I went to the Neue Galerie this morning on Central Park East. I have been to the Met and the Guggenheim too many times to count and I have passed the Neue Gallery as many times on my way to those museums but never stopped in. I never even noticed it until just recently. It almost looks like a home in the middle of this upper east side street. Years ago I had watched that Ryan Reynolds movie The Woman in Gold where he played Helen Mirren’s art restitution lawyer trying to get her famous artwork back that was stolen by the Nazis. I had no idea about this piece of art or that it hung in the Neue Galerie after the Lauder family purchased it.

I was never one of those people who could sit and stare at a painting for hours. I appreciate art and different art forms such as painting, drawing, photography, even the performing arts but I’ll be damned if I will gaze at one piece for more than a few moments. I appreciate the art and artist but don’t need to look at it for as long as it took the painter to paint it. I don’t know what they were thinking, feeling or doing when working on it and no matter how long I stare at it, that won’t change that. I am not sure why I majored in Art History.