Visiting the Clifford Still Museum

I finally had a chance to visit the Clifford Still Museum in Denver and liked it even more than I thought I might from the pictures. I liked:

• The paintings, especially the early abstractions. Seeing these in any kind of reproduction does not do them justice.
• The serenity of the simple, rectangular building nestling into the ground literally in the shadow of the Libeskind addition to the Denver Art Museum. (The looming will be less of an issue as the areas near the museum are redeveloped and provide more of a context for the building.) 
• The lack of a store and cafe, de rigueur for museums these days, but prohibited in this museum by a provision of Still's will.
• The perforated screens on the ceilings. According to the museum these are "a highly sophisticated systems of skylights, which bring selective spectrums of light into the building, which then pass through a cast-in-place concrete 'screen' that functions as a floating ceiling in the galleries." This system has the added bonus of creating a background texture for the ceiling that swallows up the often-intrusive light fixtures.
• The texture of the exterior concrete. "Fins" of a sort stick out as much as two inches from the surface and soften the stark lines of the building. These are oddly lovely.
• The openings between the galleries and between the floors which draw you up and down, in and around.

Overall, it worked very well as a building and as a place for Still's paintings. Well worth a visit for the paintings and the building.