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Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, Las Vegas — The Faux Louvre pg258
Colorful companion to my memoir The Incompetent Psychic
A great new source of old masters’ inspiration turned up in an unlikely place — my old home town. Las Vegas itself had gone through several marketing iterations in search of a theme. They tried ‘family friendly’ which was a bust, so folded that hand and dealt a round of adults behaving badly, and it’s a good thing it stays there. High culture was another scheme that gained some traction in a competition between two hotels. Caesar’s Palace was attracting crowds with fine art shows in a special gallery, so the Venetian Hotel added a fabulous exhibit hall next to their front lobby when they opened for biz, and partnered with the Hermitage in St Petersburg to mount exhibits from priceless Russian collections.
Pretty sure I was the only person on the plane going to Vegas just to see good art. A few years earlier I had painted murals of ‘Old Hollywood’ throughout the home of a retired theater friend, and the Dean family graciously offered their guest room when I would pop into town.
