Richard’s Notes

Pasadena, California. Don’t tell too many people but the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena has one of the finest collections of art on earth and absolutely the finest collection in the Los Angeles area. The Getty Center may be more interesting architecturally but this is the place to see art. It’s beautifully curated, the light and spaces are superb, and it’s just enough to make it a worthwhile destination but not so much you feel like you need a nap afterwards (depends on your age).

My 91 year old mother has a warm place in her heart for any of Edgar Degas’ dancers and this bronze is one of his most famous. Behind her is a room full of the finest Degas bronze dancers, paintings and other 19th century work. Behind me as I take this is a wing of Picasso, Braque, Klee, Kandinsky and more, and not just any paintings, some of the finest you’ve been looking at in art books for years. They’re all here in the permanent collection of this humble but spectacular museum.

The Norton Simon has a special photography exhibition going on now The Collectible Moment: Photographs in the Norton Simon Museum which is a small portion of the permanent photography collection of this outstanding museum. This exhibit has Adams, Cunningham, both Westons, Arbus and all the photographers we all admire in books.

Here my mother is looking straight ahead at a famous Diane Arbus while I take her picture with another famous Arbus behind her. Mind blowing.

Norton Simon and whoever has helped him assemble this collection have assembled one of the greatest collections of photography in the world. And, it is rarely shown. This show will be up through March 12 and if you can get to it you will not be sorry.