We'll miss you, Polly, but we welcome you, Eugenia

By Michelle Murdock, Curator of Exhibitions

They say good things don’t last, but the Girls Scouts also say, “Make new friends and keep the old.” Today we said goodbye to one of the paintings in John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Praise of Women, - Polly Barnard, or The Girl in White Muslin - but said hello to a new friend, Madame Errazuriz, or The Lady in Black.

Top and above: packing Polly

Eugenia Huici, was born in Chile and married the wealthy diplomat Jose Thomas Errazuriz, with whom she moved to Paris around 1880. Eugenia’s husband was an artist himself, and they shared many mutual friends with Sargent. She was known as an attractive and outgoing woman with impeccable taste who enjoyed socializing with her circle of friends, all qualities that appealed to Sargent. They became lifelong friends in Paris and later in London.

It is likely that Eugenia met Sargent while visiting Venice on her honeymoon. He painted her a number of times in the early 1880s, always in informal compositions like the one now on view. The portrait is an exceptionally engaging depiction of her, as her smile indicates a friendly familiarity with the viewer. Sargent’s striking contrast of the black in Eugenia’s evening dress with the reds in the upholstery and fan lend an air of elegance to the picture.

Installing Madame Errazuriz

Sometimes, things change fast in the Exhibitions world. One minute there’s a painting in a gallery, the next minute it’s swapped out for a different one. But that’s ok because we get to share with our visitors the old and the new and it makes for an organic, lively presentation. Polly will miss you but Madame Eugenia welcomes you!

Trains, Taxis and Trucks

By Stephen Loughman, Preparator

As Preparator, I often get asked to run the longer distance errands. I was recently asked if I would be interested in being a courier for the day. A courier travels with artwork as it comes from one institution to another to make sure everything goes smoothly. In this case I was traveling with artwork from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (below). So early in the morning I took to the train down from Albany to Penn Station. Once in the heart of Manhattan I took a cab over to the Met. My hope was to beat the truck there so that I could have a few moments to check out the museum, but once there I was whisked away to the work areas underground. It was a bustle of activity, people scurrying around in every direction. I met my truck drivers for the day and hopped in the passenger side of the box truck. Getting out of Manhattan was somewhat of a challenge, kind of nerve racking for someone who is not used to traffic, even on my short drive into work every morning. Once we escaped Manhattan, it was smooth sailing up the Thruway towards Albany. We all settled in for a three and a half hour drive stopping only to grab a quick bite to eat. I caught up on some reading, but was glad to reach the museum and get out and stretch! The artwork was brought in, and my truck driving friends were off to their next stop. All in all it was about a ten-hour day of travel. But it will be all worth it when we open the doors for John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Praise of Women here at the end of May.

Two Girls with Parasols, oil on canvas. Lent by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Francis Ormond, 1950 (50.130.13)

Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau), 1883-4, Oil on canvas. Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Francis Ormond and Miss Emily Sargent, 1931 (31.43.3)

Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau), 1883-4, Oil on canvas. Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Charles and Anita Blatt Gift, John Wilmerding Gift and Rogers Fund, 1970 (1970.47)

John Singer Sargent - one crate at a time

By Christine Olsen, Registrar

Each spring you can find the curatorial department at the Fenimore Art Museum working hard to install our blockbuster show; this year the show we are excited to share is John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Praise of Women which opens on May 29^th. As you may recall from my previous blogs as registrar here at the FAM, every incoming exhibition loan must have loan agreements signed, insurance coverage in place, and packing and shipping scheduled. I have been working diligently for the last 3-4 months to get loans in place from 18 different lenders – some as far away as California, Colorado and Kansas! The shipping and installation schedules always make for a hectic few weeks, but I look forward to receiving and opening each and every crate to see the works in person for the first time; photographs just never do paintings justice, and I must say that this is especially the case with this show!

As a crate arrives, we let it acclimate for 24 hours; after that we unpack the painting and I do a condition report right away to make sure nothing has changed during transit. Tracking numbers for all of the paintings ensure that they are fully documented in the database for quick reference by myself and my colleagues; I record everything about the loan in the database including information that will be helpful when it is time to return the loan such as shipping requirements, courier needs, crate sizes, and packing images. It is amazing how blurry one’s memory is about such details, especially after 9 months!

With each new exhibition season I like to think that I have learned some tricks of the trade that make my job easier, more efficient and more FUN! So far, this exhibition has been a joy to work on and I am eager to see it all come together for our opening on May 29^th! We hope to see you then… or before the show closes on December 31^st!

Spring has sprung!

By Chris Rossi, Associate Curator of Exhibitions

Spring in Cooperstown sounds pretty good. Not a bad place to be as the tulips magically appear out on our terrace and the ice lets out on the Lake. It’s past our April 1 opening date and we have already had 80-degree weather followed by flurries today. Such are the vagaries of spring in Central New York.

More constant than the weather is the exhibit schedule here at the Fenimore Art Museum. Yes, our exhibits Empire Waists, Bustles and Lace: A Century of New York Fashion and In Our Time: The World As Seen By Magnum Photographers are up. But, we’re not ready to kick back with an ice tea on the terrace just yet. Our John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Praise of Women exhibition makes its debut on May 29 and there is work to be done.

I have been sizing vinyl titles for the hallway just outside the Scriven Gallery where the exhibition will be installed and designing graphics - that's the on-screen mockup, above. Our Preparator, Stephen Loughman, spent quite some time creating full-size paper mock-ups of the portraits to help us lay out the gallery - that's the gallery, below. Not what you would call hi-tech, but sometimes the old-fashioned way works pretty well. Seeing the paper at the actual size helps you imagine how the paintings will fill the gallery. And it’s much easier to move a piece of paper than re-hang a large and valuable painting!

From here it’s just a matter of hanging all those fabulous portraits, tweaking the lighting and installing the graphics. With a little bit of luck it will have stopped snowing in time for the May 29^th opening!

The Ins and Outs of Exhibit Catalogues

By: John Hart, Assistant Curator of Collections

I’m sure you’ve all seen them. Books in a gift shop which discuss a specific exhibit in a museum, sometimes small, sometimes not. Either way, if you like the art, chances are you’ll learn more about the art and artist if you purchase an exhibit catalogue.

They’re usually written by scholars in the field and include much more information than you might find in the exhibit. But there’s a lot that goes on behind-the-scenes before you, the visitor, see them on a shelf. Articles have to be written, images have to be collected, proofs have to be sent to the lending institutions, and edit, upon edit, upon edit to get the final product readable by someone who isn’t an art historian.

Mrs. Abbott Lawrence Rotch, 1903. By John Singer Sargent. Image courtesy of the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE

That’s what we’re doing right now with the upcoming exhibit, John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Praise of Women. Since we’ve been preparator-less for about six months and I handle rights and reproduction requests for NYSHA’s collection at Fenimore Art Museum, I was asked by Paul D’Ambrosio and Michelle Murdock to work on gathering the images. All of the paintings that are being loaned for the exhibit will be included in the catalogue and Paul and Dr. Patricia Hills are writing the text to accompany the images. Trust me, if you like Sargent, you’ll like the catalogue. I know from personal experience that Paul is great at teaching people about art and artists.

John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Praise of Women opens in May and runs through December and I invite you all to come and see it (and buy a catalogue too). You’ll be in for a treat since we’ll have Empire Waists, Bustles and Lace in the gallery right next to Sargent and can see examples of the fashions during the 19th-century.

Farewell to America's Rome

By: Christine Olsen, Registrar

As you may have read in my blog post “Making an Exhibition Happen” a lot of steps are involved in putting up and taking down an exhibit. In our exhibit, America’s Rome: Artists in the Eternal City, we had 134 works from 24 lenders, including Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Toledo Museum of Art and Brooklyn Museum of Art. In addition to some of the other projects that I am working on which I have blogged about, such as the Through the Eyes of Others Travelling show which returns from NYSM in January and preparing for the Thaw Travelling show to go to Cleveland in February, I am currently working on returning the loans for America’s Rome to their lenders since the exhibit closed on December 31st. Instead of shipping with UPS, Fed Ex or a standard moving company, I work with a handful of exclusive fine art handling companies who specialize in shipping for high value and fragile cargo. Their trucks have special air ride suspension, temperature/humidity control and dual drivers with a security system; a few more options than the standard shipper would provide! Sometimes, lenders require an exclusive use shipment, which means that their loan is the only one on the truck. For those that do not require exclusive use, I often combine shipments for lenders that are geographically near one another; they call these direct shuttles, and many lenders like to know that their artwork is on board with loans from other museums who lent to the same exhibition.

As I have discussed in detail in my blog “Making an Exhibition Happen”, each loan has specific requirements from the lenders which must be followed; for example, just as upon unpacking and installation, there are three lenders to this show that require a courier to oversee de-installation and packing. This means making flight and hotel reservations for each courier, and scheduling de-installation and shipping to coincide perfectly with their visits. It is a difficult juggling act, and it has taken me weeks to work out the details. Finally, two lenders to this exhibit require that their courier also ride on the truck for the return of their artwork; one lender will ride all the way from Cooperstown to Detroit in one day!

All of the crates for the work in this exhibit have been stored since April in a storage space with security, pest and environmental controls (you can go back and see the pictures I posted of crates stacked in the hallway in my previous blog). When it is time for de-installation, the crates will be moved into the exhibition gallery to be packed by myself and other Curatorial staff. The artwork itself is thoroughly examined again by me for condition changes and has detailed pictures taken of its packing. As anyone who has read my blogs knows, condition reporting itself takes a lot of time, and I can only do it when the museum is closed to the public.
This is the life of every loan that comes in and out of the museum; after doing this for so long I have a system down so that this process goes smoothly. But of course there are glitches along the way and unexpected things that come up that I and my colleagues must contend with. It certainly makes the winter go by quickly! I will soon be blogging about loans that will be coming in for our Spring exhibitions, such as John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Praise of Women…if the technical aspects of registrarial work interest you, stay tuned!

The Fall of (America's) Rome

By: Michelle Murdock, Curator of Exhibitions

It’s true what they say – all good things must come to an end. January is always a bittersweet month for us here at Fenimore. It’s sad to see the exhibitions we’ve come to love taken down, but it’s very exciting to prepare the road for new exhibitions. This week, we packed up America’s Rome, and several staff dropped by the gallery to say goodbye to their favorite works. While we are all looking forward to re-opening in April with a bevy of new exhibitions (cant wait for John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Praise of Women!), this is the time to lovingly pack up the old friends. Here’s a picture of Chris Rossi affixing a painting to its crate using Oz Clips.
As my colleague Christine Olsen noted in her blog Making an Exhibition Happen, there’s just as much involved in taking an exhibition down as putting one up. Thankfully, we have a new Preparator to help us out. Stephen Loughman comes to us from the Plattsburg State Art Museum where he was a Preparator. Look for his blogs soon, too.

John Singer Sargent’s women – got a title for us?

By: Michelle Murdock, Curator of Exhibitions

In a recent post by my colleague Chris Rossi, we asked for your help in developing a title for an upcoming clothing exhibition. Thanks to all of you who replied, we came up with a great title!
So, now we humbly ask for your help again. We are so excited to be organizing an exhibition of John Singer Sargent’s portraits of women for the 2010 exhibition season at Fenimore Art Museum. The portraits include Mrs. Charles Hunter and Mrs. William Shakespeare, both owned by the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, N.Y., Carmela Bertagna, owned by the Columbus Museum of Art, as well as other prominent women of the late 19th century. Amazingly, there has never been an exhibition devoted to Sargent’s women. These renowned women deserve a terrific title, don’t you think? Please comment your suggestions below!