Question of the Day | 06/15/2009 11:00 pm

If you could have one piece of artwork by one artist to call your own, what would you choose? Why?

Judith Martin, Candice Bergen, Julia Reed, Joan Ganz Cooney and Joan Juliet Buck take us on a tour of their favorite gallery pieces.

Joan Ganz Cooney | 06/15/2009 11:00 pm

Joan Ganz Cooney's Thrilling Artwork

My answer is the same as the last time I answered this question. If I could have any one painting, I’d choose Matisse’s red one in the Hermitage. It thrills me like no other.

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Judith Martin | 06/15/2009 11:00 pm

Judith Martin on The Miracle of the True Cross at the Bridge of San Lorenzo

Not one of the greatest works, which are too emotional for everyday life. It would be Gentile Bellini’s The Miracle of the True Cross at the Bridge of San Lorenzo, which shows a religious procession in Venice that has been halted because someone dropped the piece of the True Cross into the canal. I have a small reproduction in my bathroom, and it never ceases to amuse me, thinking about what you would say if you had been the person who did it. "It’s not my fault — he pushed me"? Or "Hey, I said I was sorry; what more do you want"?

Also, I like picking out faces in the crowd, who are old friends from history, such as the artist himself and Queen Caterina of Cyprus, Venice’s answer to Grace Kelly. Instead of wondering who is the idiot who dropped the True Cross off the bridge, and how anyone is supposed to find a piece of old wood in the canal (it took a miracle), they are all standing around looking bored, no doubt fretting that the delay is going to make them late for their lunch dates.

Fortunately the Accademia is unlikely to let me have the real picture, because I don’t have the wall space.

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Candice Bergen | 06/15/2009 11:00 pm

Candice Bergen Orientalists Art Preference

There is a painting in the Williamstown museum whose name I forget, but it is an oil by Jerome of a scene in the Middle East, an Orientalist painting of a young boy, naked, standing with his back to the viewer, and he is surrounded by men sitting, smoking hookahs, transfixed, that is so beautiful and suggestive … I love it. I love all the Orientalists. I also love the Monet Moroccan series. A landscape in Munich by Altdorfer that is magnificent. The Zurbaran Lemons. Any Giacometti.

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Joan Juliet Buck | 06/15/2009 11:00 pm

Joan Juliet Buck: A 3-D Liubov Popova

This still life by Liubov Popova (1889-1924) is actually in 3-D — the white curves stick out of the canvas. I saw it at the Guggenheim in Venice about ten years ago, and, frankly, I want it.

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Julia Reed | 06/16/2009 1:53 pm

Julia Reed's Extraordinary Museum Postcard Collection

Oh, Lord, that is way too hard. I want so many things, so I make do instead with hundreds of museum postcards that I have stuck all around my office: a dozen Audubon birds (I’d adore a long hall hung with the complete double elephant folio), Thomas Eakins, a Morris Lewis, an Ed Ruscha, several Goyas, a William Dunlap of a dog running through intense green, a Julian Onderdonk field of bluebonnets, Turner’s Queen Mab’s Cave, a Manet still life, a lush and hilarious Paul de Vos from the Prado called Fight of Cats in the Pantry, an Indian miniature of an emerald green bird, Courbet’s breathtaking The Origin of the World, and on and on and on. The pressure is too great to choose just one, so I’d probably settle for something I know I’d love to look at all the time: one of Luis Melendez’s 18th century still-lives, also from the Prado. They are extraordinary and on view right now at the National Gallery in D.C. I urge you to get there before August 23, or failing that, to follow them to L.A. or Boston.

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69 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

This may sound funny, but I’d like a painting Painted by an animal. There’s an elephant in India that paints, and a few monkey’s. But they would be paintings that would be one of a kind and very hard to reproduce.

By Deniseann Taylor on 06/16/2009 12:29 am

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You may have all the masters of art on your walls. I’ve got "happy art" on mine. Several Melanie Taylor Kent pieces and several of the original signed Disney animation cells. The next one [I hope!] will be one of the Lady and the Tramp production cells from 1955.

Take a look at Tweety.

http://www.rubylane.com/shops/the-vault/item/A-756

Melanie Taylor Kent [figures similar to Dellacroix] is fantastic. Open the link to the "Statue of Liberty" which is my favorite piece. If you look very closely at each of the figures in the painting you will see that each is an American celebrity who was not born in the US, such as Elizabeth Taylor, Mr. Spock, the Beatles……..

http://www.artbrokerage.com/art/kent_4170/Melanie_Taylor_Kent_Statue_of_Liberty_Centennial

I had the pleasure of meeting her at a showing in Las Vegas some years ago when she was hardly known. I never knew a thing about art and in one hour I walked away with a ton of information. A very lovely and talented artist.

By Andrea Brandon on 06/16/2009 12:37 am

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my son’s art. he is an artist and has actually gotten some stuff published in at least one book. he is my fav of course. anything else are reproductions of things i would like. if i see a painting and it was me or fit in one of my rooms (and i could afford it) then that is who it would be. but otherwise i have no certain person i crave.

By Nancy Pea on 06/16/2009 12:57 am

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I am singularly blessed for I have had the opportunity in my younger years to acquire my dream — a Japanese woodcut by famed Japanese artist Joichi HOSHI (1913-1979). I have talked of my love of my private space, all my own, surrounded by all that means the most to me. On one wall, shown by itself, always stunning me with its mystical, poetic quality is the wood block of a group of spreading trees, seeming to recall the magnificent folding screens of Japan’s early history.

I was told that Hoshi thought trees to be God’s greatest creation, and through woodblocks he achieved effects that I have never seen equaled. While the White House also has a Hoshi, I promise you that it does not equal mine. As I enter my own private world, Blue Thicket never fails to touch my strong feelings toward nature - and thus my heart.

By joan larsen on 06/16/2009 1:00 am

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Joan, I think you gave me the correct name of the Hans Hofman "Golden Door" at the Art Institute. If I had this hanging on the wall in front of bed in the morning, the entire day would be filled with joy!

By Kris Merrill on 06/16/2009 7:49 am

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As I remember, Kris, it was Hans Hoffmann’s Golden Wall … and I am wondering if you cannot get a reproduction - perhaps not the real thing - but one that can be placed somewhere in your home and feeling it somehow represents "you". There is something about that secret smile we find we have when the connection makes us feel we have our own secret, our private pleasure. . or so I believe.

By joan larsen on 06/16/2009 8:29 am

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Joan, "Golden Wall", Golden Wall, Golden Wall …. Maybe it will stick this time. I fell in love with this in the early 70’s and it makes me cry evertime I see it. Those colors!!! However, I want the real thing. Want to join me in a heist!?! We could start with lunch at the AIC lovely restuarant! I hear that some of the federal prisons are quite cozy1

By Kris Merrill on 06/16/2009 8:35 am

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Kris — I love your spirit and your "spirit of adventure" — nothing ventured, nothing gained. The trouble as I see it is, there are no golden walls in the prison cell - anything but - so the end does not justify the means in this case. But I too do not like to "settle" for second best in something I love … so regular visits to the Art Institute seem to be a rather nice way to visit YOUR painting … and so much else. I think I have written here that my uncle’s fantastic large armor collection, one that I was given to believe was "mine" as a child, was given as a gift to the Art Institute much later. And it is there that I "visit" it, almost getting shivers as all the memories of that other time - the innocence of childhood and all of its pleasures and treasures - come back, filling me in ways I would never have expected.

By joan larsen on 06/16/2009 8:52 am

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Joan, Are you sure I can’t hang it in my prison cell? FOILED AGAIN!!

By Kris Merrill on 06/16/2009 8:55 am

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But Kris … just think … GOLD FOILED!!!!

By joan larsen on 06/16/2009 10:04 am

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Would I settle for less!?! NEVER! However, when I wake in the morning I see a beautiful lake. Can’t improve on God’s nature and the gorgeous and simple gifts She gives. I so enjoy your comments, Joan.

By Kris Merrill on 06/16/2009 10:19 am

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If I want art to touch me emotionally everyday, I would pick any piece done by naive artist, Sev Ickes, who lives here in Mendocino, CA. If money was no object and pieces were available, I would collect Georgia O’Keeffe. Her art swallows me up. I lose myself and honestly that is better than drugs.

By Pat Ackley on 06/16/2009 1:42 am