After breakfast at Edgar’s Cafe in my previous Upper West Side neighborhood, Mom, Dad and I walked through Central Park to the Met for the exhibit Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde. Great works by those two artists, among others by Gauguin, van Gogh and Redon. Because it’s a show focusing on Vollard, a dealer, the placards burst with anecdotes about money changing hands and implied how to become a successful art dealer:
- Befriend the artist when he and his art are unpopular and buy his paintings cheaply.
- Offload the paintings when the art/artist becomes popular.
- Profit!
It was oddly refreshing to have so much of the exhibit concern the intersection of raw talent and raw commerce instead of airy ruminations on artistic method and inspiration. Y’all know the story of van Gogh cutting off his own ear. Well, van Gogh thanked his doctor for that incident with a painting, Portrait of Doctor Felix Rey, one of the works in the exhibit. Rey’s parents hated the thing and used it to patch a hole in their chicken coop. Vollard saw it differently. And now, well, it’s worth millions and hanging in a world-renowned museum.
We checked out Grand Central Terminal, then walked to the Empire State Building. The lines there were aggravating Dad and for good reason: a line to go through security, a line to get tickets, a line to get on one set of elevators, a line to board another set of elevators, a line to take the elevators back down, etc., all the while loud men attempt to sell you package tour deals and audio commentaries. (We could’ve gone to the Top of the Rock, with its newness, better organized lines and timed ticket system, but I heard the voice of Marge Simpson: “It’s wall-to-wall landmarks! The Williamsburg bridge! Fourth Avenue! Governors Island!”) At some point, we upgraded to express passes, which at least allowed us to skip the elevator-related lines. Haze limited the views from the 86th floor observatory to a half-mile, but we could still see Queens, New Jersey and most of Downtown. I pointed out landmark buildings, tried to pinpoint the non-landmark one in which I work and attempted to call Andrew and Jess on Dad’s cellphone just to say, “We’re calling from the top of the Empire State Building!”
Back at street level, we shouldered our way though the wedding party getting its photo taken in the lobby then walked over to Macy’s to check out the wooden escalators. On the subway uptown to dinner at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, Dad had a brief moment resting his eyes that proved the only way to capture him in the wild without having him jerk away from my camera in annoyance.
After dinner we purchased cabernet sauvignon and Jameson 12-year to drink back at the apartment where we reviewed photos from our most recent European jaunts: my trip with Dana to Rome and Mom and Dad’s trip to Ireland.