Ring in the New

By Chris Rossi, Associate Curator of Exhibitions

As the old year winds down we here in the curatorial department are deep into preparations for the New Year. The Fenimore Art Museum closes its doors to the public on January 1 and that is when we do our big 2012 makeover in preparation of our April 1 re-opening. The 2011 temporary exhibits come down and artworks are returned to various lenders or to our storage areas.

The paint colors and graphics for next year’s exhibits are being planned now. Fonts are chosen to fit the theme or sense of the exhibits with something exotic for Heavenly Aida: Highlights from the Metropolitan Opera, sensual for Spellbound: The Metropolitan Opera's Armide, and spring-like for American Impressionism: Paintings of Light and Life. Floor plans are devised on computer using sketch-up, InDesign or good old paper and pencil. We need to know where the objects are going and what they will be displayed on before we move them out of storage or ship them from another museum.

It is an exciting time of anticipation. Choosing colors and designing the look of a show is a challenge but is also good fun. Our curatorial team spars over what they think is wonderful or horrible. One person’s dream color or font can be another’s nightmare! In the end we come up with a look that we believe enhances the objects on display without dominating them. It’s a vision that we enjoy and hope our visitors will as well.

Back Stage

By Chris Rossi, Associate Curator of Exhibitions

Or should I say, below the stage?

One of the things I love about my job is going where mere mortals usually don’t get to go. Let’s face it, we all like to have the restricted access door opened for us, or the velvet rope pulled aside for our entrance into some institution’s inner sanctum. Viewing a museum’s inner workings or collections is a real treat.

So you can imagine my enthusiasm when coworker Michelle Murdock and I got a behind the scenes peek at the Metropolitan Opera archives. The Fenimore Art Museum and the Glimmerglass Festival are enjoying creative collaborations, with our museum launching exhibits that are in tune (pardon the pun) with Glimmerglass’s repertoire. On that note, the Metropolitan Opera has kindly opened its considerable collections to us for possible display next year.

If you are an opera fan a visit to the Met Opera archives is a plunge into sensory overload. Walls are covered with images of famous singers and conductors while the storage area is neatly packed with costumes sporting the Met Opera label and familiar names such as Price, Ponselle and Domingo. Music from the dress rehearsals, going on overhead, is piped into the archives. Heady stuff, and a wonderful way for us to shape up an exhibit for next year!

Museum shipping crates

By Christine Olsen, Registrar

Over the years we have acquired many shipping crates that are specially fabricated for artwork in our collection. I am currently in the process of physically inventorying our crates in order to dispose of ones that are no longer in good enough shape to travel and making sure that the ones we keep are properly numbered and tracked. They are stacked to the ceiling at our storage facility and are hard to move around given their size and weight, so it is a project that requires some help from my colleagues in the facilities department!

Whenever something travels outside Fenimore Art Museum, such as a loan to another museum for exhibition, it requires a specially built crate. Fine art shipping companies make crates for us, often building them at their warehouse and finishing the interiors once they arrive at the museum to ensure a perfect fit. In order to save money and materials we try to reuse and retrofit crates we already have whenever possible – an accurate inventory of our crates is therefore very helpful. Precise measurements and photographs of the artwork are provided to the crate fabricators when the order is placed as it must fit like a glove. They have to be sure not to put too much pressure on the artwork, especially if it is fragile, while ensuring that it doesn’t shift during transit; it truly is an art form in and of itself when you see it in person!

Rules of Attraction (and Organization) or, Interning @ Fenimore Art Museum, Part 4

By Emma Porter, Curatorial Intern

I have been introduced to the realm of illustrated checklists and I am never looking back. Art museum professionals, not surprisingly, are visual learners, and these documents greatly help orient the museum professional to the works involved, the artist(s), and contexts. I was shown how to create an illustrated checklist, first in an Excel spreadsheet format, then in a Word document format. Here is a sample from the checklist for Fenimore Art Museum's William Matthew Prior Revealed: Artist and Visionary, for the 2012 season.

Mary Cary and Susan Elizabeth Johnson, 1848

William Matthew Prior

Terra Foundation

This image is under the section titled The Painting Garret – 36 Trenton Street, East Boston. Jackie Oak, of the Shelburne Museum in Vermont has organized this exhibit according to Prior’s personal life stages and periods of certain inspiration. For example, one section is about Abolitionism and another about Spiritualism.

I am currently completing an illustrated checklist for Michelle to use during her upcoming visit to the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut. Her visit is to inform the Fenimore Art Museum’s upcoming American Impressionism exhibition. If you love American Impressionism I would encourage you to visit or just check out their online database.

Dogwood Blossoms, 1906

Williard Leroy Metcalf

Florence Griswold Museum

My illustrated checklist for American Impressionism is essentially a long series of images in order of the artist. Each artist entry begins with their personal information and details. Once these checklists are completed they serve as the founding reference document for the show.

I love organizing and greatly appreciate a good organizational system when I see one. Museum registrars and curators are champions of organizations to put it modestly. Every single work must go through the registrar. Christine Olsen is the FAM Registrar. She records every work that comes into or leaves the Museum, whether it's coming or going temporarily or permanently. Without the registrar the museum could barely operate and would be almost impossible to navigate. I sincerely enjoy compiling these lists. I get to familiarize myself with the artist and their work while letting my organizational flag fly!

Interning @ Fenimore Art Museum, Part 3

By Emma Porter, Curatorial Intern

How do art exhibitions happen? It’s kind of like asking how Disney World makes the magic happen. Art museum exhibitions are a cultural happening that the majority of society takes for granted. Unless you get an inside look into how a curatorial team conceives organizes, and produces an exhibition. Then this invisible world becomes very real. Curators make magic happen everyday across the world; these professionals are storytellers. They tell their stories with artworks, artists biographies, historical contexts, and other facets of culture and aesthetics, from the past and present. Curators must be excellent editors and stay focused on conveying a specific story, without dismissing its place within broader cultural themes.

The first day I started interning, the Director of Exhibitions, Michelle Murdock, generously loaned me a set of books to give me an introduction into museum work. The “Bible” for museum workers is Introduction to Museum Work by G. Ellis Burcaw. It literally defines museum work with a set of definitions, including what a “museum object” is, how objects are registered and catalogued, how objects are accessioned (“the acquiring of one or more objects at one time from one source, or the objects so acquired”), and collecting theories for different types of museums.

One of the most valuable and eye-opening experiences for me at the Fenimore Art Museum is observing Eva Fognell, Curator of the Thaw Collection, and Chris Rossi, Associate Curator of Exhibitions, put together the Thaw Homecoming exhibition for the 2012 season. This involves them filling in the floor plan with the sections that best suit the space and the story they were telling. They conversed as they edited how the pieces would be displayed and situated. Some pieces can stand by themselves and make a grand statement. Others need to be grouped together in order to communicate their purpose and context. Not all of the pieces currently travelling will be shown in the exhibition - some will be put back into the permanent collection. A cool fact is that returning pieces need to “rest,” or acclimatize, for twenty-four hours in order to adjust to the environment and thus prevent damage. Much care is put into these object’s “health.” So on many levels, museum work is a labor of love!

After editing, the floor plan was finalized and the works were listed. I am currently learning how to write section labels, and how to incorporate images into these labels in order to deepen the viewer’s understanding of the object. When I look for label images, in the case of a basket, for example, I would look for a photograph of a man or woman making a similar style basket, or the materials from which the basket is made from.

Learning how an exhibition happens is like going behind the scenes of a fantasy world, where I had previously only seen the pristine and yes, magical, end product. I get butterflies thinking about these sneak peaks into a once invisible world. I am lucky enough to get an up close and personal experience with the makers and the makings of this magic.

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

Out with the old, in with the new

By: Christine Olsen, Registrar

Many people ask me if this time of year is slow at the Fenimore Art Museum. It would seem as though it would be given that we are closed to the public from December 31st through April 1st and Cooperstown itself is seemingly quiet with its snowy streets and sleepy downtown. Ironically, this is actually the busiest time of year for us. As soon as January 1st hits, we are off the ground running, taking down exhibitions from last year and preparing for the exhibitions to come.

Our loaned shows from last season such as Watermark: Michele Harvey and Glimmerglass and John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Praise of Women, as well as those containing our own collections such as Empire Waists, Bustles and Lace: A Century of New York Fashion, are deinstalled simultaneously during the month of January and February. Everything has to be returned to lenders or put back in our storage vaults quickly so that we have time to repaint galleries and begin layout of the Spring exhibits; it can get pretty hectic around here!

I began return shipping plans for loans from the John Singer Sargent exhibit back in November and December; trucks book quickly since most other museums are changing out exhibitions at this time of year, too, so an early start is imperative. The Sargent show also had loans that required couriers; I have to make their travel plans as well as coordinate the deinstallation and shipping of their loan for a time convenient to them as well as our exhibitions team. This year was especially challenging, as two large snowstorms threatened courier and shipping schedules; my colleagues will agree that I am often heard proclaiming with distress “why do we always get a blizzard when I have a shipment”!? In the end it all worked out and everyone and everything made it home safe and sound.

While I was overseeing the departure of Sargent loans, I was simultaneously getting ready for our upcoming spring shows; exhibition and loan agreements are now officially signed for A Window Into Edward Hopper, Frida Kahlo: Through the Lens of Nickolas Muray, and Prendergast to Pollack: American Modernism from the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. Edward Hopper has loans from many individual lenders, each requiring the exchange of agreements and discussions about crating and shipping – the details of which always take us right up to opening day! Frida Kahlo and Prendergast to Pollack are travelling shows sponsored by other institutions; I really like these kinds of shows as they are one stop shopping, with one lender and one shipment – so much easier for me!

Finally, in the midst of all of this, we received a full size tractor-trailer full of crates from our American Indian travelling exhibition returning from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. On a day of record snowfall, of course! It had a very successful run there, and will stay here at the museum in storage until April when it is leaving for the Dallas Museum of Art. What a whirlwind!

We hope to see you on April 1st when the weather warms and our doors open once again to the public with new and exciting exhibitions. Until then, stay tuned for more behind the scenes reports from the registrar’s office!

Quick Change Artists

By: Chris Rossi, Associate Curator of Exhibitions

Although Fenimore Art Museum is closed to the public until April 1, the galleries are in flux right now. As with the snow-covered landscape outside, it would be easy for those in the outside world to think that we are mimicking the local wildlife and are snug in our burrows waiting for the spring thaw. But there is life under the snow and there is plenty of life in our seemingly dormant museum. We are doing our big seasonal swap, which translates into taking down last year’s exhibits, bidding a fond farewell to paintings and objects that came on loan to us, and launching new exhibits for the 2011 season.

Truth be told, doing this strenuous work while we are closed is a logistical pleasure. Right now there is a lot of open gallery space to work with and no worries about making sure the public has room to navigate safely through our mess. Once we open on April 1, it becomes more of a challenge. Keeping that in mind we try to design galleries that are “change friendly.” One of this year’s big quick-change areas will be our Great Hall. We start the season with The Spirit of Land and Tradition, which is comprised of objects from our Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art. Later in the spring we switch to Prendergast to Pollock: American Modernism from the Munson-Williams-Proctor Art Institute* (opens May 28), and then back to the The Spirit of Land and Tradition in the fall (opens October 1), all while open to the public.

One way will we manage the changes is by using color and design elements in the gallery to imply change without involving dramatic physical change. The perimeter walls will stay the same color for the entire year. Freestanding walls will be added for Prendergast to Pollock in different colors to transform the space. The aim is to make the transitions go as smoothly as possible and keep the maximum amount of gallery space open and accessible to our visitors.

Design view of Great Hall for The Spirit of Land and Tradition

Design view of Great Hall for Prendergast to Pollock

*This traveling exhibition was organized by the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute Museum of Art, Utica, New York. The national tour sponsor for the exhibition is the MetLife Foundation. The Henry Luce Foundation provided funding for the conservation of artworks in the exhibition.

All the World's a Stage

By Chris Rossi, Associate Curator of Exhibitions

After digging out from the 3 days of solid lake effect snow my daughter and I were finally able to head south to see old friends in the city and take in a lovely exhibit at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut. The Bruce displays a wonderful mix of art and science. But it wasn’t the Earth’s Minerals or Life Between the Tides exhibits we were off to see. We were after A Child’s View: 19th-Century Paper Theaters, on display until January 30 because Fenimore Art Museum is considering an exhibition of paper theaters for the future.

Cover Page from the Bruce Museum’s catalog showing a paper theater in use.

Before TV, PlayStation, and the Internet kids actually entertained themselves for hours on end by assembling things and playing with them. In the early 19th century tabletop sized paper theaters that had to be cut out and assembled were a favorite source of entertainment. The theaters came with little paper actors and scripts. Children, most likely with some adult help, would construct the theaters and put on the plays. I have no doubt that even 19th century children did a fair amount of goofing around and improvising with all of this, which must have been great fun. The paper theaters encouraged creativity and imagination and could be used again and again.

The Bruce has assembled over 40 theaters from the collection of Eric G. Bernard. The theaters are little masterpieces with intricately drawn sets, actors, and in some cases, musicians. The paper theater tradition was popular in England, Austria, France, Spain, Denmark and the USA. Sets usually depicted a popular play, fairy tale or opera. Productions ranged from Mozart’s the Magic Flute to Hamlet and Hansel and Gretel. The figures were drawn after popular actors of the day.

A French paper theater on display at the Bruce Museum and from the collection of Eric G. Bernard.

The paper theater production faded with the beginning of the 20th century. I imagine mass manufactured toys became more popular as the century progressed and made the paper theaters seem old fashioned and outdated. That said, there are folks out there today keeping the tradition alive. A brief search online will bring you to a myriad blogs about Toy or Paper Theater and its 21st century resurgence – a nice merging of the old tradition and new technology.

A Splash of Color for the New Year

By Stephen Loughman, Preparator

With the New Year comes a lot of change here at Fenimore Art Museum, one of which is fresh new paint for all the new shows happening this year. Unlike painting a room in your home we need BIG color samples. This helps us get an idea of how various colors will look under our gallery lighting. It is a lot of fun looking at how different colors work in different spaces, and maybe even getting a few color ideas for our own homes!

Hmmm, these seem too small for us.

Lots of new colors for the new year.

Yes, these will do just fine.

Pick Your Favorites for an Upcoming Exhibition

Thanks to everyone who helped test the poll last week. Now, this is it! For real this time. Let the voting begin! Remember, this is your exhibition, so have fun!

For those that missed the test last week, here’s a reminder of what we’re doing:

Fenimore Art Museum is organizing its second blog-curated exhibition scheduled to open in the Spring of 2011. The content of this exhibition will be determined by you, our readers. You have the opportunity to vote for your favorite post, and the posts that get the most votes will be included in the exhibition along with the object most closely representing the content and, of course, the wording from the actual post as it appears in this blog.

Please note that we have included the dates of these posts so you can go back and reread them. Voting will end on Friday January 14th.

Thanks again!

UPDATED! By popular demand, here is a list of the candidates with links since the polling gadget wont allow hyperlinks. Hope this helps! Leave us a comment if you have questions.

What Lies Below the Surface, July 21, 2009. Featured Major General Baron von Steuben by Ralph Earl.

Musical Craftsmanship, July 28, 2009. Featured a Melodeon.

A Chair Fit for a Pot, October 20, 2009. Featured a corner chair.

What did you do on your summer vacation?, November 17, 2009. Featured photos of Otsego Lake.

The Campbell Family's Service, November 26, 2009. Featured a powderhorn and swords.

Planes, Trains and...nope, Just a Train, December 15, 2009. Featured a model train engine.

A Statue with a Split Personality, June 10, 2010. Featured a statue titled "The Last of the Mohicans."

Birth of the United States Navy, October 15, 2010. Featured a litho of the Kearsarge and the Constitution.

View of Cold Spring and Mount Taurus, December 2, 2008. Featured a painting of the same name by Thomas Chambers.

Floral Quilts and Children's Folk Portraits, February 24, 2009. Featured Eliza Smith by an unidentified artist.

Eunice Pinney Mourning Pictures, April 23, 2009. Featured mourning pictures by Eunice Pinney.

Early Photography Meets 20th Century Sleuthing, July 9, 2009. Featured an extending box camera.

Kopp Collection, July 14, 2009. Featured advertising materials with images of American Indians.

Vote for your favorite posts for an upcoming exhibition!

Fenimore Art Museum is organizing its second blog-curated exhibition scheduled to open in the Spring of 2011. The content of this exhibition will be determined by you, the blog readers. You have the opportunity to vote for your favorite post, and the posts that get the most votes will be included in the exhibition along with the object most closely representing the content and, of course, the wording from the actual post as it appears in this blog.

In preparation for the actual voting, which will take place in January, we are testing the Blogger polling gadget this week to see if it will work for this purpose. It appears at the right. Please note that we have included the dates of these posts so you can go back and reread them.

So please go ahead and vote for your favorite, but remember, it doesn’t count for real yet. We’ll let you know when the real voting begins. In the meantime, we’ll at least know that the gadget works and that you all are interested enough to vote in large numbers. You can vote for up to three posts if you’d like.

Thanks for voting! And drop us a comment if you have better ideas on how to do this.

Treasure Hunting for Wyeths

Michelle Murdock, Curator of Exhibitions and Chris Rossi, Associate Curator of Exhibitions

Ideas for upcoming exhibits occur in all sorts of ways. Some stick and get developed and others fall by the wayside. Right now, we have some exciting future prospects being developed for the coming years. Among our favorite possibilities is one centering on the Wyeths, and we are finding ourselves being swept up into their powerful family current.

Most of us are familiar with the works of N.C. Wyeth, his son Andrew and grandson Jamie. What we didn’t realize was that N.C.’s daughters, Henriette and Carolyn, also painted. Some of the other children who didn’t paint married painters. The family was one big art enclave with more talent than you could shake a stick at and with the kind of intriguing stories that go along with fame and talent.

NC Wyeth, ca. 1920

Charles Scribner and Sons art reference department records

The Wyeth Family, 1922

N.C. Wyeth, A Biography, by David Michaelis, Knopf, 1998

So how were we to find out more? We decided it was time to make a pilgrimage to the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, the site of N.C. Wyeth’s home and studio. In the Pennsylvania countryside N.C. found the inspiration and setting he was looking for to hone his illustration and painting. In 1911 he wrote “I’m totally satisfied that this is a little corner of the world wherein I shall work out my destiny.”

Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania

Much of N.C.’s work is known to many through his book illustrations. In person, though, the canvasses sing the way a reproduction barely hints at. Carolyn and Henriette’s works were new to us and enlarged our understanding of the family talent. Jamie and Andrew’s work confirmed our appreciation of their art.

“One More Step Mr. Hands”

N.C. Wyeth Illustration for Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Charles Scribner and Sons art reference department records

Then, while on vacation in Maine, Michelle visited the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland. They were featuring an N.C. exhibition, Poems of American Patriotism, and a 3-generation exhibition called The Wyeths’ Wyeths. The Wyeth Study Center at the Farnsworth houses Andrew Wyeth’s works inspired by the Maine coast spanning his career from early childhood drawings to works completed shortly before his death in 2009. The Farnsworth also operates The Olson House, the subject of Andrew Wyeth’s famous painting, Christina’s World, housed at the Museum of Modern Art.

Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine

Christina's World, 1948

By Andrew Wyeth (American, 1917-2009) Tempera on gessoed panel, 32 1/4 x 47 3/4" (81.9 x 121.3 cm)

Museum of Modern Art Purchase, 16.1949

Finally, we both recently visited The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, New York, to take in their current exhibition, Andrew Wyeth: An American Legend, which they organized with the Farnsworth.

The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, New York

What’s next? A bit more research, perhaps some more road-trips, and hopefully a sublime exhibit to share with our visitors in the upcoming years.