Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Museums

Museum-Going: Getting Even More Virtual

Last fall, I made a note to myself about an app made for the landmark exhibition at Houghton Hall in England, country home of Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745), which brought back about 60 paintings from the Hermitage and elsewhere — they’d been sold, but were reunited for the first time in more than 200 years. The full story is here.

789071edbf77686eeb8062dd50a61d50The app is relevant again because soon the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, will open a national tour here of  Houghton Hall: Portrait of an English Country House — it’s not the same as the real thing, but this exhibit:

…assembles more than 100 objects in settings that combine paintings, porcelain, sculpture, costume, metalwork, and furniture to evoke the stunning rooms at Houghton Hall. Among the highlights are great family portraits by William Hogarth, Joshua Reynolds, and John Singer Sargent; several dozen pieces of Sèvres porcelain; rare R. J. & S. Garrard silver objects; and unique furniture by William Kent. Following the Houston presentation, the exhibition travels to cities including San Francisco and Nashville.

So now those who get to Houston for that, and anyone, really, can sample the app, made by Wide Eyed Vision, and see how they compare. There’s a scene from the app here.

Tudor Jenkins, who founded Wide Eyed Vision in 2007, was interviewed about the app by Culture24, and said “…that, thanks to lighting and high quality shoot, his app “sometimes makes it easier to see artefacts than actually in the room.” Culture24 concluded:

This is borne out by my own explorations on an iPad. The app is engrossing, immersive and loaded up with curatorial info. You could spend as long here as you might do in the Hall itself. The playability of Jenkins’ product reflects his belief that the technical side, “should be unnoticeable and an app should reflect the quality of the exhibit and the exhibition.”

Later, the piece said that “Clearly app consumers are paying for a keepsake as well as a guide. But Jenkins is quick to point out that apps like his are only ever complements to an exhibition catalogue. ‘They offer a different functionality; the catalogue will be consumed in different ways.’ ” I’m glad he said that, and wodner if he would add they are also only complements to visiting the real thing (for those who can).

The app is free in the Apple store, though when I checked today, there were no product reviews. It does not seem there were many takers, at least in the U.K. Let’s see if Americans take it up.

My own feeling is that I don’t think seeing this on an iPhone is much use, though perhaps the larger-screen iPad is.

Photo Credit: The Stone Hall at HH, courtesy of MFAH

 

 

All-in-All, A Good Plan at the Frick

In a place like Manhattan, I almost never want to see green space disappear. And that will be one upshot of the Frick Collection’s proposed expansion, which was announced this morning in a press release. To gain 42,000 square feet — which “will house more gallery space, an expanded entrance hall, additional space for the Frick’s world-renowned art reference library, new classrooms, a 220-seat auditorium, expanded administrative space, and updated conservation laboratories, as well as a rooftop garden terrace for museum visitors — the Frick* has to obliterate the gated garden to the right of its entrance on East 70th St. It’s generally not open to the public, but the Frick does use it for entertaining in the warms months.

Frick-Expansion-01ACI think the Frick does need more space, and I would love to see some of the mansion’s second floor open to the public, which it would be in this plan. Back in 2009, I daydreamed here about the Frick being given the adjacent townhouse, then owned by Aby Rosen, that once was home to the late Salander-O’Reilly Gallery. Well, that didn’t happen.

Frick director Ian Wardropper and trustees have hired Davis Brody Bond as the architect, and their plan seems sensitive to history. They have an excellent example two blocks away — when Ralph Lauren wanted to expand his story on East 72nd at Madison, he bought the lot across the street and hired Weddle Gilmore Architects to build it. Christopher Gray, who writes a weekly column on New York City’s architecture called Streetscapes, wrote:

Weddle Gilmore Architects has produced an assured and demure neo-Classic design, French in character. At the time of proposal it was challenged by some preservationists as a fake, but as it stands, it is magnificent.

I agree; it fits the neighborhood well, and the David Brody Bond design looks good too — as does the plan for using the expanded space (detailed in the release, as well as in this article in The New York Times).

So I wish the Frick well in its fundraising and I hope the community board and the landmarks commission approve.

As for the green space, the Frick retains its front yard as is. And Central Park, fortunately, is right across the street.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Davis Brody Bond

*I consult to a foundation that supports the Frick

 

The Crocker’s Big Secret: A Good News Story

There’s been another find in storage, though this time it’s not a forgotten work of art. Rather, thanks to the efforts of John Caswell, its registrar, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento now knows it played a positive role in a negative time of American history.

Caswell was apparently sorting through old museums records recently when he came upon contracts between the museum and Japanese-Americans who were interned during World War II — they provided for the museum to store art owned by those who were sent to internment camps.

According to the Capital Public Radio station, the Crocker “stored hundreds of art and artifacts for Japanese artists and their families … to ensure the safekeeping of art and family possessions.”

Caswell told the station:

I noticed that in red at the top of these pages were names written and they were all Japanese names. As soon as I pulled one and read that first statement in there, it was a real, to put it politely, an ‘oh my God moment’ that I said by myself in the storeroom.

Caswell reads what was written in a typical contract: “It says that ‘it is agreed between the party of the first part and the E.B. Crocker Art Gallery that the above listed items are accepted for storage without charge during the conditions arising from the war between Japan and the United States, more particularly the enforced removal of the Japanese from the Sacramento area.'”

The museum later returned the art works to their owners or representative after the camps were closed, the records show. Here’s a look at one of them:

Crocker-WWI contract

 

The Other Frick Names New Director

Today, the Frick Art & Historical Center in Pittsburgh announced the successor to Bill Bodine, who headed that museum since 2002. It’s Robin Nicholson, currently Deputy Director for Art & Education at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, a post he took in 2010.

Robin NicholsonThe choice is interesting for a couple reasons. First, it’s not too often that a director is chosen from the education department, although — to give the complete picture — Nicholson was Deputy Director for Exhibitions, from 2006 to 2010, at the VMFA. Then, there’s his “corporate” experience — he previously was Curator of Collections and Exhibitions for the Drambuit Liqueur Co. in Scotland, a post he held for 14 years. According to his Linked In profile:

As curator of the Drambuie Collection, Nicholson established one of the most important collections of Scottish and Jacobite art in the country. A catalogue of the collection was published in 1995 and Nicholson authored a scholarly study of the portraiture of Prince Charles Edward Stuart in 2002. The collection toured extensively in the UK and USA between 1995 and 2005. In 2006 the Jacobite collection was transferred on long-term loan to the National Trust for Scotland and the National Galleries of Scotland. In the same year the Scottish collection was deaccessioned at auction through Lyon and Turnbull of Edinburgh/ Freemans of Philadelphia and achieved eleven world records.

And before that, Nicholson was gallery manager for The Fine Art Society’s Scottish branch. This is not your typical route to the top of a museum. He’s published a handful of articles and the book “Bonnie Prince Charles and the Making of a Myth: A Study in Portraiture, 1720-1892.”

Nicholson does follow one pattern: though he has been at VMFA for a while, he’s foreign — Scottish, born in Edinburgh. He graduated from Queen’s University in Ontario and earned an MA degree in Art history at the University of Cambridge, England.

You can see more about him in the Frick’s press release. He takes the job in September.

As for the other Frick, the one in New York, just a side note: yesterday I visited to see Parmigianino ‘s Schiava Turca: the painting is far more beautiful in person than photos show. Go see her. She is beguiling, and the installation, among four male portraits, is terrific. It does beg a question, though: three of the four, two Titians and a Bronzino, are owned by the Frick. What private collector owns the other — a male portrait by Parmigianino? (Email me privately; I can keep a secret.)

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Frick Art & Historical Center

Malaga: A Different Version of Bilbao?

Here’s another mayor I like, one who understands the power art: Francisco de la Torre, of Malaga, Spain. He just signed an agreement with Russia, which will open a branch of the State Russian Museum in his city in the south of Spain. It’s a 10-year pact through which the Russian museum will lend about 100 works from its collection, plus about 60 works of art in special exhibitions, to a space in a former tobacco factory, dating to the 1920s, that also contains an automobile museum (pictured).  The Russian museum, located in St. Petersburg, promised to send a range of art, from 15th-century icons to 20th-century paintings, including Cubist, Constructivist and Socialist Realist ones. 

automuseum-malagaThis deal comes on on the heels of one de la Torre sealed last year with the Centre Pompidou. It will open a satellite in Malaga next year in a space on the city’s waterfront.

I learned of the new Russian deal from reports published both in The Art Newspaper and also in EuroWeeklyNews. “Over the last few years, Malaga has spent millions on its cultural sector, which is a major tourism draw,” EuroWeekly News said. 

Malaga is of course where Picasso was born, and tourists can visit his birthplace/museum, the Picasso Museum-Malaga, the Museo Carmen Thyssen, the Contemporary Arts Center and many other arts related venues. Trip Advisor puts it as the #6 destination in Spain, saying “Today, art is everywhere– you can experience exhibits dedicated to glass and crystal, classic cars, contemporary installations, and, of course, the works of Picasso…”

Though I am sometimes skeptical of museum satellites, this one seems good both for Russia and Malaga, not to mention art and art-lovers.