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  • Hamburg – Hamburger Kunsthalle (Self-Portrait by Franz Nölken)

    Hamburg – Hamburger Kunsthalle (Self-Portrait by Franz Nölken)

    Visiting art galleries in Germany is interesting to me as they have to deal with the challenges of the Second World War, but often in a different way to those in Poland and other occupied territories. I’ve visited tens of galleries and museums in Poland, most of which were raided by the Nazis and their collections either pinched by corrupt officials and sold for profit, destroyed or shipped back to the Fatherland. Even today, there are tens of thousands of paintings, artworks and collectables which haven’t been found or which are residing in collections where they probably shouldn’t be. Poland isn’t alone, this happened throughout Europe and the level of destruction was enormous, but over 500,000 Polish artworks were looted and many are still in Germany.

    In Germany, this all presented a different problem, which was that artworks were bring procured cheaply or just given to galleries. Sometimes it’s the case that artworks were forcibly taken from Jewish families, or brought back from occupied territories, other times it’s less clear cut, Jewish families selling property as they wanted to flee Germany. But very rarely were artworks willingly sold by anyone at this time, it became a necessity for many families.

    This was a huge problem for curators at German museums, they had seen some of their collections raided as the Nazis considered it ‘degenerate art’, but it was clear they didn’t particularly want their artworks destroyed. So, rather than see them burnt as happened on some occasions, other galleries such as the Basel Museum in Switzerland tried to buy artworks up. Much else was sold at auction, some legitimate sales from galleries who were told to dispose of items, other times it was that of families forced to sell their belongings.

    So, this left museums and galleries such as the Hamburger Kunsthalle in a dilemma, as they saw paintings and artworks arriving into their building. I’m sure at the time there wasn’t much that could be done, but as the decades have gone by, the gallery has wanted to do the right thing.

    This is the self-portrait painted by Franz Nölken, a German artist who was killed just before the end of the First World War. The artwork was painted in 1904 and it was owned by a Jewish family named von der Porten. They decided to flee to Belgium in 1938 and they tried to sell this painting to the Kunsthalle, who rejected it. However, in 1939, the gallery acquired it from a private dealer in exchange for another artwork by the same artist that they had in their collections. It’s not known how much the art dealer paid for it, but it was likely only a fraction of its worth at the time.

    This is a photo of the artwork when it was owned by the von der Porten family, who were able to flee Hamburg. Sadly, Frieda von der Porten and Dr. Ernst von der Porten both killed themselves in 1940 when the Nazi hatred they thought they had escaped from engulfed them once again.

    With both of the owners dead, this artwork remained in the collections of the gallery. But it has recently decided to pro-actively find ancestors of these artworks, as part of the country’s “fair and just settlement”. With this artwork, the gallery has been unable to find any descendants, although its work continues.

  • Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Twenty-Six

    Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Twenty-Six

    The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…..

    To Bilk

    The dictionary defines this as “to cheat. Let us bilk the rattling cove; let us cheat the hackney coachman of his fare”. This is one of those words that has somehow survived in its original form, with bilking today being the term for driving off without paying for petrol. So, pretty much the same meaning as running off from a taxi without paying, although the word can be used to describe any act of fraud or attempt to withhold money.

    The dictionary was published around 1800, so the word was more common then. It nearly fell out of usage during the early part of the nineteenth century, but seems to be a little more in vogue again now. Back in the seventeenth century, the word bilk mean to spoil an opponent’s score in a game, so the word is some derivative of that.

  • Pittsburgh – PPG Place

    Pittsburgh – PPG Place

    This is PPG Place in the heart of Pittsburgh, with what I consider to be an architecturally stunning building.

    It’s the Head Office of what is now PPG Industries, although it was formerly known as the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company.

    The building was designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee and although it looks very modern, it was opened in 1983. Given the company’s heritage the heavy use of glass was perhaps inevitable, but the neo-Gothic style is just something quite special.

    The building used just under 20,000 panes of glass in its construction, with PPG Place seemingly having been well received by locals when it was built. That sheer amount of glass is around one million square feet in size, with the whole project costing 200 million dollars back in the 1980s. That was a brave investment given the decline that Pittsburgh was suffering from at the time, although it appears to have been a financial success for the company.

    There are 231 glass spires throughout the building complex and this is the main tower, standing 40 storeys in height. The whole set-up reminded me a glass version of the Palace of Westminster, and this was apparently asked of the designers, who said there were other buildings in the United States that were really their inspiration.

    The centrepiece of the complex. All very lovely.

  • Pittsburgh – Smithfield Street Bridge

    Pittsburgh – Smithfield Street Bridge

    The Smithfield Street Bridge is a sweeping statement of a river crossing, designed by Gustav Lindenthal and constructed between 1881 and 1883. It’s the third bridge at this location, the first was destroyed in a large city fire and the second wasn’t substantial enough to deal with the increase in traffic.

    Looking back towards South Side, this bridge is made from steel, not unexpected from the Steel City and it’s the second oldest bridge made from this material in the United States. What is more surprising is that some wit from the local transport authority thought in the 1990s that they should demolish this bridge to replace it with a new one. Fortunately, wiser heads prevailed and the structure was instead repaired.

    Originally the city’s trams went over the bridge, but these were replaced by Pittsburgh’s light rail system which takes a different route.

    The bridge at the end of the nineteenth century, which was widened on a couple of occasions.

  • Pittsburgh – East Carson Street

    Pittsburgh – East Carson Street

    East Carson Street runs along near to the river on the South Side of Pittsburgh, a long and grand street which was named by property developer Nathaniel Bedford after one of his friends. His friend was called Carson, not East…..

    What impressed me most about this street is that if you could take the cars away, it felt like nineteenth century America (or what I imagine nineteenth century America was like). Indeed, most of the buildings are from when this area was created in the mid-nineteenth century, when Pittsburgh was becoming a prosperous city.

    In the 1950s, the population of Pittsburgh was just shy of 700,000 people, up from 325,000 at the beginning of the twentieth century. Now, with the collapse of the steel industry, the population is under 300,000, which has meant that many buildings were just left and never modernised or developed. This area is now protected to ensure that its heritage is maintained, but it’s a charming and quirky street with many bars and restaurants along it.

    I hope that this street doesn’t change, it would be easy to modernise and gentrify it, but I like this piece of nineteenth century heritage. I also thought that I had some better photos of this street with more heritage and fewer traffic cones, but perhaps not…..

  • Pittsburgh – East Carson Street Mural

    Pittsburgh – East Carson Street Mural

    The quality of this mural is one of the finest that I’ve seen on any piece of street art, even down to the South Side leaflet in the girl’s hand (might be necessary to click on the image to enlarge it). It was painted by David Hawbaker, a local art teacher, and shows a community gathering, being looked over by a steelworker from the past. This image is swarming with history, community and positivity. Just a slight shame its location is in front of a small car park, but it’s pretty much still visible.

  • Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Twenty-Five

    Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Twenty-Five

    The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…..

    Betwattled

    The dictionary defines this as “surprised, confounded, out of one’s senses” and I’ve no idea how this has fallen out of common usage as it’s quite a catchy word…. It was more commonly used in the west country and was in use from at least the sixteenth century, so it remained used for three centuries at least.

    Although used relatively rarely in written English, it’s clear from this graph that it has remained in use to a small degree. There’s been a recent uptick in its usage as well, although Susie Dent did mention the word on Countdown, so that might have been the cause of that.

  • San Diego – Old Town Theatre

    San Diego – Old Town Theatre

    The Old Town Theatre is located in the Old Town San Diego State Historic Park and it’s a working theatre with 246 seats. It’s operated by the Cygnet Theatre now and the building was constructed in the 1970s in the style of an nineteenth century structure.

    One thing that puzzled me was the spelling of the Old Town Theatre and the Cygnet Theatre, which is the English spelling, rather than the American spelling which is usually ‘theater’. Or, at least, what I thought the American spelling was.

    And here, I think, is the answer. The word ‘theater’ in American English is actually relatively new, only recently overtaking the ‘theatre’ spelling in American writing. Every day is a school day as they say….

  • San Diego – Karl Strauss Bar Downtown San Diego

    San Diego – Karl Strauss Bar Downtown San Diego

    This is perhaps one of the most important visits that I’ve ever made to a bar, which was in January 2015, to the downtown San Diego outlet of the Karl Strauss brewery. At this time, I was more engaged with real ale and real cider, so I wasn’t entirely sure what this craft beer thing was all about.

    At the time, this sort of beer menu was still pretty rare to me and I’m fairly sure I didn’t really understand most of it.

    So I started with a light beer, that’s a pale ale of some kind, although I can’t remember which.

    And a pretzel, because beer needs snacks.

    But, it was now that things started to change, and I remember this little exchange. The member of staff was fully engaged about beers and the different types, and they were keen to talk about their passion. I can’t remember the details of the conversation, but I suspect that I told the barman that I liked Guinness, hence how the discussion evolved. It’s noticeable that I probably wasn’t convinced about trying a dark beer, as there’s a sampler there that has been proffered by the barman. And that’s the fiercely strong Wreck Alley imperial stout, coming in at 9.5%. Which I clearly liked, since I’ve managed to get a large glass of it before even finishing the sampler.

    I’ve been to San Diego twice and it was bars like this which really got me interested in the new craft beer revolution, although I didn’t think too much about this concept at the time. There’s no shortage of craft beer options in California today, but Karl Strauss remains one of the first in the United States to push this style of drink. And they certainly didn’t let me down on this visit. Although, perhaps I could have picked a cheaper hobby than craft beer…..

    But, a memorable and very lovely visit.

  • San Diego – Museum of Man (Beer for Breakfast)

    San Diego – Museum of Man (Beer for Breakfast)

    The Museum of Man in San Diego had a temporary exhibition when I visited in 2015 which was all about beer. I have to say (write), what a marvellous choice of exhibition…

    And beer for breakfast? The text of this exhibits reads, “The Sphinx is a silent symbol of Egypt, but if he could talk he would tell tales of beer. Why? In Ancient Egypt beer was money and they paid a labourer a gallon of beer a day. By even modest calculations it took at least 231 million gallons of beer to build the Pyramid of Giza. To the Egyptian labourer, beer was a vital source of nutrition. Containing about 3% alcohol and packed with vitamins and minerals, it was a lot more like fermented oatmeal than our European-style beers”.

    A gallon of beer a day? There are eight US pints in a US gallon (I think), but that’s about 6.7 UK pints. Nonetheless, 6.7 UK pints per day is still quite a lot. I’m not sure I’d want that much, although if this fermented oatmeal tastes like a fine oatmeal stout, then perhaps I might have been tempted….