Late this afternoon I asked a bloke who knows about the weather for his advice. “To be honest”, he said, “I’d just go to the gallery if I were you, as it’s gonna be pretty cold and windy in Hyde Park”. He was right.
And so that’s what we did. I met Damo at about six o’clock at the gallery where we had a bite to eat before heading off to the Monet Exhibition. Dinner at the gallery $10-13 is excellent value by the way.
I really love going to the gallery on a Wednesday night, by the way, as they have tours, talks, live music, and meals, and it’s all incredibly convenient for those of us who work 9-5, and who sometimes don’t have the time on the weekends to attend exhibitions.
Tonight we chose to do an exhibition tour. The first tour guide was excellent, though unfortunately there were far too many people doing the tour. And so after half an hour or so, we dropped back and joined the second tour which was far less crowded.
In between changing tour guides I said to Damo… “Did you work out how he went from poverty to wealth?”. His reply was simple… “Lotto?”. Hahaha.
Seriously though, it was really terrific to walk around the exhibition and to enjoy the work with informed commentary. It was great to learn about how significant and radically different the work of The Impressionists was. And it was great to learn about the significant changes in Monet’s work that occured throughout his long career.
By and large the exhibition has a lot of really great works, though Damo did comment at one point, “I saw a better one at Musee D’Orsay”.
Afterwards we had a glass of wine (or three) in Martin Place, ahead of heading back home to escape the cold wet, weather. Bloody weather.