Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Museums

While I’m Away, News In the NYT Museums Section

Today’s New York Times includes the annual special section on museums. Since I am away, I haven’t seen it. But I have two articles in the section that you may be interested in.

The first is on museums that have special endowments for making acquisitions. I did a survey, while some museums, like the Metropolitan, have substantial funds, many have virtually none. I’ll have more to say on this topic another time, but meantime here’s a link to the article, “How an Acquisition Fund Burnishes Reputations.” There’s an omission in the chart that I was unable to catch before the section went to press — the Albright-Knox Art Gallery has an $86 million acquisitions fund, which would make it #9, ahead of the Art Institute of Chicago. (There’s a correction in the paper somewhere…) UPDATE: The Carnegie Museum of Art tells me its acquisitions endowment is $41 million, so it too would have made the list. (Please keep in mind that there’s no source for this info — I canvassed all the museums that seemed likely suspects and I asked outside sources to review the list for potential omissions. This is why I want the Association of Art Museum Directors to gather such information from members.)

I also wrote about the Terra Foundation, which is having more influence spreading the gospel of American art around the world than Terra’s original idea, of museums, ever would have. “Spreading American Art Beyond Its Borders” tells the story, and I also have outtakes from that reporting that I’ll share when I return to my home and notes.

Maastricht, btw, is living up to expectations. More on that soon, too.

 

 

How Yves Saint Laurent Got To Travel To Denver

Exhibitions happen in all sorts of ways, even quite by accident. Surprisingly, that’s how the big spring show — a restrospective of the works of Yves Saint Laurent — at the Denver Art Museum came about.

The exhibition, which begins on Mar. 25, will display more than 200 haute couture outfits by Saint Laurent, drawn from his 40-year careers. Curated by Florence Müller, with the cooperation of the Fondation Pierre Bergè-Yves Saint Laurent, it was first shown at the Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, in 2010. In the city of light on a visit, Christophe Heinrich, DAM’s director, decided to have a look-see. Eying the long line, he tried to use his director’s pass to avoid the wait. Petit Palais officials refused him, and sent him to the back. Though there was a two-and-a-half hour wait, Heinrich pulled out his smart phone, handled his emails and remained patient.

As he told me on a recent visit to New York, he loved the show, and decided to inquire about bringing it to Denver. At the time, the organizers had no plans to travel it to the U.S. When Heinrich asked, they offered to send a smaller version. He perservered.  Long negotiations about content (he wanted everything; the organizers didn’t want to send all of it) and cost ensued. In the end, the DAM got the whole show — for how much, I do not know.

I am not always big on fashion exhibitions, but Saint Laurent passes muster, in my book. In the course of his career, he made  made gorgeous and innovative creations that have given the exhibition shape.  One section, for example, deals with the freedom he brought to women’s clothing, while another explores his “1971 Scandal Collection,” inspired by the 1940s and a France under occupation. There will be his Mondrian dresses, his smoking jacket collection, his evening gowns from their glory days, and more. Details are here.

DAM is issuing timed-tickets, at $22 for general adult admission (which is normally $10 for Colorado residents and $13 for others) for this exhibit. It’s already had publicity, with the Denver Post calling it “the biggest fashion show to hit Denver — perhaps ever,” in this Mar. 9 article in the Denver Post.

It’s important for museums like Denver, where not a lot of tourists go to see art, to keep up momentum, to get people excited and try to make visiting the museum a habit. Last year, Marvelous Mud/Summer of Clay drew a lot of visitors. Now YSL and for the fall, the DAM is organizing Becoming van Gogh.  All three are exclusive to Denver, which — while not always my choice — helps that museum.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Denver Art Museum

Barnes Friends Slapped With Big Fee

I guess Judge Stanley Ott, of the Montgomery County (Pa.) Orphans Court, doesn’t like to be challenged. Last week, he slapped the Friends of the Barnes Foundation with a $25,000 sanction for having the audacity to petition to have their case re-heard, based on what they said was new evidence.

This reaffirms his previous sentiments toward the group and its challenges.

If you recall, the Friends — who oppose the move of the Barnes to downtown Philadelphia from Lower Merion –  engaged Attorney Samuel C. Stretton to take their case back to the court, which had ruled against them. Ott had already declared that the group has no legal standing.

Stretton, who argued in Objections to the Sanctions and in Court on February 2, says that there is no legal basis for sanctions.  He stressed, the press release says, that “the objections that the Friends’ Petition brought new information and serious legal issues to the Court’s attention concerning the role of the then-Pennsylvania Attorney General in the case.”

The Friends think they are being persecuted. Judge Ott’s assessment only “reinforces the impression that those responsible for moving the Barnes art collection to Philadelphia will stop at nothing to cloak the shady facts behind the move,” says  Jenkintown resident Suzanne Hunter, a member. Steering Committee member Evelyn Yaari, of Bala Cynwyd, called the fine “typical” of the past actions of the court and the proponents of the move.

It’s pretty hard to disagree with them. The fine does seem heavy-handed.

The press release is here, and Ott’s order is here.

Meantime, the new Barnes is set to open on May 19.

 

Sister Museums? The Whitney Links Up With Grand Rapids

This was announced last week, when my attention was elsewhere, but I want to note it anyway. The Whitney Museum of American Art* has forged a three-year agreement to lend works from its permanent collection to the Grand Rapids Art Museum. As a result, people in western Michigan will be able to see three exhibitions organized by the Whitney:

Robert Rauschenberg: Synapsis Shuffle: Currently on loan from the Whitney to complement the current Robert Rauschenberg exhibition, officially opens March 3 and remains on view through May 20, 2012.

Real/Surreal: A look at the connection between these two movements of the 20th century in the U.S., the exhibition includes eighty paintings, drawings, photographs, and prints made in the years before, during, and immediately after the Second World War by such artists as Paul Cadmus, Federico Castellón, Ralston Crawford, Mabel Dwight, Jared French, Louis Guglielmi, Edward Hopper, Man Ray, Kay Sage, George Tooker, Grant Wood, and Andrew Wyeth. On view from October 19, 2012 through January 13, 2013.

Legacy: The Emily Fisher Landau Collection: This collection, which has been given to the Whitney, consists mostly of post-late 1960s works, “with depth in Pop Art, Minimalism, conceptualism, and political and social dialogue” by artists such as Richard Artschwager, John Baldessari, Nan Goldin, Felix Gonzales-Torres, Jenny Holzer, Jasper Johns, Glenn Ligon, Agnes Martin, Ed Ruscha, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol and David Wojnarowicz. On view January 31 – April 27, 2014.

The deal is the outgrowth of a shared trustee, Pamella DeVos, who helped arrange the loan of Rauschenbergs. The conversation developed, the idea grew and this was the result. The latter two exhibits were on view at the Whitney during the past two years, so it makes sense to use that curatorial work in another place — and earn exhibition fees. It makes sense, too, for Michiganders to be exposed to art they’d normally have to travel to see.

Some people oppose these arrangements, charging that museums are monetizing their collections, but — done well, without endangering the art — I’ve always favored them. Here’s a link to an article I wrote for The New York Times in 2010 on the subject.

In this era of penny-pinching, as I review advance schedules, I see many exhibitions on view in one venue only.  I wish more were traveling — singly or in a partnership. 

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Robert Rauschenberg blog

*I consult to a foundation that supports the Whitney

The Curator, The Portrait, The Blogger And The Donor

Here’s a tall tale (or rather a shaggy dog story) about the power of blogs — even for finding “lost” works of art and courting donors.

It involves the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia, which for a long time has owned a portrait of Benjamin Gratz (below) painted by Thomas Sully in 1831, but not the partner picture, a portrait of his wife, Maria. When the Rosenbach acquired Benjamin’s portrait in 1970, a bequest of  Benjamin’s granddaughter, there was no sign of the companion painting.

But the Rosenbach owns four other Gratz family portraits, including a Sully painting of philanthropist, social activist and Jewish leader Rebecca Gratz, and the enterprising curator there, Judith Guston, wondered where the Maria portrait was. Last June, she decided to ask a blogger – Susan Sklaroff, who writes at Rebecca Gratz & 19th-Century America to write a post about the missing painting. Sklaroff asked readers to check their attics, friends’ homes and local museums for traces of Maria. A press release continues the story:

Three weeks later, Guston got a call from Atlanta, Georgia. Maria Gratz Roberts, a great-great-great-granddaughter of Benjamin and Maria, had the original Sully portrait [right] in her parlor. Although Roberts had lived with the painting throughout her life, she believed Benjamin and Maria’s portraits should be reunited. Roberts donated to the Rosenbach the Sully portrait of Maria, a pastel copy (which she also owned) and a chair that Benjamin had brought from Pennsylvania.

So ends the tale with a happy ending that illustrates, as if we needed it, the power of the internet. Except — there never would have been such a blog had not Sklaroff been a docent at the Rosenbach. As she tells the tale:

I discovered Rebecca Gratz when I became a docent at the Rosenbach Museum & Library which has a lovely portrait of her by Thomas Sully. To learn more, I began to read the hundreds of Gratz family letters which survive in libraries around the country and found wonderful stories about Rebecca as well as information about customs, events and technological changes of her time. I cannot fit all this material into the talks I give on Rebecca nor into my proposed book. This blog makes it accessible to those who are interested in Rebecca Gratz and antebellum America.

So it’s the power of people, and their interests, too.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Rosenbach