The Kelvingrove museum trys to cover everything other than science (that was yesterdays museum). The picture alongside sums it up, a stuffed elephant with a spitfire overhead. The place is quite large and took Gill and I six hours today to get round most of it. When we first walked in and saw the stuffed animals my heart sank but that was only one galleries worth and you wonder why they keep them.
The rest of the museum was great, some seriously good pictures, Constable, Monet, Turner, Dali, Lowry and others but apart from Dali no modern art, perhaps Picasso and Warhol do not go down well in Scotland.
The building itself is grand Victorian with a huge organ in the middle on which a recital was given at lunchtime to quite a large audience.
Below is a picture of a Victorian cappuccino machine and some very fine glassware created in Glasgow in the early 1900's.
The managers of the gallery clearly had an eye for up and coming artists. The Lowry above (VE Day) was bought in 1946 well before Lowry became well known and the Crucifixion by Salvador Dali was bought in 1952 for £8200, this caused a great deal of bad publicity at the time because of the cost, equivalent to £220,000 today. Dali's best paintings, of which this is certainly one, go for many millions today. A good investment and a very striking painting regardless of your religious views.
There was also a temporary exhibition of Linda McCartney's photographs, some good pictures of the Stones, Jimmy Hendrix as well of course of the Beatles.
We were worn out by the time we had walked back to our flat but managed to get out again to visit a very good Indian restaurant which is close by to have dinner with Tom whose office is nearby. Trip Advisor says it is the best Indian in Glasgow, this was our second visit and it is certainly the best Indian we have been to in a long time.