I’ve never been one to avoid blowing my own horn, so here’s a bit of shameless self promotion.
Roughly 19 years ago, my wife Marie Jackson (Director of Aesthtic Interpretation), our friend Scott Wilson (Esteemed Curator) and I (Executive Director) decided to build a world famous cultural institution in the basement of our house. Eventually it moved out of our house and into the world. It took many years, but our creation has just been rightfully recognized by the powers-that-be.
The London Times just published a list of the 50 best art museums in the world. There were the usual suspects The Uffizi in Florence, The Prado in Madrid, MOMA in New York, the Louvre in Paris ….. and of course, at #50 The Museum of Bad Art in Boston.
— Jerry
Truly amazing! You beat out the MFA and Gardner Museums. I have been reading about MOBA for years, but had no idea it was your baby.
When I saw your illustration though, my first thought was that you were following George W. Bush’s example of bathroom self-portraiture! (Although it doesn’t really look like you.)
Sadly Julia I don’t have anywhere near the artistic talent to have created that pointillist masterpiece. Its called “Sunday on the Pot With George” and is one of the most popular paintings in the MOBA collection.
OK. Confession time. I HAD no idea that you were THAT Jerry Reilly, who was married to THAT Marie Jackson. You’re a legend. I may need to start calling you Mr. Reilly.
At last ! That’s much better.
George on the pot has always been one of my favorites. A great source of meditation. I also like Peter the Kitty and that handsome portrait of Mary Todd Lincoln. Suggest changing “Eileen” to “A young Margaret Thatcher after sucking down a liter of sherry wine.”
Wow Jerry!
Sincere congrats to you, your wife Marie, and Scott – well deserved!
My son and I enjoyed part of the permanent exhibit one day at BATV studios in Brookline. Very cool!
Very awesome Jerry. You are an internationally recognized bad art maven !
Jerry, who’s cooler than you?!
A Museum of Bad Art exhibition is traveling around Taiwan. Here’s a photo from the show that just closed in Taipei.
Here’s a gallery of 19 MOBA masterpieces courtesy of CBS This Morning
Here’s a letter sent to the Boston Globe today:
Upon reading the headline “Gardner 1st museum in N.E. to offer a virtual walk-through” in today’s Globe, I spit my morning coffee all over the front page.
As any student of local art history should now, the Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) pioneered the concept of a virtual art gallery nearly twenty years ago with The Virtual Museum of Bad Art CD-ROM. We’re certain that our colleagues at the Gardner Museum would be the first to admit that their impressive new virtual museum owes a debt to the technological trail-blazing of MOBA so many years ago.
In the time of Windows 3.1, floppy disks and AOL dial-up Internet, the MOBA Virtual Museum not only captured the entire MOBA art collection but took you behind the scenes to the offices, the gift shop, the rest rooms and all the other essential facilities of a modern art museum.
Despite its primitive 1995 technology, the Virtual Museum of Bad Art has withstood the test of time. Even today, by anyone’s standards MOBA’s Virtual Museum is still clearly bad.
In the words of one reviewer (Computer Currents) in 1995 – “a complete waste of plastic”
Jerry Reilly
Executive Director Emeritus
Museum of Bad Art
Like.
and here’s Mr Smee’s gracious response:
Thank you Jerry. I feel duly humbled.
I’m a big fan of MOBA.
best wishes,
Sebastian
But will they post a correction?
🙂
The Boston Globe was magnanimous enough to print the letter on today’s editorial page, along with a lovely MOBA painting called “Two Trees In Love”
I am glad you were able to bring Mr.Smee to the light,one decorated with a Rose colored scarf of course.
So happy they used a painting of trees. But it’s way too nice to be in MOBA!
Even better, the Globe printed the letter in their on-line version under the headline “Gardner Museum follows in the footsteps of the greats”.
That’s a bit more respectful 😉