Art Now and Then: Guess Who

The Los Angeles Getty Center towers like a futuristic city
over the many landscaped garden levels occupying the museum's backyard.

During our recent, 42-day, museum-hopping jaunt across the western United States I made a concerted effort to view and study works of art I'd long known of and taught about. For the most part, I decided I'd pretty much known what I was talking about. I made it a little game to identify artists simply by seeing their paintings before checking out the ubiquitous wall labels next to the works. Seldom was I wrong, though in many cases I recognized the work but had some trouble instantly pulling a name from my 68-year-old brain.

West Hollywood is the home of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).
Though less than 20 miles apart, it and the Getty could hardly be more different.

There were, however, surprises--paintings so far removed in style and/or content from the artist's usual body of work as to startle even an old artsy-fartsy codger like myself. This happened at least a half-dozen times during the trip. Thus I've decided to extend my little "guess who" game to broaden the art perspective of those not fortunate enough in having worn themselves out following me from museum to museum, room to room, painting to painting for stretches often nearing five or six hours at a time. Below is a chess set and five paintings (two by the same artist) whose names most art lovers should instantly recognize. These artists were in no way obscure. Most are what we'd call household names (or close to it).