For Sale in Colmar

Different target audiences:

Big Art, with Spectators

One of the things I liked most about Bonn's Kunstmuseum was the large scale of its galleries, allowing the display of large, colorful artworks and (important for "museum street photography") their viewers.

Colors and Reflections

I'm back in Portland, but still have many photos to show from our travels of the last two months.

I was very impressed by the Kunstmuseum in Bonn. Virtually the first thing you see as you approach the building is a large (ca. 10 x 20 ft) curved outdoor sculpture, painted in rainbow colors. Getting close, you see the colors reflected in a window across the walkway. The museum does very well in displaying large works of art.

In Transit

This morning I took trains from Bonn to Amsterdam — via Köln and Utrecht — so I can fly back to Portland tomorrow morning. This limited me to "street photography" in transit stations: the first two in the Köln Hauptbahnhof, the rest in Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport.

Bonn, Near the Rhine

Today I walked in the neighborhood of our hotel in Bonn, the Maritim. Although Bonn is no longer the German capitol, there are quiet many major government offices in the neighborhood.

Not far from the back door of the Maritim is the Robert-Schumann-Platz, a big plaza honoring not the 19th C composer but rather the German politician who was an architect of the European Union. The symbolic purpose of the stone sphere is unclear.

Another building near the plaza

Just past the plaza are woods did lead to the Rhine River and beyond.

The woods are beautiful, but dark and dense. 

One can see the origin of many scary chlidren's tales.

 Ships on the Rhine, seen from the Konrad Adenauer Bridge

Turbulence in the waters of the Rhine

Cologne Street Scenes

This morning I took the train from Bonn to Cologne to do some street photography. (Cologne's streets are a lot more colorful than Bonn's.) The first of these photos is a look down into the workshop of the Cathedral, with a mason taking a break; the last is in the railway station. The others are just on the streets and plazas.

Bonn's Kunstmuseum

I spent most of the day in the Art Museum, an easy walk from our hotel. The permanent collection of the museum is founded on the paintings of August Macke and his Rhenish Expressionist associates. However, though these paintings are well worth seeing, what really impressed me were the dramatic architecture of the building and the generous space for large, vivid, more modern works. Just a few examples:

Across the plaza is the Art and Exhibition Hall, and on its garden rooftop are these three enigmatic forms.

Even the walk back to the hotel along the busy Friedrich-Ebert-Allee was visually stimulating, with the office buildings in the background prettified by dense clumps of Queen Anne's Lace along the roadway, and a lively sky overhead.