Road Trip : 10 Cities in 14 Days: Day 7

Day 7: Dallas

Solely for the wonderful MEADOWS MUSEUM of Art

"The Prado on the Prairie"

When I was working the final stages of my book Woman with a Fan: On Maria Blanchard, I had to contact museums for permission to use art. The absolute most professional, kindest, and helpful of the four I reached was the Meadows Museum of Art in Dallas, Texas, at Southern Methodist University. 

Entry to the Meadows Museum by Michael Barera

I always hoped to visit The Meadows, not only to see the Blanchard, Seated Woman (Femme Assise), but the whole collection. Because The Meadows "is one of the largest collections of Spanish art outside of Spain,"  often called "The Prado on the Prairie." 

The only art course I ever had was the art of Spain, but it was IN Spain with a Spaniard prof (Sr. Peñalosa, who took us to the Prado), so the Meadows would be the one art museum where I would recognize a lot. And a lot that I have always loved. But it was so far I thought I'd never get there.  But then, with our spring planning, here it was an hour from a stop on our road trip.

FIrst, We'd have to make the drive to Dallas. To hear locals tell us, it would KILL us, it was terrible, they never went, and the train or bus was worse. In fact, our ride was slow-going that morning, but I have to say, have Texans  never driven in Boston? Atlanta? We survived the drive and landed in the cool lobby of the Meadows and  took awhile to view the collection for ourselves. Room after room of Goya, El Greco, Velazquez, Picasso, and their cohorts, all spectacularly presented. 

While we were there, we also saw the special exhibit, The Sense of Beauty: Six Centuries of Painting from Museo de Arte de Ponce, with several Pre-Raphaelite paintings, opening with Flaming June, huge, gorgeous, and one of Paul's favorites by one of his favorite group of artists:

Then we looked for some of the staff in the museum. Many at The Meadows have been gracious and helpful to me, starting with Director of Collections &Exhibitions Anne Lenhart, my first contact, who prepared the legal paperwork for "Seated Woman" to appear in Woman with a Fan. Then, though I have never met her, Maria Lahiri, has narrated a Meadows' "Tiny Tour" of the Blanchard painting in a brief video here.  Created during Covid, all the videos were a way of sharing the collection during lockdown, and for me, Maria's  video explains the painting in ways I needed because I am not a big fan of cubism. Before our visit, I contacted the museum to make sure the painting would be on display (we learned about that when we drove to Connecticut to see a Georgia O'Keefe-- which was off in another state!)  and the Blanchard wasn't on display. Oh noooooo. But Curatorial Assistant Olivia Turner contacted me and offered to take me back to storage to see it. Once there, she, too, pointed out things that I never saw in the painting. The colors of the painting are so much richer than many photographs of it, including this one. The green is much greener, the image of a doily so tactile.

Me and "Femme Assise"

Olivia Turner, Maria Blanchard, and Me in storage

Olivia, like me, has an interest in women's art and showed us several works by women, dating back centuries, both on the main floors and in storage, including a sweet 14th century sculpture she will be working on in her continued studies soon at the U of Alabama. We wish her the best of luck! 

Our last stop was the Meadows bookstore where I bought a book of the collection, including a vibrant picture of Woman with a Fan.

Then we headed out into Dallas

traffic and lived to get back to McKinney for the night. We took another evening walk of the downtown on what had been a 105 degree day, just another 105 degree day in McKinney, and had good Tex-Mex food at El Mejor Mexican Kitchen and Cantina, which specializes not only in food but also COFFEE, which we skipped to get to sleep because we were going to have an all-day drive next day. 

Next stop:

                     NEW ORLEANS