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• Toledo Museum of Art
  The Toledo Museum of Art is well known all over the world, that is located in the Old West End of Toledo, Ohio and started by Toledo glassmaker Edward Drummond Libbey in 1901 and then moved to its current locale in 1912. It is a Greek Revival style structure that was designed by Harry W. Wachter and Edward B. Green, with two expansions, one in the 1920s and again in the 1930s. It houses a major collection of glass art, 19th and 20th centuries American and European artworks, and a smaller collection of notable Japanese, Roman, Greek and Renaissance collections. Some of the more famous works include those that were painted by Peter Paul Ruben's The Crowning of Saint Catherine, as well as minor works by El Greco and Rembrandt, and more modern art by Sol LeWitt, Henry Moore and Willem de Kooning as Fragonard's Blind Man's Bluff. There is a marvelous concert hall located in the east wing, called the Peristyle and it was constructed in the classical style to complement the exterior. It is the main concert hall for the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, with a beautiful sculpture garden located on the grounds that contains mostly postwar works, with the earlier works being housed in the museum's interior that was added in 2001, and runs along a narrow band of landscape by the Monroe Street facade. In the 1990s, a Center for the Visual Arts was designed by Frank Gehry and added, which includes the library, office, classroom and studio for the art department of the University of Toledo. The architectural firm of SANAA was picked to design a brand new structure that would house the glass collection, in 2000, and it would be the first commission by the museum in this country, and Front, Inc. was commissioned to assist the design firm in creating technical ideas for the glass wall systems. In 2006, the Glass Pavilion opened to wonderful reviews, especially in the New York Times; which highlighted the original glass collection plus many new works, including a beautiful glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly.  Since opening, the museum has attained a world wide status as a quality collector, marvelous educational program and the architecturally important campus, housing over 30,000 objects of art that represent the history of art in glass, ancient Egyptian, Roman and Greek relics, African and Asian artworks, sculpture, decorative arts, medieval art, contemporary art, graphic arts and modern art. As the wonderful collection grew, as well as the demand for art education, the museum's campus has also grown to accommodate all the changes, with just two rented rooms at its opening, it now encompasses 36 acres with 7 buildings. The main building holds 4.5 acres of space on two levels, with 45 galleries, the Family Center, museum store with the Collector's corner, 15 classroom studios, the Visual Resources Collection, the 1750 seat Peristyle concert hall, the Museum Cafe and the 176 seat Little Theater Lecture Hall. The Glass Pavilion contains 5 galleries, a coffee bar, glass study center, two hotstops, private and public courtyard space, classrooms and multipurpose GlasSalon. The collection is considered to be one of the best in the nation, and some of the best works were done by such notables as Cezanne, Bearden, Picasso, Turner, Degas, van Gogh, Calder, Close, Kiefer, Cole, Rembrandt, El Greco, Miro, Matisse, Monet, Rubens and Holbein. 

Toledo Express Apt Budget Car Rentals - 11013 Apt. Hwy.

• Blair Museum of Lithophanes
  A lithophane, comes from the Greek origin about the works that mean "light in stone" or "appear in stone" and it somehow describes the beautiful works of the porcelain castings, which, when shown in an ambient light, seems to become a vague image with bumpy surfaces, and when that light is turned off or taken away, and then a real light is put behind the surface, an amazing 3D picture is seen with all clarity and beauty, with great depth and detail. This type of artwork was prevalent in the mid19th century in Europe and starting out as a thin layer of beeswax, after a process of creating a mold, which accepted the porcelain poured in and after firing would become a magnificent piece of artwork..causing thin porcelain to be lighter, and thick porcelain is darker. They would then be used as fire screens, lampshades, tea warmers, night lights and candle shields, or could be hung in windows, like crystal prisms are today, where these lithophanes would show a picture of incredible beauty and inspiration, depending upon the light. The Blair Museum houses the biggest collection of these special porcelain pictures in the world and the lithophanes involve numerous subjects that include seascapes, historic figures, landscapes, architecture, religious art, nature and everyday scenes. Laurel Gotshall Blair, the founder of the museum, was a native of Toledo and his father, Roy Blair started the Blair Realty and Investment company in 1908 in the city, with Laurel joining the firm at birth in 1909. The realty company became a big developer in the city, building major upscale communities like the Heatherdowns and the Heatherdowns Country Club. Laurel would go to Scott High School and the University of Michigan; and eventually became the president of the Toledo Board of Realtors, like his father before him. He had been a great lover of beauty and antiquities, when visiting a fellow music box collector in Berlin Heights, Ohio, he noticed the intricate porcelain pictures hanging in the window and being lit by the sunlight, was immediately smitten with the beautiful artifacts. As his life went on, he acquired many of the lithophanes and soon had enough to start a small museum of his own in his house to showcase the marvelous relics. He would become so intrigued by them that he studied their history, use and origin, and at one point would become the world's best authority on them

January 11, 2011