Nashville - 6/21/2016

We have driven through Nashville several times on the way to somewhere else but never stopped.  We were in much the same situation this time but made sure to include a extra days in our travels to see the main sights in this legendary city.  Here is what Nashville has to say about itself.

"Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee. Legendary country music venues include the Grand Ole Opry House, home of the famous “Grand Ole Opry” stage and radio show, in Music Valley. The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and historic Ryman Auditorium are Downtown, as is the District, packed with legendary honky-tonks, dive bars and dance halls".We saw pretty much all this and more during our stay.

Because of the number of photos we took, we had to break down the trip into several posts. This first post covers the city tour that we took on an open air bus operated by Gray Line Tours.  It was a great way to cover the entire city with commentary as we drove.  We then went back to spend more time in certain places of interest like the Ryman Theater, the Country Music Hall of Fame, Music Row, and the Parthenon.  Post on all these special places will follow later.

Downtown Nashville is a rich mix of old and new.  The growth of Nashville's population and business' has been explosive in recent decades and the growth continues.

This is one of the Gray Line buses but not the one we took.  Ours was a double decker open topped vehicle that offered more of a panoramic view of the city.  All the buses are "Hop on hop off" so you can stop anywhere on the tour to look more closely at a location and then catch the next bus to continue the tour.

The buses all leave from the old rail station at the foot of Broadway on the banks of the Cumberland River.

Sigrid is ready to go.

Looking up Broadway from the train station.

The AT&T Building looks like something out of a Batman movie.

Taking photos from a bus in a crowded downtown area is not always easy.  This building is the Music City Visitors Center and is built in the shape of a guitar although it is hard to see in this photo.

Note the curved walls and the color of the siding.

More of the businesses on Broadway or as they refer to it "Music Row".

The old Marathon Motor manufacturing buildings.  Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Marathon.

Marathon Motor Works was an early automobile manufacturer based in Tennessee. It grew out of an earlier company called Southern Engine and Boiler Works founded in 1889 which made industrial engines and boilers in Jackson, Tennessee. As such, the firm had metal-working and power plant experience which could easily be transferred into the then-new and rapidly expanding automobile industry. It turned its attention in this direction shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. From 1907 to 1914, the company manufactured the Marathon automobile.

The Union Station Hotel.

One of the many bars, restaurants and shops on Broadway.  Most of the bars have live music all day.

Sigrid even got to meet Elvis.

Lunch was at the Acme Feed and Seed on Broadway in Nashville.  Sigrid had some wonderful Grits and Shrimp there.

The Tennessee Titans Stadium is just across the river from downtown.  As you can see, Nissan has a large presence in Nashville.

More to come on other venues in the Nashville area on the next post.

Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood Exhibit

Our KCPL Power Partners retirement club toured the American Epics Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood exhibit at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, MO on December 3, 2015.

Most of the attendees did not realize the involvement in Hollywood that Benton had in the 30's and 40's. Many of the art works had never been shown in the gallery before. Benton was an amazingly prolific artist. Lunch was before the tour in the Rozzelle Court. 

The painting below is Benton's depiction of Hollywood.  The work was commissioned by a magazine....can't remember if it was Life or Time.  This is the only Benton painting that I will post since photos were not allowed in the exhibit.  I got this copy from the internet.

Here is what the Nelson folks had to say about the exhibit.

"The first major exhibition on Thomas Hart Benton in more than 25 years, American Epics: Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood reveals the fascinating but overlooked relationship between Benton’s art, movie making and visual storytelling in 20th-century America.

Benton’s early experiences on silent movie sets in Fort Lee, New Jersey—the first “Hollywood”—and later in Hollywood itself influenced his acute awareness of contemporary storytelling’s shift toward movies and inspired his signature style of painting that melded centuries-old traditions with more recent movie-production techniques to tell stories that appealed to a broad range of Americans.

The exhibition brings together nearly 100 works by Benton including 50 paintings and murals, as well as a selection of his drawings, prints and illustrated books. It also presents rarely seen archival photographs, related ephemera, film clips and stills that highlight the allure of his paintings’ cinematic content, composition and technical underpinnings."

Manger scene in Kirkwood Hall.

Lunch at Rozzelle Court before the tour.

American artist, Philip Haas, has his "The Four Seasons" on display on the Donald J Hall (think Hallmark Cards) Sculpture Park outside the museum.

Massive columns are an architectural feature of Kirkwood Hall. 

A few of the art pieces at the entry to the museum from the parking garage.

Our group waiting for our tour guides.

A special showing of a book of Nelson's works that one of our members donated to the Nelson was held in the Spencer Art Reference Library.

Sigrid really enjoyed the day.

If you ever find yourself in Kansas City and looking for things to do, a visit to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is a great place to tour.  You can spend anywhere from an hour to a couple of days and probably still not see everything.  It is a world class collection of art.