Displaying items by tag: curatorial

The Morgan Library & Museum announced the appointment of Roger S. Wieck to head one of the institution’s core curatorial areas, its internationally recognized Department of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts. Wieck is a world authority on medieval Books of Hours, and previously served as associate curator and curator in the department, where he has worked since 1989. He replaces William M. Voelkle who has been appointed senior research curator.

The Morgan also announced that Joshua O’Driscoll will become assistant curator in the department.

Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, announced today that preeminent American art scholar Morrison H. Heckscher will retire on June 30, following 13 years as Lawrence A. Fleischman Chairman of The American Wing and a distinguished curatorial career at the Museum that spanned nearly five decades. He will become Curator Emeritus of The American Wing on July 1.

Mr. Campbell announced further that Sylvia L. Yount—currently Chief Curator as well as the Louise B. and J. Harwood Cochrane Curator of American Art and Department Head at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA)—will become the Lawrence A. Fleischman Curator in Charge of The American Wing this fall. She was elected to her new position at the June 10 meeting of the Executive Committee of the Museum’s Board of Trustees.

Dennis Kois, the executive director of the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts, will step down from his post this May. Kois will return to his native Wisconsin to serve as the Milwaukee Public Museum’s president and chief executive officer.

Since joining the deCordova in 2008, Kois has expanded the museum’s collection, commissioned works by celebrated artists such as Andy Goldsworthy and Orly Genger, and helped raise millions for the once cash-strapped institution. Following the announcement of Kois’ departure, museum trustee Deborah A. Hawkins donated $1 million to the deCordova to bolster curatorial initiatives in his absence.     

Prior to his time at the deCordova, Kois served as the director of the Grace Museum in Abilene, Texas and before that, he was the chief designer at the Smithsonian Institution’s Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington, DC. Kois will advise the deCordova on its search for a new executive director. 

The centerpiece of the Rockwell Museum of Western Art’s collection – Albert Bierstadt’s seminal painting Mount Whitney – was outfitted with a new frame late last month. The custom-made replica of an 1870s American frame was crafted by Manhattan’s Gill & Lagodich Fine Period Frames & Restoration. Experts spent nearly a year researching and fabricating the 8-foot x 12-foot gilded frame, which is decorated with traditional American oak leaf-and-berry and neoclassical elements.

Considered one of the nation’s most important American landscape paintings, officials at the Rockwell museum decided to revamp Mount Whitney after noticing a number of inconsistencies in its frame. Muddy molding and discolored gold leaf indicated that it was not the painting’s original frame and further research revealed that it was a reproduction of an 1850s French Empire-style frame. After consulting with a frame conservator, the Rockwell’s curatorial staff decided to commission a replica of an American period frame, which would properly preserve and present the monumental work of art.

Mount Whitney, a majestic depiction of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, epitomizes the sweeping landscapes of the American west that Bierstadt is best known for. Tracy Gill of Gill & Lagodich, said, “The objective is to recreate a frame of the highest quality that looks like it was made at the same time as the painting. Ultimately we want you to see the framed masterpiece as Bierstadt would have wanted. If we’ve created a frame that looks like the artist chose it, we’ve done our job right.”

The Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia is hosting the show Deaccessioning Bernard Smol (1897-1969), which is putting a unique spin on the standard museum exhibition. Due to limited storage space and an evolving collection, the museum has decided to deaccession all but one of Smol’s works. Visitors to the exhibition will vote for the piece that they would like to remain in the museum’s collection and curatorial staff will work this feedback into their final decision.

The process of deaccessioning artworks is lengthy and closely regulated. A museum must make the public aware of its intent and the museum’s collections committee and Board of Advisors must approve that intent. Only when all parties are on board is a work able to be removed from a collection. Oftentimes, the artwork heads to auction and the proceeds from the sale are used for future acquisitions that will bolster the museum’s collection.

Deaccessioning Bernard Smol presents five oil paintings by the French artist, which have not been shown at the Georgia Museum since their initial exhibition in 1959. The Georgia Museum was inspired by DePaul University’s exhibition, The Good the Bad, and the Ugly, which helped them decide what works to deaccession from their own collection in 2010.

For the first time in nearly 500 years, a pair of portraits of King Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, will be hung together. Officials from the National Portrait Gallery in London spotted the rare, early portrait of Catherine while on a research visit to Lambeth Palace, the official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

While the sitter in the Palace’s portrait was originally believed to be Henry VIII’s last wife, Catherine Parr, the National Portrait Gallery’s conservation and curatorial experts noticed that the facial features, costume, and the painting’s frame suggested that the portrait was actually of Catherine of Aragon. Lambeth Palace officials agreed to loan the painting of Catherine of Aragon to the National Portrait Gallery where it has been researched extensively and has undergone conservation treatment before being displayed starting today, January 25, 2013. Technical analysis of the painting and frame, which included x-ray and raking light, revealed links between the Lambeth portrait and the Gallery’s portrait of Henry VIII from around 1520, supporting the belief that the sitter was in fact Catherine of Aragon.

Dr. Charlotte Bolland, Project Curator at the National Portrait Gallery, said, “It is wonderful to have the opportunity to display this important early portrait of Catherine of Aragon at the Gallery. Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon were married for nearly 24 years and during that time their portrait would have been displayed together in this fashion, as king and queen of England.”