Thursday Sept. 3rd, Amy, Mom and I took the train to Chicago. We were headed to “JuneCon,” a night of celebration by our favorite online game, June’s Journey. The event was on Friday night, so we had time to do some stuff beforehand.
The train was an hour late leaving Springfield. I’d gotten us seats on the first floor, the Assisted section, because Mom didn’t want to have to make her way up the narrow stairway with her bad arm. Amy sussed out the situation upstairs and said that there were plenty of good seats there, so Mom did make it up without too much difficulty. But then Amy went back down and realized that it’d be more quiet in our original place, so down we went again and it was, indeed, nice and quiet.
The train had to slow way down near Chicago because the heat caused the tracks to buckle. Who knew? We finally arrived and took a cab to the fabulous Palmer House Hilton. It has one of the best lobbies I can think of.
We walked to the Berghoff restaurant and met our friend Tracy there for dinner. Such a delicious place!
I’d bought a pair of fancy but not so comfortable heels for the event and I’d been wearing them around the house at night, and I did it one more time before bed on Thursday night.
We enjoyed a quick breakfast at the cafe in the hotel lobby before heading out to the Art Institute of Chicago, which was only a five minute walk. In addition to being beautiful and historic, the Palmer House is very convenient to some great things, like the Art Institute. The lake is also close by.
The first thing we enjoyed was this collection of miniature rooms, created by Narcissa Thorne. I love it that her name was Narcissa, the same name as Draco Malfoy’s mother, Narcissa Black Malfoy! Funny. Here’s what the website says about the rooms:
Narcissa Niblack Thorne, the creator of the Thorne Rooms, herself had a vivid imagination. In the 1930s, she assembled a group of skilled artisans in Chicago to create a series of intricate rooms on the minute scale of 1:12. With these interiors, she wanted to present a visual history of interior design that was both accurate and inspiring. The result is two parts fantasy, one part history—each room a shoe box–sized stage set awaiting viewers’ characters and plots.
There were so many of these rooms and I could have spent more time just poring over all the details. Here’s a link if you want to read more about them, and it’s an interesting read.
I was excited to look at the Impressionists collection, and this is what the website says about it: The Art Institute’s holdings of late 19th-century French art are among the largest and finest in the world and feature some of the most well-known and well-loved works in the museum.
Who knew? I’m pretty sure there are more Impressionists at the NY Met, but I could be wrong.
Renoir’s Chrysanthemums, one that I love.
A dazzling painting by Monet.
I’d love to go to the town of Bordighera someday. It might have changed a little since 1884.
And more Monet Monet Monet!
The Palmers, who built and lived in the hotel just down the street, donated much of their huge Impressionist collection to the Art Institute. This is from the Art Institute website:
In 1922, the Art Institute of Chicago acquired much of the collection of Bertha Palmer and her husband, Potter Palmer. The core of their collection was their Impressionist paintings, which included works by artists such as Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, and Edgar Degas. Many of these paintings are now among the highlights of the museum’s permanent collection; when the Palmers began collecting Impressionist art in the 1890s, however, it was considered radical, even controversial. It is due to Mrs. Palmer’s forward thinking, influence, and willingness to pursue her own taste rather than follow trends that Chicago is home to one of the greatest collections of Impressionism in the world.
I mean, wow, the woman was really something! You can read more about them here, if you take the time to ever click on a link, which people don’t do nearly enough.
One of the pictures of the grand house they built later on the Gold Coast has so many breathtaking paintings hanging in their living room that it makes me feel better about covering most walls on our house with so many photos we’ve taken.
We stopped to get a selfie in front of this stunning Tiffany window, and I wish I had a good picture of that hanging in my house.
Even though we hadn’t been there that long, museum fatigue was setting in for all of us. Mom is always desperate to see some modern art and we trudged quite a distance to find the display rooms which were in a whole different building and involved quite a bit of walking. Here’s Mom in front of a Marc Chagall, and I only know that because she just told me that’s who it was.
And that was enough museum-going because we had to get back to the hotel and get ready for our big night!
Ok then,
Mrs. H.