"Botticelli to Barque" at the Kimbell Art Museum

BOTTICELLI TO BRAQUE
Masterpieces from the
National Galleries of Scotland

Currently on exhibit at the Kimbell Art Museum are 55 paintings from The National Galleries of Scotland.   This exhibit covers a time period of more than four hundred years.

The Travelling Toe has been fortunate enough to see this lovely exhibit twice.

The National Galleries of Scotland is made up of 3 different museums - Scottish National Gallery, Scottish National Portrait Gallery and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.  The first building was started in Edinburgh in 1850 and was opened to the public in 1859.

National Galleries of Scotland

As you enter the area where the paintings are on exhibit, the first thing you will see are beautiful large scale color pictures of the National Galleries of Scotland.  Then you enter into a center gallery, where several large portraits are displayed including a couple of distinguished Scottish Lords decked out in their finest Scottish national attire.  Inside the center square are padded benches so that one may sit and study the portraits on display and rest one's weary toes.

Going from the center gallery to the outside areas you will find a lovely variety of paintings ranging from the Renaissance era to Modern times.  

Some of the more well know artists featured in the exhibit are:

• Paul Cezanne
• John Constable
• Edgar Degas
• Anthony Van Dyck
• Thomas Gainsborough
• El Greco
• Henri Matisse
• Claude Monet
• Pablo Picasso
• Rembrandt
• Edouard Vuillard
• Johannes Vermeer

All the paintings on exhibit are a joy to see.  One painting in particular that is exciting to view is "The Virgin Adoring The Sleeping Christ Child" attributed to Botticelli at about 1485.  Coming to the Kimbell is the first time this painting has ever left Scotland in 150 years!   What an honor for the Kimbell to be able have this amazing painting as part of the exhibit.  

One painting that The Travelling Toe enjoyed seeing was a portrait by John Singer Sargent, (1892), titled "Lady Agnew of Lochnaw".  It is a portrait of an very striking woman and her eyes just draw one into her world.  Sargent is a master portraitist and this painting shows his talent to the max.  

John Singer Sargent

Lady Agnew of Lochnaw
portrait on display

The National Galleries of Scotland, in Edinburgh, is planning to triple their exhibit space devoted just to Scottish art.  The expansion project is to be completed by 2018.

But in the meantime, enjoying the exhibit at the Kimbell is way cheaper than an airplane ticket to Scotland.   Go see this exhibit before it leaves Cowtown!

Kimbell Art Museum

Kimbell Art Museum