California Cowboys and Arts in Abundance

Gene Autry started out as a B Western actor but gained fame as a singing cowboy on the radio, in movies, and on TV in the 1930s. Though in reality he never was the most handsome, toughest man in the business (he was a minister’s son), he played the honest, brave, and true cowboy very credibly.
"The Autry" in Griffith Park (close to the Zoo and the famous Hollywood Sign) is dedicated to the American West, to indians, pioneers, first settlers and cowboys, authentic cowboy life and Hollywood cowboys, connecting the past and the present in an ingenious way. Autry had established the museum in 1988, it shows paintings, sculptures, costumes, firearms, saddles, horse tack, tools, carriages and other objects. Part of the museum is a great Native American Art collection and right now there was an interesting exhibition about indian beadwork going on.


The Autry was our first pre-arranged stop this morning, fortuntely we had enough time to explore on our own after an overview tour with the PR director. On to Pasadena then, a city of its own with about 140.000 people. Historic buildings, charming, quaint „old world flair“, shops, boutiques, coffee shops, bistros and a nice farmers market, where we bought provisions for dinner.

The city is famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and the Tournament of Roses Parade, but, in addition, Pasadena has quite a bit to offer regarding culture: it is home to the Norton Simon Museum of Art, the Gamble House by Greene & Greene, the Huntington Gardens & Library - which we all visited in the last couple of years. This time the Pacific Asia Museum and the nearby Art Museum were on our itinerary – both small and worth being seen, but more for „specialists“ or people with a lot of time.

From Pasadena we continued to Central L.A. and LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the largest, most comprehensive and oldest art museum in L.A. Founded as a museum in 1961 it consists of several buildings and is one of these „global“ museums with modern/european/asian/decorative/latin-american/greek-roman/photographic etc. departments where you could spend days and get lost.

Fantastic additions are two new buildings by Renzo Piano and "The Urban Light" sculpture by Chris Burden at the entrance. This artwork became sort of the new symbol for the museum which is the centerpiece of Wilshire Blvd. and the "Museum Row" including the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits (bubbling tar pits with fossils), the Petersen Automotive Museum, and a newly planned Movie Museum. Wilshire is also renowned for its colorful mixture of gourmet food trucks rowing up along the street.

If we wouldn’t have been so tired we probably would have stayed longer (there was a colorful Iranian New Year's celebration with music, parade, food vendors etc. going on on the LACMA grounds), but after a short overview tour and after having checked out the changing exhibitions, we left. Wished, we would have had a hotel closer to downtown, but so we had still to drive over 30 minutes. Back at the hotel at 6 pm, but too cool to still dip into the pool. Instead we took a hot bath and had dinner before starting to work and pack. Amounts of luggage are starting to get frightening ... how the heck do we get all this stuff over to Germany without paying a fortune?