TEXAS: HOUSTON MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, PART II (PERMANENT COLLECTION)

November 24, 2021

As mentioned in my previous post, the Texas Museum of Fine Arts is one of the largest art museums in the United States and has a permanent collection of over 70,000 pieces.  I took a photo of each one for this post.

Not really. 

I'll bet you are relieved.

Actually, I only took photos of 7,000 of my favorite pieces. Prepare yourself.

I was stunned, stunned, to see that the artist behind this painting is John Singer Sargent. It's so abstract and scenic.

Gondolas off the Doge's Palace, Venice (c. 1903-4)
by John Singer Sargent

These are the kinds of paintings that I am used to seeing by Sargent:

Young Man in Reverie (1878) by John Singer Sargent

Mrs. Joshua Montgomery Sears (1899)
by Sargent, known for his
skill at painting white.

Paintings by Sargent always stand out to me. He does such a good job of capturing the personality of his subjects.

Here are a few thousand more (not really) of my favorites, some with commentary, some without:

Flight into Egypt (1921) by Henry Ossawa Tanner, the first
 African-American artist to achieve international prominence.

A Wooded Landscape in Three Panels (c. 1905)
Made by Tiffany Studios

Detail of the Tiffany window:

Cecilia Beaux (1892) by Cynthia Sherwood,
one of the most successful women artists
of the late 19th century.

Recognition: North and South (1865) by Constant Mayer
shows the moment a Confederate soldier recognizes
that a dead Union soldier is his brother.

Gothic Ruins (1848) by Thomas Cole was mainly of
interestto me because we had visited a Thomas Cole
site in Upstate New York earlier in the year.

Portrait of Mrs. John Earnest Poyas (1818-19)
by Samuel F. B. Morse, who invented
the telegraph 20 years later.

Album Quilt (c. 1840-1855), Artist Unknown. This quilt was created around the time
Texas became a state. Note the misspelling of "Texes" in the center under the red star.

Woman in Blue (1827-1836) by a married couple:
Ruth Whittier Shute did the drawing and Samuel
Addison Shute filled in the colors. Even TWO
people couldn't make this woman attractive.

Portrait of John Paul Jones (1787-1789) by
Jean-Antoine Houdon is a replica of the original,
commissioned by JPJ as a gift for one of his
friends because, you know, everyone wants a
bust of their friend to put on their piano.

The Blanket Signal (c. 1896)
by Frederic S. Remington

One of my favorites:

Passing By (c. 1924) by E. Martin Hennings, who was part of the Taos art movement.

Moving to a new gallery, we stopped to admire a Calder mobile.

Ahab (1953) by Alexander Calder

Egyptian artifacts always make me feel a little uncomfortable as I contemplate how they came to be on display in an American museum.

Egyptian Mummy Mask, Painted Coffin, and Companion
Statues (c. 305 BC - AD 100)

I love religious art from all eras, and the Houston MFA has a great collection.

St. Peter's First Sermon in the City of
Jerusalem (c. 1785) by Benjamin West

Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist (1510)
by Giuliano Bugiardini. I would rename this Mary with a Cell Phone.

This is another of my favorites, partly because of the unusual subject matter and partly because of the detail. 

Christ in the House of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus (c. 1576-1577) 
by Jacopo and Francesco Bassano da Ponte - father and son

Madonna and Child with Saints Peter and Paul (c. 1529-48)
by Pietro degli Ingannati. Mary looks like she was pasted
into an already existing painting. I do love the frame, however.

This one wins the Ugly Baby Award.

Madonna and Child with Saint and a Donor 
(c. 1495), Artist Unknown

A close-up of the glassy-eyed, lumpy child:

This one wins the award for The Largest Newborn. He must have weighed 30 pounds at birth. And is he levitating? It is hard to tell what he is leaning on to support that posture. On the other hand, I love both exhausted Joseph and beautiful Mary.

The Adoration of the Christ Child (c. 1500) by Sandro Botticelli
(Yes, the same artist who painted Venus on the Half-Shell The Birth of Venus.)

Virgin and Child with Angels (c. 1620)
by Bartolomeo Cavarozzi

This is another of my favorites because of the unusual topic, tumultuous setting, and anachronistic clothing.

Annunciation to the Shepherds (1606) by Joachim Wtewael

Veil of Veronica (1630s) by Francisco
de Zurbarán. Even in a photo,
this painting is incredibly 3-D.

St. Christopher Carrying the Christ Child Through a Sinful World (early 16th century)
by the Circle of Hieronymus Bosch. St. Christopher, the Patron Saint of Travelers, is the
large figure wading through the water. There is a teeny-tiny Christ-child on his back.

Christ and the Samaritan Woman (c. 1712)
by Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari

St. Michael the Archangel (1660s)
by Claudio Coello

St. George Killing the Dragon (c. 1504-5)
by Albrecht Dürer

Elisha in the House of the Shunammite Woman 
(c. 1653-54) by Abraham van Dijck reminds
me of Rembrandt's painting of Prodigal Son.
The Dutch masters have such a unique style,
and Van Dijck was Rembrandt's pupil for a time.

Christ in the House of Simon the Pharisee (c. 1636)
by Simon Vouet

Two very different versions of John the Baptist:

St. John the Baptist (1614-1616)
by Jusepe de Ribera

St. John the Baptist Preaching in the
Wilderness (c.1761)
by Anton Raphael Mengs

Virgen de Guadalupe (1790)
by José de Alcibar

The Adoration of the Shepherds (first half of 17th century) by Pedro
Orrente. My favorite part: The shepherd in shorts wearing a red beret.

The Adoration of the Magi (1716)
by François Lemoyne

The Dead Christ with Angel and a Monk (c. 1586-87)
By Paolo Veronese

Note the stigmata appearing on the hands of the monk as
he contemplates the wounds in the dead flesh of Christ.

Daniel in the Lions' Den (1818) by James Northcote is the
first time I've seen Daniel depicted nude. I love the lions.

That's it for religious art. On to other genres.

Portrait of Mother and Child (c. 1795)
French School

Portrait of Mrs. Jelf Powis and 
Her Daughter (1777) 
by Joshua Reynolds

Le Silence (1842-1843) by Auguste Préault

I knew I had seen the above sculpture somewhere before, so I searched my blog for the artist's name. Sure enough, I found a photo of a wood version of the same sculpture in a post about the Dallas Museum of Art, which we visited in 2014.

This painting is by one of my Top Ten Favorite Artists:

The Elder Sister (1869) by William Bouguereau

Just look at those faces! How could you not adore this painting?

In general, I love the late 19th century French painters.

Portrait of Paul Hugot (1878)
by Gustave Caillebotte

Bottom of the Ravine (c. 1879) by Paul
Cézanne is a painting of the hills behind 
Cézanne's mother's house in Southern France.

Susan Comforting the Baby (c.1881) by Mary Cassatt is
not one of her best, but I still like it. And Cassatt is American,
not French, but she lived most of her life in France.

Girl Reading (c. 1890) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
because every art museum needs a Renoir.

Arearea II (1894) by Paul Gauguin. 
Fans and fan-shaped paintings were much in demand in the Paris art markets in the 1890s.

View of one of the galleries.

Another of my favorite artists, Amedeo Modigliani, painted this portrait of Léopold Zborowski, a Polish poet, in about 1916.  Look at the interesting layers of paint on the face.

The Woman and the Roses (1929) by Marc Chagall

The Three Judges (1925) by Georges Rouault

Sketch 160A (1912) by Vasily Kandinsky
(Not a very creative title. I would call it
Judy Under Stress on a Monday Morning.)

 I have seen Woman in a Purple Coat (1937) 
by Henri Matisse in many art books,
so it was fun to see it in real life.

The Turning Road (1906) by André Derain

Well, I whittled it down to 54 pieces. I'm telling you, it was hard to choose my favorites. This post could have been ten times as long. I would love to go back to this museum or one of its satellites. It converted me to Houston.