Art is Alive and Well in Baltimore
Written: Nov 10 '99
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Product Rating:
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Pros: good museums with lots of variety
Cons: would like to see even more...
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| mrkstvns's Full Review: Baltimore |
When you think of great places to visit for the arts, Baltimore doesn't exactly spring to mind. Industry, sports, steamed crabs...these are the kinds of things associated with Baltimore. Nevertheless, Baltimore has its own cadre of arts afficianados who support several small galleries around town, the oldest art school in America, three large museums, and there is even a small nomadic museum that most people who've lived in Baltimore for years don't seem to know about. Yes, art is alive and well and living in Baltimore.
The Baltimore Museum of Art is the big guy on the block as far as Baltimore's art scene goes. Located on the edge of the Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus at Charles and 31st Streets, the BMA (as it's known around town) has frequent special exhibitions (currently impressionism) and a large permanent collection (some 85,000 works), plus a very nice gift shop, sculpture garden, restaurant, and a theatre where the local Film Forum shows various foreign and arts films. The collection runs a wide range, starting with ancient works from native american, middle eastern, asian, and african civilizations. They have some interesting displays showing furniture design as an art form, and then they have several galleries with paintings and portraits from european masters. Some of the most interesting displays in my opinion are the ancient mosaics, of which several are displayed. The BMA is on Museum Drive, an admission fee is charged but is free on Thursdays; the museum is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. The museum has a web site at artbma.org.
Running a close second in the race for size and influence in the local arts community is the Walters Art Gallery. Opened in 1934, the gallery began with the collections of William and Henry Walters, railroad industrialists who collected european and asian art, as well as egyptian antiquities. The Walters also hosts frequent special exhibits. The last time I was there they were doing a Monet exhibit. The museum is located at 600 N. Charles Street and is open Tuesdays through Sundays. An admission fee is charged, but is free Saturday mornings before 1pm.
The third large art museum in Baltimore is a rather strange one... The American Visionary Art Museum is dedicated to the offbeat, the weird, the strange, the wacky, and the macabre. Many of the artists whose works are shown here were lunatics, criminals, or both. You'll find strange things here like a beautiful horse built of matchsticks, or a dress sewn by a mental patient who depicts the visions from her dreams; you'll find intensely bright paintings of demons and apocalypse, and you'll find just plain weird stuff like the big "whirligig" outside, which is some sort of spinning nonsensical windmill built by a farmer with too much time and junk on his hands. The museum includes a restaurant on the top level with a nice view of the harbor. The museum is located at 800 Key Highway and is open Tuesday through Sunday. Their web site is at avam.org.
The Maryland Institute of Art, located near the Lyric Opera House and Meyerhoff Symphony Hall on Howard Street, is one of the oldest and most respected arts schools in the country. Each spring the nearby area hosts an arts festival, called ArtScape, that's a popular local event.
There are several galleries located around town: Fells Point is a good place to find them, as is Charles Street. Current info on them is best gotten from the Baltimore Convention and Tourist Bureau, or even from a recent copy of the Baltimore CityPaper --- a free newsweekly. One place that's especially interesting is a gallery in Fells Point that's run as a cooperative of local starving artists and has moved a couple times depending on which building-for-lease has a landlord willing to donate some space. Last time I was in Baltimore, it was on Broadway near Thames.
Yes, Virginia, art is alive and well in Baltimore. While I don't rank any of these museums as among the world's very best, they are all good, solid museums with very nice collections and are definitely worth spending a little to get to know. If you're in Baltimore and like the arts, you're in luck.
Recommended:
Yes
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