Filmmaker Gus Van Sant First Saw the Mona Lisa When He Was 11. Sixty Years Later, She’s the Inspiration for His Paintings

Van Sant is showing his new paintings at Vito Schnabel's gallery in Switzerland.

In 1963, an 11-year-old Gus Van Sant traveled from Connecticut to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with his painter grandmother to see the Mona Lisa on its tour to New York. They waited outside the museum in the bitter cold, then faced the pushy crowds to glimpse the famously small painting, After taking that quick glance, he understood why some people say life’s more about the journey than the destination.

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