Sangria in the Rain: Barcelona

For my spouse and I, this is around the time of year where we indulge a bit more due to various personal landmark days. Last year we allowed ourselves to experience the excellent tasting menu of Veritas Tavern in Delaware, Ohio. This year, we made a visit to one of those places that for some unknown reason we hadn't made it back to ever since my relocation to the Buckeye State - Barcelona, the longtime tapas-oriented standout in German Village.

Barcelona was an eatery we experienced firsthand during a Columbus Food Adventures tour of the area. At the time, we got to taste the creations of Chef Paul Yow and, unlike our previous stops, felt closer to a meal than a sampling. We enjoyed everything from a panko-crusted crab-stuffed salmon with a cherry gastrique to their house made hummus with an assortment of veggies to their baby spinach salad replete with Marconi almonds and feta cheese. While the chef had changed since that initial visit (Yow moved on to establish the Korean-leaning Hae Paul in downtown, with sous chef Jacob Hough receiving promotion to Executive Chef), the Spanish-oriented menu had not. It was as good a time as any for us to get ourselves reacquainted.

The Art of it All: Denver Art Museum

The Denver Art Museum holds one of the largest art collections
between Chicago, Illinois and the West Coast

The spouse and I have been through a fair number of museums during our travels. Some can be experienced in about an hour or so (the quaint Little Traverse History Museum in Petoskey, Michigan comes to mind) while others take longer. Many of the museums we have visited in both Ohio and California are the types which can be done as part of an itinerary of several destinations within close proximity to each other.

The Denver Art Museum, located In the city's Golden Triangle Museum District, is not one of those places. It lies up there with many of the Smithsonian Museums in Washington D.C. in that to fully appreciate its contents, you really need close to a full day to do so. We had only a few hours to roam around the museum, and we quickly found out it wasn't going to be near enough time to see and appreciate the over 70,000 pieces of art spread out among ten dedicated collections, not counting special exhibitions.

There's a lot to see both outside and just as you enter the museum

Like similar previous posts where the visual medium best tells the tale, I'll leave most of the telling to photographs to hint at what lies within the facility's 350,000 square feet (the museum consists of two buildings connected by an elevated passenger walkway.)

Altar Piece, Keith Haring's final work before he passed away
of AIDS in 1990, was one of the first pieces of art we focused on

The Northwest Coast portion of the museum's American Indian section,
which featured artwork from Tlingit, Nuxalk and Haida peoples.

Not surprisingly, many of the works in the  Pre-Columbian and Spanish
Colonial Art section had religious/Catholic themes

 

 

The section dedicated to ancient artwork from Mexico and the
Americas to the south was a favorite of mine.

Some of the quilt works found at the museum, including
one with references to the Buckeye State

This elevator sign gave us a quick primer on some of the art
we wouldn't be seeing on this particular visit

Visitors to the museum can observe employees preparing art
pieces for display, as in this 18th century Flemish tapestry

 

The Denver Art Museum has lots of interactive opportunities for
its visitors to experience, with hands-on displays, and old-school
(books and magazines) and new-school (iPads) media available.

Denver Art Museum

100 W 14th Ave Pkwy (Golden Triangle)

Denver, CO 80204

(720) 865-5000

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