Surviving Mai Tai Tom’s “Royal” Blunder: 2022 England & Scotland
Days Twenty One & Twenty Two: The Most Visited Museum In The UK Outside London, Where Do They Land That Thing?, Elvis Has Not Left The Building, Heads Up, One Final Cathedral, Tombs With A View, Really Our Last Italian, Going Green and Is This Any Way To Test For Covid?
We awoke to a gorgeous, sunny morning. Once again we were fortunate to have a trip where the weather never really interfered with our plans. While Kim and Mary ate breakfast at the hotel, Tracy and I ventured into the neighborhood searching for coffee and pastries. As it turned out, a Smile could be found around the corner. Smile Cafe Glasgow (121 Douglas Street) is an Italian coffee shop and pizzeria. Being a little too early for pizza (well, it’s never really too early for pizza), Tracy and I had a delicious pastry and a cappuccino.
Back at the hotel, we grabbed Kim and Mary and Ubered to our first stop of the morning, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum facing Kelvingrove Park, and purported to be the most visited museum outside of London in the UK. It is also the most popular free-to-enter visitor attraction in Scotland. It was a Sunday, and I missed one important detail … it didn’t open until 11 a.m.
Since it was 10:30 we did what most people would do, go across the street and grab some extra pastries and cappuccinos at the very cute Ronzio Coffeehouse (1361 Argyle Street). Thankfully, with all our walking, we never seem to gain weight on our vacations. If we ate like this at home we’d be as big as an elephant. Coincidentally, in just a few minutes we’d see one.
At 11 a.m. sharp, the doors to the Kelvingrove swung open to visitors. The museum opened in 1901 and contains 22 galleries. In 2003 it was closed for three years for refurbishment and they did quite a job. The first aspect of the interior that struck us (not literally) was the beautiful architecture.
The center main hall is 125 feet long and 65 feet wide, and you could tell this art gallery and museum would hold a number of different pieces of interest from art to animal creatures to what seemed like everything in between as we meandered some its 22 galleries. One of the first unique things we saw in the main hall was a pachyderm with an airplane hovering over it. Tracy jokingly asked, “I wonder where that plane lands?” I replied, “Well, that’s certainly the elephant in the room.” The crew was glad we only had a day left on the trip. This large stuffed elephant is named Sir Roger. Sir Roger spent the 1890s with a traveling circus before retiring in 1900. It didn’t end well for him. At the zoo where he resided, due to a hormonal disorder he became very aggressive (which is why elephants really shouldn’t be in zoos). Sadly, one morning Sir Roger was shot and has lived (metaphorically) at the Kelvingrove since 1901.
The plane suspended from the ceiling above him is a Mark F21 Spitfire, developed in 1944 near the end of World War II. This plane flew with the City of Glasgow Auxiliary Squadron between 1947 and 1949. Like Sir Roger, things didn’t end well for this aircraft. It crash landed in 1949, but has been spectacularly restored, and it and Sir Roger co-exist peacefully in Kelvingrove’s main hall.
Something else you can’t miss in the Centre Hall is the Kelvingrove Organ, a gigantic concert pipe organ. It has 2,889 organ pipes, and I took their word for it. A mainstay at the Kelvingrove since 1901, it’s said that this organ holds the world record for being played at more daily recitals than any other organ.
In 1901, it was commissioned as part of the Glasgow International Festival and eventually moved here. The organ recital music varies, and for just a second I daydreamed I heard my favorite made-up Barcelona/Iron Butterfly rock tune, “In Sagrada Familia, Baby!” Alas, it was only a pipe (organ) dream.
We took in a few of the 8,000 objects in the museum. I assumed the below belonged to King Charles when he was Duke of Edinburgh. Either him or John Wayne.
This piece was a shoe-in for weirdest “piece of art” we saw in the Centre Hall. I’m surprised it didn’t get the boot.
After someone flipped me the bird …
… we headed toward the first gallery (more on those heads later).
Looking for some of Kelvingrove’s paintings and sculptures, we entered the aptly named Looking For Art Gallery. One of my favorite artists is the Dutch master of crazy, Hieronymus Bosch (yes, I’m a little crazy, too). In this room was a Bosch imitator’s 16th-century painting of Christ Driving The Traders From The Temple.
We had seen my favorite Bosch painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights, at the Prado in Madrid back in 2015. The Kelvingrove painting is described as a “pastiche of Boschian elements.” (Garden Of Earthly Delights photo from internet … The Prado frowns on photos from its patrons.)
Did you ever accidentally break any of your mom’s China? Anthony Green did, so he crafted an unusual painting of what he remembered. Obviously, he had a China Syndrome,
As a nearby sign stated, “Barcelona has Antoni Gaudi, Chicago has Frank Lloyd Wright and in Glasgow we have Charles Rennie Mackintosh,” all “giants of Art Nouveau architecture and design.” We saw a couple of his unique furniture creations.
In the 1920s and 1930s, engineer James Anderson designed four experimental cars dubbed “Anderson Specials.” In 1938 he built The Bug, which could go 85 mph. After seeing this fast car, we moved on at a much more accelerated pace.
A 19th century group of modern artists were nicknamed The Glasgow Boys, and some of their works can be found here. Harrington Mann was one of them.
So was EA Hornel.
Although not a Glasgow Boy, John Lavery liked to hang out with them and painted this picture of the principal artist of the Imperial Russian Ballet Anna Pavlova in 1910.
In 1997, Saint Elvis – Return To Sender was purchased. Where it came from remains a mystery, presumably because its address was unknown.
You get another great view of the Kelvingrove Organ from this viewpoint one floor up.
The Spitfire also looks different from up here. There were 602 pilots in the part-time squadron that flew these type planes in World War II. The plane looks like it’s flying right toward us, so I have to give props to Tracy for taking this photo.
From our vantage point on this floor we got a great view of The Floating Heads, a work of a woman named Sophie Cave. I would say that the installation turned heads when it opened, but I won’t.
Let’s face it, these 50 heads, alternating between maniacal, menacing, sad and comical, can bring out a lot of emotions from those who look. Some people love it. Others think it’s creepy. I guess opinions depend upon the eyes of the beholder.
We ducked into another gallery and said “Hello Dali” and his both admired and criticized painting Christ of St. John of the Cross. Dali was known for his Surrealist style of art, and this painting was quite a digression from his usual paintings as religion was not usually a part of his repertoire.
The Coronation of the Blessed Virgin is the 1923 work of Irish Arts and Crafts designer Harry Clarke. It was commissioned by a Glasgow chapel to mark its 25th anniversary, and also for those who perished in World War I.
