Shine a Light

By Steve Loughman, Preparator

As we finished our May installations I was thinking about how important lighting is to all of the shows that we put on here at Fenimore Art Museum. While lighting Prendergast to Pollock: American Modernism from the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute which has just opened here at the museum, many people stopped to watch me up in the lift since the gallery was open to the public as we were finishing.

And here are before and after pictures of the lighting in our other new exhibit, A Window Into Edward Hopper, which really shows of how much of a change the right lighting brings to a show.

Sprint to the Finish Line

By Chris Rossi, Associate Curator of Exhibitions

This has been a busy season for the curatorial department. The Fenimore Art Museum opened on April 1 with some wonderful new offerings. Hard to believe it is already time to change out some of these exhibits. A Window Into Edward Hopper and Prendergast to Pollock: American Modernism from the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute both open Memorial Day weekend. We have been hard at work with the help of our fantastic maintenance crew, shuffling walls, laying out galleries, painting, and designing new graphics for the exhibits.

All of this activity is mirrored across the street at The Farmers’ Museum where we are simultaneously preparing New York’s Good Eats: Our Fabulous Foods for opening the same weekend. One of the joys of working for both The Farmers’ Museum and the Fenimore Art Museum is the diversity of the objects I connect with. I can go from hanging an Edward Hopper painting to filling a case with Shredded Wheat artifacts in the space of an hour. It makes for an interesting day, which helps make lighter work of a busy installation schedule.

Assorted objects for New York’s Good Eats. Wings anyone?

Wall of graphic samples in preparation for production

Initial layout for Prendergast to Pollock

The Great Hall gallery being painted by our wonderful painters, Pete and Chiba, in preparation for Prendergast to Pollock

Art Meets Opera

Chris Rossi, Associate Curator of Exhibitions

This summer will see an exciting collaboration between Opera and Art. Glimmerglass Festival, here in Cooperstown, will present Later the same Evening. This 2007 contemporary opera was the result of a joint project of the National Gallery of Art, the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, and the University of Maryland School of Music. The opera is inspired by 5 of Edward Hopper's paintings - Room in New York (1932), Hotel Window (1955), Hotel Room (1931), Two on the Aisle (1927), and Automat (1927). It brings the paintings to life and eventually intertwines them on a single night in New York City in 1932.

Characters from five Edward Hopper paintings mingle in the opera “Later the Same Evening” at Manhattan School of Music. The New York Times, online edition, 12/16/08

One of the arias, “Out my One Window,” serves as the inspiration for the title of Fenimore Art Museum’s upcoming Edward Hopper Exhibition, A Window Into Edward Hopper, opening May 28. The exhibition will feature early watercolors, etchings, drawings and oil paintings. These works share the same the sensibility and style that Hopper is known for - an exploration of solitude and the desire for connection.

East Side Interior, 1922

Etching by Edward Hopper, on loan from the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, New York