Ramat Gan Art Museums

On October 22, Ann and I decided to go to an art museum or two in Ramat Gan. 

According the internet, two art museums were open that day. One was an Israeli Art museum about 2 miles from Beth's place (on Abba Hillel) and the other a Russian Museum about 1 mile away from Beth's House (on Hibat Tsiyon) and in the opposite direction. 

We hailed a cab on Bialik to go to the Israeli Art museum. The cab driver told us that this museum was closed for reconstruction.  So we asked him to take us to the other museum. 


We got there and found out some other interesting facts. First, the museum was adjacent to the Ramat Gan municipal library. Second the museum is actually two museums under one roof (and not very expensive or crowded either). There is both a Russian Art Museum and a Far Eastern Art Museum.  
 
The first image has four paintings by a Russian named Dimitri Sitkotski. I was impressed by them but I couldn't find anything on line about the artist. The information on the plaque explaining the art indicated he was a late 19th century artist.


The second image is a tapestry pair. It is in the Far East museum. It shows the 8 immortals who were born about 13 centuries ago and who control how long people live in the Chinese Tao belief system. The tapestry pair is an early 20th century product.




The third image is also a tapestry. It shows Shou Xing.  It is also an early 20th century product. Shou Xing is a god of longevity in Chinese culture and connected with a bright star in the southern part of the sky. 

 I don't know whether or how Shou Xing interacts with the 8 immortals and I couldn't find an explanation in the 30 minutes I researched this question on the internet so I gave up.

There was a nice looking cafe near the entrance to the public library but it was closed (also the library was almost empty).

We were told that the Russian art museum had recently sold a painting at auction and received somewhat over $10M and that this money plus various other donations, is to be used for renovation and more acquisitions at the Israeli Art Museum.