My 5 Favorite Paintings of 2009

My daughter and husband at MOMA

A few days ago a journalist and professor listed her 5 favorite books of 2009 on Facebook. Fantastic idea. I jotted them down for my reading list and immediately began thinking about my 5 favorite paintings of 2009.

This was a good year for art for me. I returned to painting full time, established and kept a fairly disciplined studio habit, and painted a number of paintings. I put together my website, this blog, an email and mail list, had a show and sold paintings. All good.

I visited museums and saw great art. One of my painting professors (yes, the one who told me I had to paint 100 paintings) told me once that you have to see great art to make great art. She regularly flew to DC just to go to museums. That's inspiring!

In February I went to New York and visited the Met (3 times!), the Cloisters, MOMA, the Guggenheim and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. In June I visited my daughter near DC and went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Barnes Foundation, the Phillips Collection, the National Gallery of Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In August I went to California and visited the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, many galleries, the Los Angeles County Art Museum and the Getty. In September I went to Vancouver, to the Vancouver Art Gallery. I visited galleries in Seattle a number of times throughout the year and spent a morning at the Seattle Art Museum.

Along the way I saw many fabulous paintings. It's hard to winnow my list to 5 but I will. Over the next few days I'll post my favorites.

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