Today, Bob and I got our art fix by visiting Denver’s Golden Triangle Creative District. This district is located just south of downtown and contains four art museums, a women’s history museum, a state history center, the main public library, a counterterrorism education learning lab, and opens into the Civic Center Park which lies between the very attractive City and County Building and the state capitol.
The museum we had tickets for was the Kirkland Museum of Fine and Decorative Art. This is a great small museum which has three areas of focus — 1) international decorative art from a range of periods (Art Deco, modern, postmodern, Bauhaus, arts and crafts), 2) Colorado and regional art, and 3) Vance Kirkland, the artist for whom the museum was named. Everything is displayed in a salon style, as if you are getting to peruse various individual’s homes. We highly recommend a visit.
On the far right side is Kirkland’s original studio
that was moved to this new location.
Bob and I loved so many of the pieces in the museum, and I took way too many photos. But I’ve just picked a few that were especially fun or interesting.
Loved the crossed legs!
Vance Kirkland (1900-1981) was an artist but also the founding director and professor of art at the Denver School of Art. He created about 1,200 paintings in his lifetime, spanning 5 Art periods — Designed Realism, Surrealism, Hard Edge Abstraction, Abstract Expressionism, and The Dot Paintings. Two examples of his work are below.
He would lie on the straps above his canvas to create his larger paintings.
Finally, one of the draws was the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit of some of his interior pieces from his buildings. They also showed a clip of his interview with Mike Wallace (smoking throughout), and we got to sit in Wright-designed chairs while we watched.
Peckish Travels 