museums : Buzz

New York Magazine has devoted a Weekend Travel section to Baltimore, hitting an impressive array of eclectic shops, restaurants, museums and neighborhoods. 

This isn't your grandmother's guide to Charm City. New York Mag tells its readers to "Hang with hipsters in Hampden, a popular neighborhood of galleries, bars, and boutiques that feels a little like Williamsburg ten years ago."

Whoa, a New Yorker comparing Baltimore to Brooklyn?

"Go on an art crawl in Station North, Baltimore’s newest arts district. Stroll along North Avenue, Charles, and Barclay Streets to see 23 murals and installations by 30 local and international taggers like Gaia, Momo, Vhils, and Freddy Sam," New York Magazine writes. 

It also highlights veggie cuisine at Golden West, Spike Gjerde's newly opened Shoo-Fly Diner and the comfort food cuisine of the Food Market. Read the whole story here. 

The Maryland Historical Society is inviting expert quilters and the public to help it recreate a copy of the American flag, USA Today writes.
 
The Mount Vernon museum recently assembled about 100 or so expert quilters to create a copy of the flag originally sewn by Mary Pickersgill in 1813—the same flag that would eventually inspire Francis Scott Key to write “The Star Spangled Banner.”
 
Staying true to Pickersgill's flag, the society is using wool bunting, rather than nylon, to craft the banner, USA Today writes.
 
And on Aug. 3 and Aug. 11, the historical society will open its project to the public, who will be able to add a stitch to the flag. Featuring several exhibits and costumed actors, the event will take place from noon-3 p.m..
 
Read more about the event here, and register for the event here.

You can read more about the destination here.

On the heels of its reopening of an expanded contemporary wing, the Baltimore Museum of Art is plotting a series of new renovations to finish in the fall of 2014, when the museum celebrates its 100th birthday.

The BMA's upcoming renovations include a re-opening of the museum's original entrance, the Dorothy McIlvain Scott American Wing and the East Wing entrance and lobby, Art Daily writes. Additional renovations that will wrap up spring 2015 include a new Asian and African art collections and  a creative learning center that will help children better relate to the art around them.

Read more about the BMA renovations here.

The Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum is currently on schedule to reopen Oct. 4 of this year, after having been closed since September due to budget issues, the Baltimore Sun writes.
 
According to the organization Poe Baltimore, which intends to make the house a for-profit institution, the reopened Poe House will include a walking tour and other interpretive exhibits that will give visitors the story of Poe’s experiences in Baltimore.
 
The attraction will likely open weekends until spring 2014, the Baltimore Sun reported. After this date, the hours will be expanded, if all goes according to plan.
 
Read the full story here.
 
 

"I grew up on stories about the glory days of Jewish Baltimore, when, in my father’s telling, Jews were really Jews," writes Jennifer Moses in the New York Times. 

Moses says Jewish Baltimore is on the rebound, in both the city and the suburbs. She points to the Jewish Museum of Maryland, Attman's Deli and Eutaw Place Synagogue. 

"Happily, Jewish Baltimore is on the rebound, and not just in the suburbs. On a cold day in February when I went in search of the settings of my father’s stories, I landed in a place where perseverance, preservation and memory have conspired to keep that vanished world available," Moses writes. 

You can read the entire story here. 

Museums and tourism officials are honoring abolitionist Harriet Tubman, 100 years after her death. 

USA Today features some of these homages, including a contemporary art exhibit "Homage to Harriet" at Baltimore's Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African American History & Culture. It starts March 23 and runs through June 23.

The USA Today also features three other Maryland honors to Harriet Tubman. Earlier this month, officials celebrated the groundbreaking of the 17-acre Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park, just south of Cambridge. 

"The same day, the state designated a 125-mile driving tour, dubbed the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway, that cuts through her home turf on Maryland's Eastern Shore," USA Today writes.

Maryland also passed a bill to establish the 5,700-acre Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park on  Maryland's Eastern Shore.

Cubist painter was taught by Henri Matisse and friends with Pablo Picasso and Henri Rousseau.

And he is now the focus of a new exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art, which is featuring drawings, prints and paintings from the 20th century artist.

The Wall Street Journal highlights the exhibit, along with two others in Seattle and Miami.  

" 'Max Weber: Bringing Paris to New York,' chronicles in 40 works from 1908 through 1928 how he moved from a classical to a cubist style," the Journal writes. 

The exhibit started March 1 and runs through June 23. It features several Weber paintings from 1909 to 1915 that are part of the  BMA's collection along with many pieces on loan from the Estate of Max Weber. 

We know that Baltimore is quirky and offbeat. Apparently travel guru Peter Greenberg has gotten this memo because he's named Baltimore the No. 1 Wacky & Weird Road-Trip Spot. 

"From the creepy brilliance of Edgar Allan Poe to the dark, irreverent humor of John Waters, a sci-fi nut, horror junkie, or simply a fan of good, old American kitsch, Baltimore is the number one quintessential capital of weird, cool and quirky sites in our country," Peter Greenberg writes on his travel website. 

The CBS News Travel Editor recommends visits to Port Discovery, the American Visionary Art Museum, the National Pinball Museum, National Museum of Dentistry and Geppi's Entertainment Museum. 

Santa Claus, Indiana and Albuquerque, New Mexico got the No. 2 and No. 3 spots, respectively. 

Jane Austen aficionados from around the world are celebrating the 200th anniversary of the penning of "Pride and Prejudice" this month. 

Among those celebrating is Goucher College in Towson, writes the New York Times. It opened "Pride and Prejudice: A 200 Year Affair" Jan. 28.

The exhibit features what it bills as the largest Jane Austen collection in North America, including the first edition that was published and rare and illustrated editions. The exhibit runs through July 26. 

The Walters Art Museum's latest exhibit, which explores the depiction of Africans in Renaissance art, gets a writeup in the New York Times.

"Visually the exhibition is a gift, with marvelous things by artists familiar and revered — Dürer, Rubens, Veronese — along with images most of us never knew existed," the Times writes. "Together they map a history of art, politics and race that scholars have begun to pay attention to."

"Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe" runs through Jan. 21 and features paintings, drawings, sculptures and printed books depicting black Africans in Europe from the 1400s to the 1600s. Africans living in or visiting Europe at this time included artists, aristocrats, saints, slaves and diplomats.

You can read the entire Times' review here. 

Baltimore City has proposed a plan to keep the former home of Edgar Allen Poe going under a plan that was approved by the Board of Estimates Oct. 3.

Under the proposal, the B&O Railroad Museum will get $180,000 to help the West Baltimore attraction continue operations, the Baltimore Sun writes. The museum had been in danger of closing. 

"The overriding idea is to turn the Poe House into a draw that will not only see increased attendance, which has fluctuated between 3,000 and 5,000 annually, but also make Baltimore a destination for Poe enthusiasts," the Baltimore Sun writes. "It also envisions an annual operating budget of between $200,000 and $300,000 — substantially more than the $85,000 the city had been spending annually on the Poe House."

You can read the rest of the story here. 

The Washington Post features the Baltimore Museum of Art's much anticipated $24.5 million renovation of its contemporary wing, set to reopen Nov. 18. 

"Planning for the entire renovation — which will also include changes to the American and African Art spaces, as well as a new lobby and other visitor amenities — began a decade ago and is expected to be completed in 2014, when the museum celebrates its 100th anniversary," the Post writes. 

The renovated BMA wing will also feature two murals by Baltimore street artist Gaia, best known for organization Station North outdoor art project Open Walls Baltimore. 

Talk about flea market finds.

A Virginia woman bought a Renoir painting at a flea market for $7 that was set to go to auction and expected to fetch as much as $100,000.  

But then the Washington Post found that "Paysage Bords de Seine" may have been been stolen from the Baltimore Museum of Art. A copy of the 1951 police report provided by the Baltimore police shows the painting was indeed stolen, the paper writes. 

"The new details could trigger a legal showdown over the painting’s ownership among several players: the historic Baltimore museum; the company that insured the painting and paid a $2,500 claim for the stolen artwork; the six-year-old auction house; and the Virginia woman who unwittingly purchased the Renoir at the Harpers Ferry Flea Market," the Post writes. You can read the entire article here.