26 after his own design where he spent a great many part of his mature creative years.



The most accessible from Bucharest (and probably the most interesting, as it has Enescu´s mark all over the place and everything, from the architecture to the interior design and decoration, as well as the exhibition items, bear the mark of his personality and taste) is the third, some two-hour drive northwards.

[Christo]

Concerning the Lyudkevich museum in Lviv - was it a visit accompanied by the very old lady there, his former assistant, as fas as I remember? For me, it was roughly 5 years ago, at first she kept the doors closed and it was certainly not so easy to get into that place, until staff of the Krushelnytska museum facilitated it. I then brought a gift to that lady, and a staff member of the other museum would translate her guided tour.

I was let in by the (then a little less) 'very old lady' back in the Summer of 2000, during my only visit ever to Lviv. I cannot remember in what language we conversed, I guess it must have been a little German. I confess I mistook her for his widow (probably caused by the great 'extra-long-living-widow-of-the-artist' tradition; about every respected British composer except Britten produced one ) and remember the house as a real 'time capsule', with everything as he had left it. A memory I'd almost forgotten until your post, because I don't think I ever heard about this composer anymore.

That´s great, an architectural and interior design jewel, but you should know that it´s somehow artificial as an "Enescu memorial museum" because he actually dwelled there very little, only in 1945-46 and not in the main building (first photo below) but in a smaller one behind it (second photo below). The whole complex of building was actually the property of his wife who in her turn inherited it from his former husband, son of one of Romania´s wealthiest men of the time.
There are three more Enescu museums in Romania and they are places where he actually lived longer and cherished more.

Great post, Andrei; love to see them!  

[Wanderer]

Museums I've visited include:

Paris

Le Louvre
Musée d'Orsay
Musée de l'Orangerie
Musée national d'art moderne (Centre Pompidou)
Musée Marmottan Monet
Musée Jacquemart-André
Musée Gustave Moreau
Musée Rodin
Musée du quai Branly
Musée des beaux-arts de la ville de Paris (Petit Palais)
Musée de l'Armée - Tombeau de Napoléon et Église du Dôme
Cité des sciences et de l'industrie

London

British Museum
National Gallery
Tate Modern
Tate Britain
Natural History Museum
Science Museum

New York

Metropolitan Museum
MoMA
Brooklyn Museum
Guggenheim Museum
Museum of Natural History

Vienna

Kunsthistorisches Museum
Albertina
Leopold Museum
MuMOK (Museum moderner Kunst)
Belvedere
MAK (Museum für angewandte Kunst)
Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste
Kunstforum Wien
Naturhistorisches Museum
Haus der Musik
Mozarthaus
Kaiserliche Schatzkammer
Neue Burg Museums: Ephesos Museum, Sammlung alter Musikinstrumente (Collection of Old Musical Instruments), Hofjagd- und Rüstkammer (Arms and Armour Museum)

Sofia

National Historical Museum
National Archaeological Museum
Earth and People National Mineralogical Museum
National Art Gallery

Museums I'd like to visit: the Hermitage & Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, the Prado, Reina Sofía & Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, the Vatican Museums, the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, several museums in Berlin, Dresden, Cologne, Hamburg, Leipzig, Prague & Copenhagen, the Galleria Borghese in Rome, the Uffizi & Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence, the Alte & Neue Pinakotheks in Munich, the Scottish National Galleries in Edinburgh, the Picasso & Miró museums in Barcelona, the Nasjonalmuseet in Oslo, the Rijksmuseum, van Gogh Museum & Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the National Gallery in Washington, DC, the Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Neue Galerie, Frick Collection, Whitney Museum & the Cloisters in New York, the Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington, New Zealand, the Museo del Oro in Bogotá... and the list goes on.


Art lovers visiting Athens should strive to visit the following quintet:

Εθνικό Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο (National Archaeological Museum)
Μουσείο Ακροπόλεως (Acropolis Museum)
Βυζαντινό και Χριστιανικό Μουσείο (Byzantine & Christian Museum)
Μουσείο Μπενάκη (Benaki Museum)
Μουσείο Κυκλαδικής Τέχνης (Museum of Cycladic Art)

Among Athenian museums, other highlights include the Numismatic Museum (housed in the mansion of Heinrich Schliemann, excavator of Troy), the Museum of the City of Athens and the National Historical Museum (housed in the old parliament building). The National Gallery (Εθνική Πινακοθήκη) is currently closed for a complete refurbishment and enlargement of its main building (a small part of the collection is exhibited at an embarrassingly inconvenient art space outside the city centre) and it's scheduled for reopening in 2019.

Other outstanding Greek museums: the Archaeological Museum of Olympia (Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο Ολυμπίας), the Delphi Archaeological Μuseum (Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο Δελφών), the Heraklion Archaeological Museum in Crete (Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο Ηρακλείου) and the Museum of the Royal Tombs of Aigai (Μουσείο Βασιλικών Τάφων των Αιγών).

[Wanderer]

Some consider the Met to be the greatest single museum in the Western Hemisphere, and while comparisons may be odorous, I still feel after 50 years of visiting the place that I haven't exhausted it - for in addition to the permanent collection there are dozens of special exhibitions small and large each year. It's generally said that you can't see the whole place in one visit, which is why I recently told a first-time visitor here that I would give him an 8-hour tour and do just that. We managed to see about 90% of what I had planned (partly because some galleries were closed), and if any GMGer wants to visit New York and repeat the experience, I make a standing offer.

Challenge accepted! I'd love to return to this exquisite, gargantuan establishment (with the tiniest/most intimate of Byzantine sections).

On my visit to NY in 2010 I toured the Met extensively (including, I remember, a quite imposing installation on the roof) and managed to see everything, except the Egyptian section. It took the better part of the day, of course, and by the time I realized the omission I was too tired to care.

The Whitney Museum, Neue Galerie, Frick Collection and the Cloisters were also on my visiting plans, but we run out of sightseeing time and by the end of the week we were frankly quite museumed out (the Met's fault mostly). I remember we passed outside the (now former) Whitney building and I only had the slightest inclination to get in. I immensely enjoyed the Rothkos, Pollocks et al. at the MoMA (huge crowds), the Guggenheim was excellent and the Brooklyn Museum was a particular, unexpected favourite. I'd put it on the plans as a quirky outsider: we were staying nearby at Park Slope and I knew it had a well-known Bierstadt, whom I like very much. I saw the Bierstadt all right (as well as this!) and it turned out that the whole museum, including its extensive modern collection, is brilliant. Very few visitors, it felt like a private tour.

[Wanderer]

I was fortunate to be invited for the evening innauguration of the new exhibit "Hodler, Monet, Munch" at the Marmottan-Monet museum in Paris.
Hodler painted mostly mountains, and this painter did not "knock my socks off".
The Monet part comes mostly from the vast museum collection, which is probably the best woldwide.
The most interesting part of the exhibit was Munch, with paintings which I had never seen before.  Stylistically, I found the paintings with more structure than his most famous works.  I spent an inspiring time there....
http://www.marmottan.fr/fr/exposition_%C3%A0_venir-musee-2590

Thanks for the review! I visited le musée when L'art et l'enfant exhibition was running earlier in the year, which (exhibition) I found very interesting. I did manage to miss the museum's most famous painting, Monet's "Impression, soleil levant". It certainly wasn't in the basement with the other Monets when I visited. Had it been taken down for restoration? Was it on loan to another exhibition? Do they even loan their most famous painting? I'm thinking the only way I may have missed it is if it was (hiding?) in one of the ground floor rooms, which I may have wandered a little more carelessly - but then I did the rounds of both the ground floor and the basement looking for it. A mystery. Apart from this mishap (an incentive to return, if anything else) I loved the museum, especially the - a prime reason for visiting -  superb Morisot collection. Her portrait of Manet on the Isle of Wight is one of my favourite paintings ever.

Their next exhibit on Pissarro sounds positively thrilling. I may be able to attend that, fingers crossed.

[Wanderer]

That´s great, an architectural and interior design jewel, but you should know that it´s somehow artificial as an "Enescu memorial museum" because he actually dwelled there very little, only in 1945-46 and not in the main building (first photo below) but in a smaller one behind it (second photo below). The whole complex of building was actually the property of his wife who in her turn inherited it from his former husband, son of one of Romania´s wealthiest men of the time.


There are three more Enescu museums in Romania and they are places where he actually lived longer and cherished more.

First, the place where it all began, the house in Liveni, Botoșani County, where he was born in 1881 and where he spent his childhood and teenage.
Second, the house in Dorohoi, Botoșani County where his parents lived from 1910 on and where he came often for rest and composition.
Third, Vila Luminiş (the Glade Villa) in Sinaia, Prahova County, built in 1923-26 after his own design where he spent a great many part of his mature creative years.

The most accessible from Bucharest (and probably the most interesting, as it has Enescu´s mark all over the place and everything, from the architecture to the interior design and decoration, as well as the exhibition items, bear the mark of his personality and taste) is the third, some two-hour drive northwards.

Thanks for the write-up, Andrei! Wishlisted, all.

[Spineur]

I did manage to miss the museum's most famous painting, Monet's "Impression, soleil levant". It certainly wasn't in the basement with the other Monets when I visited. Had it been taken down for restoration? Was it on loan to another exhibition? Do they even loan their most famous painting? I'm thinking the only way I may have missed it is if it was (hiding?) in one of the ground floor rooms, which I may have wandered a little more careless...
...
Apart from this mishap (an incentive to return, if anything else) I loved the museum, especially the - a prime reason for visiting -  superb Morisot collection. Her portrait of Manet on the Isle of Wight is one of my favourite paintings .

They have been doing quite a bit of remodelling of the rooms (basement and second floor).  I didnt recall seing the Berthe Morisot collection (which is now on the 2nd floor) at my previous visit.  Very nice indeed.  The basement has been changed some.  I dont know if it is because if the exhibit, but the serie on the japanese bridge with its very warm colors wasnt displayed this time.  In this serie the shift towards reds was because Monet had a glocaume at the end of his life and this led him to add much more colors.  One of museum ward taught me a new way to look at the waterlilies serie.  By looking at grazing incidence, the fog disappears.  A real nice impression to see a painting change its aspect as you move around.

[Parsifal]

Museums I especially want to see? The Hermitage in St. Petersburg. The Getty in Los Angeles. The Gulbekian in Lisbon. The Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain.

If you travel to Russia, I think the Moscow museums will be at least as interesting as St. Petersburg's Hermitage, which has an enormous collection but which is more Pan-European than uniquely Russian.

In Moscow the Tretyakov Gallery contains a much smaller but very interesting collection with a lot of uniquely Russian works. The Kremlin Armoury has a large collection of artifacts associated with the old Czars. And of course the Kremlin features St Basil's, which is even more bizarre inside than out, and the old churches where the Czars worshipped back to the middle ages. While you're in Red Square you can drop in and visit Lenin, who still reposes in his tomb. It's right across from the Ritziest shopping mall you've ever seen, built by Stalin, no less.

[Christo]

If you travel to Russia, I think the Moscow museums will be at least as interesting as St. Petersburg's Hermitage, which has an enormous collection but which is more Pan-European than uniquely Russian.

For the same reason, the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg with Russian painters like the stunning Ilya Repin, is preferable over the Hermitage with it's huge collection of 'European' art not unlike that of the Louvre, Prado, etc.

[Wanderer]

They have been doing quite a bit of remodelling of the rooms (basement and second floor)...

...and it shows. The second floor rooms, particularly the ones where the Berthe Morisot and enluminures collections are exhibited, looked very spiffy. The Monet hall in the basement also looked recently renovated. It was obvious that some paintings were missing from their usual spaces, but, thankfully, the Pont japonais series was there.

Another superb Monet from the Pont japonais series (impressive dark reds, considerably darker hues than most of the others I've seen - from the Larock-Granoff collection) was a part of "L'atelier en plain air - Les impressionistes en Normandie" exhibition at the Jacquemart-André.

One of museum ward taught me a new way to look at the waterlilies serie.  By looking at grazing incidence, the fog disappears.  A real nice impression to see a painting change its aspect as you move around.

Thanks for that. I always observe paintings from different angles anyway (especially the ones that are as much sculptures of paint as they are representations of images) and if I understood what you mean by grazing incidence (looking almost edge-on?), I'll try it next time. Some of the waterlilies indeed look foggy and their aspect changes when you move around. God knows I've observed more than my share of paintings edge-on because of bad lighting/glare (not applicable here, but you know what I mean).

[Wanderer]

- The Musée Rodin, Paris. Ahh, Rodin. I went to the Louvre on a late night and even got to see Mona Lisa without the crowds; I went to Orsay and Pompidou; but the Musée Rodin is going to be my top Parisian pick, both for the great sculptures and the beautiful setting.

It's a very beautiful museum and the collections are splendid (including some exquisite works by Camille Claudel). Some non-sculpture favourites of mine (which seemed to get no attention): van Gogh's Portrait du Père Tanguy and a Munch that depicts le Penseur!

[zamyrabyrd]

Egyptian Museum in Cairo - the sense of age, of time, almost overwhelming.

It was impressive (went there about 15 years ago) before the looting in 2011.
The paraphernalia of the Pharaohs' tombs, seemed like a lot of furniture in storage.
Fortunately, a lot of the displays were reproductions as many of the originals were in the basement.
A far worse fate descended on the Baghdad Museum in 2003 by looting mobs.
Somehow ancient artifacts better protected in Western museums is more of a consolation, despite claims of "stealing".

[mc ukrneal]

If you travel to Russia, I think the Moscow museums will be at least as interesting as St. Petersburg's Hermitage, which has an enormous collection but which is more Pan-European than uniquely Russian.

In Moscow the Tretyakov Gallery contains a much smaller but very interesting collection with a lot of uniquely Russian works. The Kremlin Armoury has a large collection of artifacts associated with the old Czars. And of course the Kremlin features St Basil's, which is even more bizarre inside than out, and the old churches where the Czars worshipped back to the middle ages. While you're in Red Square you can drop in and visit Lenin, who still reposes in his tomb. It's right across from the Ritziest shopping mall you've ever seen, built by Stalin, no less.

If one only gets to St. Petersburg, there is of course the Russian Museum, which houses much Russian art. It is especially good if you like paintings of ships and water.