{"id":2440,"date":"2020-01-14T14:46:47","date_gmt":"2020-01-14T21:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/?p=2440"},"modified":"2020-01-14T14:46:47","modified_gmt":"2020-01-14T21:46:47","slug":"park-west-gallery-in-southfield-is-a-day-trip-into-the-luxury-art-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/travel\/2440\/park-west-gallery-in-southfield-is-a-day-trip-into-the-luxury-art-world","title":{"rendered":"Park West Gallery in Southfield is a Day Trip into the Luxury Art World"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mona<\/a>

Mona Lisa smiles at the lines of casual art tourists corralled in the Louvre
Photo by: Harrison Shiels<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The price of some masterful works of art may be out of this world, but enjoying and collecting art is not rocket science, thanks to an art lover who first spent part of his career working on NASA\u2019s Apollo moon landing program. Albert Scaglione left the space race and went on to found Park West Gallery in Southfield, Michigan in 1969. Park West has since gone into orbit as the world\u2019s largest dealer of art. More than 2-million customers have purchased hundreds of millions of dollars worth of masterpieces and contemporary creations from the 63,000 square-foot gallery and museum on Northwestern Hwy which is open for free public and educational visits.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur museum is amazing. We have the world\u2019s largest collection of ceramics on display. We\u2019re international so we show Picasso but also some great Detroit artists such as Dominic Pangborn, Tim Yanke and Marcus Glenn,\u201d said Scaglione, 80. His Park West Foundation once sponsored a single-painting exhibition at the\u00a0Detroit Institute of Arts featuring \u201c\u2019Rounded Flower Bed,\u2019\u201d by Claude Monet. One of the impressionist\u2019s \u201cHaystacks\u201d paintings recently sold for $110-million. \u201cIt\u2019s not a particularly surprising price because Monet\u2019s paintings are rare\u2026but it is heavy money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scaglione traveled to France to visit the home of Monet and his gardens in Giverny. \u201cMonet\u2019s paintings are full of color and feeling and romance. Art was changing in his time and breaking from the rigid form and Renaissance structure of works like Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s \u201cThe Last Supper\u201d and \u201cMona Lisa.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

While dealing with the intrigue of Russian oligarchs and Arabian sheiks, Scaglione has also enjoyed many trips to the world\u2019s most esteemed art museum \u2013 the Louvre, in Paris, where paintings worth as much as $450-million and some priceless, are displayed, including the \u201cMona Lisa.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c10 million people a year go to the Louvre and sometimes 30,000 per day wait half-an-hour through a queue system to view the \u2018Mona Lisa.\u2019 It\u2019s not a large painting. It\u2019s tiny. Sometimes people see it and say, \u2018Wow is they what they\u2019re talking about?\u2019\u201d But it\u2019s the real deal and well worth the experience,\u201d said Scaglione. \u201cI have had the joy in my life of having a lot of time on these eyes looking at her face-to-face. It is kind of a shocking experience. You walk around looking at the other paintings and nothing ever looks like it again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scaglione described da Vinci as a businessman and a revolutionary genius who, 500 years ago, also drew parachutes and airplanes and tanks. \u201cI remember in Amsterdam when you could still buy a da Vinci drawing for thousands of dollars. You can\u2019t do that anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

When in Paris Scaglione said he stays at Hotel Le Bristol, a five-star property which opened in 1925 in the heart of the art district. The 188-room hotel served as the home of the American Embassy during WWII and has welcomed the likes of Princess Grace of Monaco with a swimming pool offering a view of the Basilica of Sacre-Coeur.<\/p>\n

Lovers of art may also enjoy the Le Meurice, the hotel in which the surrealist painter Salvador Dali spent a manic portion of his time each year. Le Meurice, in a dining room modeled after the Palace of Versailles, serves Michelin-starred meals in sight of the Louvre.<\/p>\n

Contact<\/em>\u00a0Travel Writer Michael Patrick Shiels at\u00a0MShiels@aol.com<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0His radio program may be heard weekdays at\u00a0MiBigShow.com<\/a>\u00a0or in Lansing on WJIM am 1240\u00a0from 9-noon. His newest book \u201cI Call Him Mr. President\u201d with George HW Bush is at\u00a0Amazon.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Park West Gallery in Southfield, Michigan has gone into orbit as the world\u2019s largest dealer of art. The 63,000 square-foot gallery and museum has the world\u2019s largest collection of ceramics on display and is open for free public and educational visits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":2438,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,976669,156393],"tags":[1044570,1044572,1044565],"class_list":["post-2440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel","category-art","category-detroit","tag-detroit","tag-art","tag-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/34\/2020\/01\/unnamed-e1578004652949.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2440"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2447,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2440\/revisions\/2447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}