L.A. Museum

At the risk of seeming a Northern California tea-sipping snob, I must comment on my recent visit to the Los Angeles County Museum’s Leningrad show.

I realize the museum is under renovation and expansion, but this tiny (40 paintings) show was crammed into five very small rooms. Hundreds of people were allowed in every few minutes. Paintings were hung so low on the walls that you could not see them over others.

After the huge Impressionism show at the M.H. de Young Museum in San Francisco, I was hugely disappointed. I was offended by the loud comments revelatory of cultural philistinism (“Cezanne, was he a French painter?” and “Van Gogh, didn’t he cut off his ear?”). Really, if you’re going to expand this museum, build a new one for modern art, and maintain the Getty, and please educate the public!

NED B. TUCK

San Francisco