Did you know that the average art museum visitor spends only seconds looking at a work of art?  Hey that’s OK.  We’re glad you came!  But the Cincinnati Art Museum has a program that will open up the world of art so that you will enjoy looking at art for much longer than seconds.  Every picture, statue and object has a story to tell and when those stories can be connected to a book that you have read …well it’s just plain fun!   So what’s the program?   “See the Story” is a collaborative program between the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Cincinnati Public Library.

Six books are chosen for the year starting in January ending in November, meeting every other month for a librarian led discussion and then a docent led tour connecting the book with art in the museum…there are always connections!  In January, we read The Calligrapher’s Daughter learning about Korean culture and calligraphy and then connected this to the Bukang Kim: Journey exhibit.  Rudi Gernreich’s fashion exhibit was a perfect connect for the March book Unmentionables.   Yes, it was about women’s constrictive underwear plus about WWI and the newspaper business and women’s fight for independence.  And all of it tied into the exhibit! The current “Up to Bat” exhibit is about baseball but there is a connection with The Flamethrowers (May selection) about an artist and motorcycle racing on the Utah salt flats.  As I said art and books always have connections!
                                       

The next book discussion and art tour is Saturday July 18, 2015 at 11:30. Ask at the front desk where we meet…chairs will be set up in one of the galleries.  You have time to read An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro and then discover the connections to Masterpieces of Japanese Art…in other words come and “SEE THE STORY”!

If you can’t make July 18 consider Sept 19 for Master of Shadows: The Secret Diplomatic Life of Peter Paul Rubens connected to the Northern Baroque Splendor exhibition, which just opened last Friday.

Image Credit:

Andy Warhol (American, b.1928, d.1987); Pete Rose, 1985; Painting, acrylic on canvas with silk screen image; 4 panels, each 54 x 44 in. (137.2 x 111.8 cm); Museum Purchase: Bequest of Mr. and Mrs. Walter J. Wichgar; 1985.208a-d; © 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Ogawa Haritsu (1663–1747) 小川破笠; Animal Story Scroll (detail); Edo period (1615–1868); Handscroll, ink and colors on paper; 24.6 × 668.3 cm; Gift of the Robert F. Blum Estate, 1906.4

Peter Paul Rubens (Siegen 1577–1640 Antwerp),Portrait of a Capuchin Monk, circa 1635, oil on panel,HOHENBUCHAU COLLECTION, on permanent loan to LIECHTENSTEIN. The Princely Collections, Vienna,HB 92