A Cornucopia of Museums

Happy Thanksgiving! I am pleased to report that we had a great time in Houston over the long weekend. Thanksgiving dinner was a scrumptious feast at Gravitas Restaurant. We also went to see the Houston Ballet's Nutcracker where the Sugar Plum Fairy stole the show.

Of course, we managed to squeeze in a few museums...

• The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston where I enjoyed seeing American paintings which will soon go home to Crystal Bridges in Bentonville, Arkansas and Claes Oldenburg's Giant Soft Fan.
• The Menil Collection surprised me by being the home of Rene Magritte's The Dominion of Light. The Menil Collection includes a stunning Byzantine Fresco Chapel Museum, in which thirteenth-century Byzantine frescoes from a chapel in Cyprus are supported by a modern glass, concrete, and metal structure. The Menil Collection also encompasses an entire gallery devoted to color-challenged scribbler Cy Twombly and a chapel designed around several dark, monochromatic works by Mark Rothko. Moving on.
  
• The MFA, Houston operates Bayou Bend, the home of collector Ima Hogg, who acquired American decorative arts and installed them in her home in period-room settings. Miss Hogg is to Bayou Bend as Henry Francis du Pont was to Winterthur, so you can understand why I would want to visit. It was great to see the home and collections, as I had only seen them in catalogs.
  

Thus ends your museum-style tour of Houston, Texas. I want to extend a big thank you to my sister for putting together the weekend's schedule of feedings, ballet, and art sightings.