Finally Inside the Maryhill Art Museum

Sorry to get the pictures up before the narrative.

The museum's main floor starts off the tour with a collection of royal memorabilia...


...from Queen Marie of Romania (1875–1938), a friend of Sam Hill’s.

The painting above is of Tsar Nicholas that had been damaged and later repaired.

In fact Queen Marie delivered $1.5 million in paintings and statuary for the museum's Romanian Room, along with carved furniture from Castle Bran in the Carpathian mountains of northern Romania and manuscripts of her writings in her own hand. Queen Marie also donated the cloth-of-gold gown she wore to the 1896 coronation of her cousins Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra of Russia.

It is amazing the beauty in just the first room of the museum.


Included in the collection are the queen’s coronation gown, crown, silverware, gilt furniture, jewelry and other memorabilia.


jewelry and other memorabilia.

... jewelry and other memorabilia.

The large painting in the center is Solitude by Lord Fredric Leighton. I've searched his work on the Internet in the past and love it all. My favorite of Leighton is Flaming June.


Maryhill writes the following about these Icons:

"To the Orthodox believer, these venerated objects provide a window to heaven, a continuum which connects the secular world with the heavenly realm. These Orthodox icons are revered for both their artistic and spiritual significance."



In the Icon room my favorite was this particular piece.


This is one of several old photographs of some workmen on one of Sam Hills many projects building roads,


I have a fascination for winding stairwells, so I'll call this my creative shot of the day.

Prepared to be pleasantly surprised by Théâtre de la Mode. The museum writes this about the exhibit:

"The fashions of post-World War II France are highlighted in this 1946 exhibit, which shows one-third human size mannequins wearing fashions created by the country’s finest designers. After their premiere in Paris they toured Europe then America. The last stop of the original 1946 international tour of Théâtre de la Mode was San Francisco where the mannequins remained until the early 1950s. At that time they were acquired by Maryhill Museum of Art. They went on a second world tour in the 1990s visiting Paris, New York, Baltimore, Portland and Tokyo."

There are nine different sets on rotation and three available for viewing when we were there.

On view were Jean Cocteau’s Ma Femme est une Sorcière (My Wife is a Witch), A Tribute to Renè Clair. There was also and Jean Saint-Martin’s Croquis de Paris (Paris Sketch), both originally created in 1945 and re-created in 1990 by Anne Surgers. Also on view was Scène du Rue (Street Scene) created by Anne Surgers in 1990 as a replacement for Georges Wakhevitch’s set The Port of Nowhere, 1945.

Loïe Fuller (1863 – 1928) was a pioneer of modern dance whose influence sparked a new generation of dancers in the early 1900’s. Her circle of friends included artists, politicians and royalty, and it was Loïe that convinced Sam Hill to turn his mansion into an art museum. The exhibit includes art nouveau posters like the one above, photographs, glasswork and memorabilia like ...


... this beautiful bronze piece.

The art and cultures of the indigenous peoples of North America are represented in this collection.


The exhibit features ancient petrogylphs...


...and other artifacts like this collection of weapons...


... and this one of woven baskets.


There are several alcoves with some of the best Native American objects I've ever seen.


Sharyn is our family historian and her love of cultural history is surpassed only by her ability to understand the timelines of civilization.


This section displayed some beautiful Native American dresses.





I really enjoyed the Chess Sets and while were pieces without the board...


... other sets were laid out waiting for the game to begin.


The Museum writes:

A 1957 exhibit curated by the museum’s director Clifford Dolph led to the creation of this permanent exhibit of chess sets. Today there are about 100 sets of these sculptures in miniature, representing the many countries, cultures and periods in which chess has been played.

This blog doesn't come close to showing all the sets...


... in fact, there were others I wanted to show but just ran out of room in the blog.


This painting, The Next Move, by Dede McKay is an Acrylic created in 1992 and was a gift from the artist to the Museum.


Like I said this is a small part of the collection but if you come to see them in person prepared to be amazed.


Now these are really wild chess pieces.


Just passed the Chess sets was the Auguste Rodin exhibit ...


... and it's focal piece Eve...


... and the first Rodin I ever saw as a teenager The Thinker.


This bust by Rodin is of Henri de Rochfort-Luçay gifted polemical journalist under the Second Empire and the Third Republic who distinguished himself, at first, as a supporter of the extreme left and later as a champion of the extreme right.


There are several pieces in this section...


... Je Suis Belle (I Am Beautiful) by Rodin derives its title from the poem Beauty by Charles Baudelare



Studies for Vase of Titans was a special exhibit that showed the creation and the steps it took to create the figures on the final piece.





At the entrance as were were leaving I got this shot of a Sam Hill plaque near the front door and wondered what it would have been like to know the man who created the empire that left this fascinating museum and the American Stonehenge Memorial.


I wonder if he realized the energy that would be created from his wind whipped land...


... or this great gift so well maintained and added to by staff and artists who contribute.


So as we left we stopped at the foot of the Sam Hill Memorial Bridge to buy some cherries and admire this car that looks so much like my father's old Plymouth that took me on my first date with Sharyn.

Scrabble Score -

The condender wins by 12 in a ghard fought battle with an assist on a high value play by Scrabble Queen.

Quote of the Day

"For I, to fold enchantment round their hearts,
Have pools of light where beauty flames and dies,
The placid mirrors of my luminous eyes."
~ from the poem Beauty by Charles Baudelaire

Into the Maryhill Museum Sculpture Garden

The Maryhill Museum of Art

Just west of the Stonehenge Memorial is the Maryhill Museum. It sits on a high bluff overlooking the Columbia River from Washington State. It is a grand place that originally was the home of Sam Hill.

On the East side of the grounds was the RV parking and just South of that area was something special. Below is its description in their own words. Note the concrete shapes and the sign Sharyn is reading.

In art speak it's defined as a site specific interpretative sculpture... in everyday terms it's an information kiosk.

... Since Maryhill is a museum of art, we wanted our kiosk to engage your mind and senses, as well as provide you with information. To do that we replaced the traditional kiosk structure with a sculpture and made the interpretative panels (posters) it's satellites.

Hopefully the sculpture offers you a thought provoking way to experience the striking grandeur of the surrounding landscape.

How? You have to interact with it... look through it, walk through it.When you do., you'll discover that its many openings, plazas, and canopies frame and echo the contours of the land creating a sense of place... and, in time, the experience will heighten your sense of where you are.

The interpretative panels expand that heightened sense even further by presenting more vistas and a greater understanding of what is special about this part of the world.

... this project continues and updates that tradition [Sam Hill's]. Like most of his other monuments, it is made of concrete... Sam's favorite building material.

While it is hard to explain the feeling walking through and around this sculpture I have to say it is very thought provoking and worth exploring.


The more I saw and explored the more I saw and I'm sure I could spend a day or so looking at the angles and spaces as well as the view of the Columbia flowing far below.


I especially liked the alignment of this set of grooves looking across the river into Oregon...


... and the back of Sharyn's head.



The path winds around with markers and information all along the walk and ...


... a bench to sit and view the scenery.


My favorite view of the sculpture however is standing to the north looking south and the alignment with the mound on the ridge in Oregon in the distance.


On the Northeast side of the Museum of Art is a sculpture garden (this is for Elaine my sculptor sister) filed with fantasy and set in a beautiful tree filled garden. Some were fun ...


... and others filled with bright color...


... and some were humanly shaped like Francisco Salgdo's Familia in painted steel....


... but they were exciting to see.

"Mike Suri’s dramatic iron sculpture, Brushing, was inspired by a tree, swept fully horizontal by the wind, which was thriving on the edge of a cliff. “I was immediately taken with the dynamism between these two powerful natural occurrences — the tree firmly rooted and full of life and the wind blowing hard and constant. The title comes from a term used in the wind power industry to describe the act of trees growing horizontally. When a site is found with this effect it is a sign of constant and high wind force. The bluff at Maryhill will make a perfect setting for the sculpture,” says Suri. "

This is a pretty great thought based on an ancient design - Taco Bell by Tom Herrera - it is painted steel.


The setting was perfect for the works of art like Look Mom! Uncle Nelson!...


... and this one titled Cheese Cake Delight both by David Wagner.


Lance Carleton created Flora Grande in 2004 and it is made of recycled steel. Go Green! In Art


This beauty is Malabar Bombax Matt Cartwright Tubing, pipe and strips of steel are cold formed to create an experiment inspired by interference patterns, bright colors and chaotic organic geometry to maximize visual LOUDNESS!!!



Jeff Tangen created Illuminated Grove from steel and plastic.

Jeff says "I use found and rediscovered objects to create metal sculpture and kinetic art. My kinetic pieces are replicas of real or fantasy machines and they can serve as weather vanes. My sculptural pieces highlight the symmetry and beauty of the rediscovered metal. I strive for a unity of design and execution. I want my pieces to be seen as a single unit and not a collection of found objects"

The Seattle Times described Jeff's another of his work as "...a soaringly funky and graceful sculpture out of reclaimed metal and red stop lights..."

Leon White created this really nice work titled Moon Temple from granite and steel.

Sharyn's favorite was the stainless steel sculpture Quantum Man created by Julian Voss-Andreae who studied physics at the University of Vienna. Julian describes the sculpture this way, "Quantum physics describes a moving object as consisting of waves oriented perpendicular to its direction of motion."

Queen for a Day is another of Tom Herrera's pieces. Next blog inside the Maryhill museum you can see this work was inspired by the furniture of Queen Marie of Romania.


Julie Speidel created the graceful Laksmi the Goddess of Wisdom in bronze. "Julie Speidel's work is rooted in her fascination with ancient megaliths and is encouraged by her many travels abroad to Ireland, Turkey, and China" according to Winston Wachter


This piece is Reveal Line Mel Katz. It is made of steel.

"Originally trained as a painter, Katz has made sculptures since the early 1970s. Katz is the son of a pattern maker in New York, and his sculpture reflects his father's work in the garment trade: pattern making, tracing and cutting. The exhibition, which spans a 35-year period, includes work from his Grey Series, Sawtooth Series, Pedestal Series and Reveal Series." ~ Willamette University News

Jeffrey Weitzel, The Grace Blue, forms the centerpiece of the outdoor sculpture collection and it is a magnificent piece of work in Bronze.


Since we just saw a bronze piece of a bird and other colorful pieces I wasn't sure whether this was a real peacock until it moved...


Then I followed around just for fun and had a great time snapping pictures.



Then it was time to enter the Museum of art - more to come.

Scrabble Score - Scrabble Queen won enough said. Bah Humbug

Quote of the Day ~

"The inspiration for my work is rooted in the power of travel" ~ Julie Speidel