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Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

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Did Worcester Museum’s “Rethinking” Work? A FollowUp

More than a year has passed since I visited the Worcester Art Museum and wrote Museum, Remodeled and Rethought for the Wall Street Journal, so I thought I would check in with the director, Matthias Waschek, to see what had happened since then. WAM in many ways might be a model for other art museums, especially those in cities that do not attract many tourists.

matthias-waschek-directorBrief recap: Waschek had rehung the Old Masters galleries there, medallion-style, to get people to visit the museum (a pitiful 31,435 people had visited the galleries in FY 2011, though total attendance was 78,012) and to look more carefully; had drawn new donors (including support for free admission in August); was attempting to increase his curatorial staff to six from two; and was integrating the Higgins Armory Museum into WAM. More details at that link above.

Waschek is aiming to get attendance to 200,000 by 2020, with help from the Higgins merger: In the last few years (except its final year, when people knew it was closing), the Higgins received about 32,000 to 33,000 visitors a year.

What has happened? In FY 2012 and FY 2013, WAM’s total attendance was 91,000-92,000.

Here’s what it looked like month by month in the galleries, 2014 over 2013–not including people who attend programs that take place outside the galleries, like studio classes.

2013 2014
March 5,498 6,201
April 2,826 6,025
May 2,858 4,688
June 3,345 3,960
July 5,558 3,879
August 6,530 11,198
September 3,094 2,922
October 2,326 2,943
November 3,812 4,649

 

April 2014 is big because that’s when Knights! (an installation of mostly armor that it acquired in the Higgins deal) opened; August is big because that is when the museum is free.  July 2013 was also free, but not July 2014.

So on the whole, I’d say that attendance is moving in the right direction, but that the 2020 goal remains a stretch.

Waschek has a plan, though. The museum has done a zip code analysis of visitors since Knights! opened and, he said, “the data show us the way forward.” It turns out that about 45% of visitors came from central Massachusetts, including Middlesex and Norfolk counties between Worcester and Boston, and now that area is his target audience–not just the city of Worcester. That means the museum will do more outreach to schools in those counties, find trustees from those counties, etc.

Overall membership is also up and Waschek says “We will be in a great place (and break out the champagne) when we reach 5,000 members.”

FY12   3,148 Active Members

FY13   3,235 Active Members

FY14   3,564 Active Members

Waschek adds: “We aim not only to grow the total membership, but also their geographic distribution – pulling from the broader region in addition to Worcester and the surrounding towns.”

On the curatorial front, WAM now has four curators: Jon Seydl is chief curator and in charge of European art, there’s an armor curator and a works on paper curator, and Waschek just hired Elizabeth Athens, who will arrive on March 16, as Assistant Curator of American Art. A PhD candidate at Yale, she has held positions at the Yale Center for British Art, the Williams College Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum. He is searching for an Asian art curator and the contemporary art curatorial position will soon be open.

On the excitement front, Waschek and his staff will be reinstalling other parts of the permanent collection, are keeping [reMastered] fresh with borrowed works and Knights! fresh with rotations and contemporary auxiliary shows (e.g. a show on child soldiers), are designing a museum guide for families, and are offering free nude drawing classes in the galleries, among other things.

Like so many other directors, Waschek is trying a lot of new things, and so far, it seems from here, he has mostly avoided the gimmicks that are aimed at getting people in the door but have little to do with art. I like his emphasis on attendance in the galleries, not just in the museum.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of WAM 

 

Who Will Run the National Gallery? The Odds-On Favorite…UPDATED

The National Gallery in London was expected to announce a replacement for Nicholas Penny, the director, before Christmas, and I understand that the person has been chosen; the name must now simply go through political channels, with approval by Prime Minister David Cameron, before it can be announced.

GFinaldiOne thing is for sure, though: it’s not going to be Luke Syson, the curator of European sculpture and decorative arts at the Metropolitan Museum, who openly sought the job and, some sources tell me, thought he had it in the bag, thanks to his friendship with a trustee or two. Some weeks ago, according to several sources, Syson took himself out of the running. His interview apparently did not go well, for one thing, and I’ve heard that when he realized that he had no chance to get the job, he decided to withdraw and stay in New York, rather than return to the NG, where he had been Curator of Italian Paintings before 1500 and Head of Research. (Syson has been at the Met for two full years, and something of a disappointment to the many who expected him to produce a exhibit with some of the excitement of his last at the NG, Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan.)

So who will it be? There are two finalists*, Gabriele Finaldi, deputy director of the Prado in Madrid (despite the title, the job is essentially the director), and Taco Dibbits, director of collections at the Rijksmuseum. If Ladbrokes offered odds on this contest, Finaldi would pay less than Dibbits. That’s what I am hearing, again from numerous sources.

Aside from having spent 10 years at the NG as a curator, Finaldi has an edge because of his fabulous track record at the Prado. He was educated in the U.K. (Ph.D. from the Courtauld), knows the collection well, was seriously considered last time (when Penny got the job), and has many excellent exhibitions to his credit.

Dibbits also has a U.K. doctorate, from Cambridge, but he worked at Christie’s before joining the Rijksmuseum in 2002. There, he helped develop plans and layouts for the new Rijksmuseum, and he guided the purchase last month of the Adrien de Vries Bacchic Figure Supporting the Globe for $27.9 million at Christie’s.

Two other candidates, Emilie Gordenker, director of the Mauritshuis, and Axel Ruger, director of the van Gogh Museum, are no longer in the running, I’m told. Ruger, however, is a contender at a different museum, more about which in the future.

A caveat to all of this: I don’t have a direct line to Cameron or the NG trustees, but when one hears the same things from several sources who are not in the same circles you can usually assume that what you are hearing is close to the truth, if not the truth itself.

*UPDATE, 1/5: When I wrote this yesterday, I left out John Leighton, director of the Scottish National Galleries, who was definitely considered for the job, but–according to more than one source–decided that he would rather stay in Edinburgh. Now, I hear that he remains in contention.

This could be true for one good reason: I had heard that NG trustees felt that both Finaldi and Dibbits had flaws; it is conceivable that they chose Leighton as a compromise.

Retraction! Someone Goofed…

Hours after I published the announcement, drawn from a press release issued around 1:45 today by the Art Institute of Chicago, that the museum had hired Rebecca Long from the Indianapolis Museum of Art, another press release arrived from AIC. It said that it “kindly asks that that you refrain from utilizing the Institute’s press release sent on Monday, December 22 at approximately [12:45 pm CST].”

art-institute-chicagoBut it was too late. I was out, not near my computer when the second email arrived, and only now can I address the situation.

Here is the explanation AIC gave:

The release contained incomplete information and the Institute will be issuing an updated release in the coming days.

So please take my previous post with a grain of salt–something in it may be inaccurate. But AIC did not seem to say that the appointment was entirely wrong. I wait to see what the real announcement is, but I may be away from my computer if it arrives over the Christmas holidays, and unable to update you.

 

Another Defection From Indianapolis

The hard-hit Indianapolis Museum of Art lost another curator: Rebecca Long, currently Associate Curator of European Painting and Sculpture before 1800 at IMA, is moving to the Art Institute of Chicago. There, she will be the Associate Curator in the Department of Medieval to Modern European Painting and Sculpture, responsible for Italian and Spanish painting and sculpture before 1750.

RebeccaLong9-16-13Long will join AIC on Feb. 27, 2015.

After IMA’s other losses, this is a blow. There, she “spearheaded work on the forthcoming catalogue of the museum’s Clowes Collection, offering the first scholarly and technical analysis of that important collection of masterworks of the Italian, Spanish, Netherlandish and German schools.”

Long’s background, per the AIC:

A native of Pennsylvania, Long has held research fellowships at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti, Florence, where she conducted research on 16th century Italian paintings in the IMA collection. Additional research she’s done has illuminated the work of itinerant artists, patronage in Italy and Spain as well as international markets for art of the early modern period. She has a B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh, with concentrations in art history and business administration, and a master’s degree from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, where she is currently pursuing a Ph.D. Her dissertation focuses on the role of Italian art and artists at the Spanish court in the early 17th century.

IMA hired Long in 2008.

 

Another Director’s Job Opens Up

While you were holiday shopping (maybe) on Friday, news broke that Susan L. Talbott will retire as director and C.E.O. of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. There’s no sign that anything is amiss, but up in Hartford–which has dismisssed or lost a few directors in recent years because of board relations and expectations–you never know.

SusanTalbotAnd she did say. “Looking ahead, I am eager to explore a different chapter in my life and career”–which isn’t quite “leaving to spend more time with my family,” but….

Talbott took over the museum in 2008 and plans to leave next fall, after a $33 million renovation, which upgraded and expanded the museum’s galleries, reopen.

Here’s how the museum recapped her career there:

Taking charge of a museum that needed repair and modernization, Talbott first tackled deferred maintenance and restoration of the Wadsworth Atheneum’s historic buildings…Connecticut awarded the Wadsworth Atheneum the remaining funds needed to complete its $33 million renovation, increasing public gallery space by more than 25% without any new construction. [She]…significantly increased efficiencies via the installation of a proprietary power plant and new HVAC system, as well as a state-of-the-art storage facility….Talbott also built a strong, competent staff of curatorial and administrative professionals, strengthening the core of personnel charged with continuing forward momentum into the future.

Talbott also took steps early in her tenure to increase and diversify the visitor pool while working to retain the museum’s core supporters, deepening the museum’s roots and broadening its reach into the local community….

Well, perhaps. But I’ve been disappointed by the exhibition schedule there, which I found somewhat mediocre –e.g., the coming show focusing on Coney Island–given the Atheneum’s illustrious history.

On the other hand, several acquisitions were good, such as: “…a generous gift from her friend and internationally renowned artist Richard Tuttle, titled, “Formal Narration”; the 2014 purchase of Artemisia Gentileschi’s masterpiece, “Self-Portrait as a Lute Player,” which will be unveiled to the public for the first time in 2015; a major bequest of Arts and Crafts furniture and decorative art by collector Stephen Gray; and purchases of important works by Georgia O’Keeffe, Martin Puryear, Sean Scully, Kiki Smith and Kara Walker.”

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Wadsworth Atheneum