Museums
Pevious Reviews:
The Contemporary Museum of Hawaii
Red's Toys
SFMOMA
 Jackson Pollock
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The Norton Simon Museum
in Pasadena, California
Every year on New Year's Day, the city of Pasadena presents their city through the world famous Rose Parade.
On the corner where the floats turn onto Colorado Boulevard, the television crews set up their cameras. Directly across the street and in every shot of a float, a marching band or a group of horse riders one can see “Norton Simon Museum” on a building in the camera shot.
So, what exactly is the Norton Simon Musuem and what is the collection of the musuem about?
Norton Simon was a California industrialist of the 20th Century, owning such diverse companies as Avis Car Rental and Hunt’s Foods. Therefore Mr. Simon had the resources to invest in great works of art. What is interesting about the collection at the Norton Simon Museum is the focus of what was collected; the art that suited the taste of Norton Simon. The tastes of Norton Simon were primarily European painting and sculpture, especially Dutch and, in terms of items from antiquity, exclusively South-Asian. His focus on paintings has provided the Norton Simon the best collection of Rembrandts in California, the collection includes three portraits by Rembrandt, three paintings by Van Gogh, (two portraits and “The Mulberry Tree”), an extensive collection of Rodin bronze sculptures and over 100 paintings and sculptures by Edgar Degas, perhaps the most extensive and comprehensive collection of Degas’ work in the world.
Visitors enter the Norton Simon Museum through a sculpture garden
The museum is located on the north end of Pasadena, California and is housed in a two-story building around a central sculpture garden. There is ample free parking with the entrance off Colorado Boulevard easier to turn into coming from the downtown rather than coming from the west where there is no turn lane. At this writing, admission for students with student ID is free of charge.
The ground floor contains European art and the basement galleries contain South-Asian antiquities and contemporary traditional paintings. The Museum is small and can be viewed in four or five hours.
There is a small café in the sculpture garden that offers tea and coffee and a small variety of sandwiches. Fortunately Old-Town Pasadena in just a few blocks away with an array of restaurants, both conventional like the Cheesecake Factory and unique like a Tibetan restaurant, sufficient to meet any culinary interest and level of adventurousness. Oldtown Pasadena is in itself an interesting destination, there is the Pacific Asia Musuem with one of the most interesting Musuem Gift Shops I have ever visited, retail outlets like the Apple Computer store that is nearly next door to an ancient pawn shop. Night time in Pasadena Old Town features a lively scence with entertanment, live music and street performers.
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What are the highlights of a visit to the Norton Simon? The Degas sculpture “Petite Danseuse” is wonderful. Buddhist statues from Afghanistan showing Greek influences in hair, clothing and facial features are exceptional and due to the destruction by the Taliban of Buddhist art in Afghanistan, these pieces are exceeding rare. Modern artists such as Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol and early 20th Century artists such as Kandinsky, Klee, Picasso, and Diego Rivera are represented in this collection.
The Norton Simon's collection is benefited by a lack of decorative art, furniture or ceramics. The forcefull focus on visual art and especially on painting, provides an abbreviated museum viewing opportunity of fine visual art.
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The sculpture garden surrounds a small pond containing lilies and the lanscaping features many plants and trees common to Southern California.
The Norton Simon Museum is a treasure and should be included in any plan to visit Pasadena either for the Rose Bowl football game, the Rose Parade or just as an interesting destination in itself. When you watch the Rose Parade this New Year’s Day, you will see the Norton Simon in nearly every shot of the parade, The building contains some of the world's greatest treasures.
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