What To Do With All That Art

Although the question of what should be done with an art collection one has built, either before or after one has expired is something I have written about before, recent examples bring me to it again. In personal terms Penelope and I have given quite a bit of art to institutions as our circumstances and tastes changed and yes, we have sold some. The closets still have a lot of what we have no more room to hang or install. We are basically taking the lazy way out … let the kids deal with it.

Everyone looks at their treasures differently. The outstanding art collection of Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, went to auction after he died, and it brought world record prices. Some said he should have given his collection to the Metropolitan Museum. That museum did not need it and Allen’s aim was to fund his and his wife’s foundation that supported organizations dealing with issues like climate change but with an emphasis on the arts and culture.

Aso Tavitian (1940-2020) though not a household name like Paul Alllen, was a computer technology developer who built a major collection of European paintings and sculpture. Born in Bulgaria of Armenian descent, he lived for a time in Lebanon before immigrating to the United States where he received a scholarship to Columbia University. In 1975 he co-founded SyncSort, Inc. an early software development company. He established a foundation to provide scholarships for students of Armenian and Bulgarian origin as well as projects for the Republic of Armenia. He served on several boards including that of the Clark Art Institute where he developed plans for the future of his collection.

Located in the Berkshire mountains the Clark is a relatively small museum with research and academic programs, including a major art history library. It has become a leading international center for research and discussion on the nature of art and art history with programs that bring together scholars from around the world.

Last month the Clark announced that the technology pioneer, through his foundation, had left 331 works of art and $45 million to endow a curatorial position to oversee the collection and take care of it in addition to funding an Aso. O. Tavitian Wing at the Museum. We so often read about museums receiving “transformative” gifts, and in this case, it is certainly true.

I will illustrate 3 works that give the sense of quality of the Tavitian collection.

The star of the show is “The Madonna of the Fountain” by Jan van Eyck (Netherlandish, c. 1390–1441) and his workshop ...

A bronze of a model that I have always loved by Giovanni Francesco Susini (Italian, 1585–1653), “The Abduction of a Sabine Woman” ...

And these remarkable works in wax ...

I love collectors who study a field of art that interests them and learn a lot more by actually collecting and becoming experts in their own right. A Boston lawyer is one such person. George S. Abrams (1932-), and his late wife Maida, had been collecting Northern European art since 1960. He has been Knighted by The Kingdom of the Netherlands for his contribution to the study of Dutch art, especially in the area of drawings. In 2017, he gave 330 Dutch, Flemish, and Netherlandish drawings to the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, his alma mater. Starting in the 1990s, he and his wife had already given 140 drawings before this larger gift.

Here is one of 9 Rembrandt drawings in the Abrams gift. It is of a farm possibly on the Amsteldijk.

Another Abrams gift is one of 4 studies of the tulips for which Holland is famous by another 17th-century Dutch artist, Jacob Marrel.

The “largest gift in its 170-year history” was recently reported by the British Museum. Sir Percival David (1892-1964) was a Bombay-born British financier who, over his lifetime, built a collection of Chinese ceramics. He established the Sir Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art in 1952 and was so passionate about China that he even studied the language “to a very high level.” Though his collection had been on public view at the British Museum since 2009, as they say, “it ain’t over til it's over," and almost exactly one year ago, his 1700 Chinese works of art, mostly ceramics, were formally given to the museum through the Foundation.

I found this pair of Funerary Urns with Celadon Glaze exciting.

Of particular significance is this Falangcai Bowl with Peonies. Falangcai refers to porcelain painted with enamels in the imperial workshops of the Forbidden City in Beijing, China.

I will be presumptuous enough to say that collections are formed by people who are passionate in their interests, and often, these include art. For various reasons, we want others to appreciate the works, and yes, our egos make us believe that our collections are important enough to be shared. Should the museums accept these donations is another question entirely. Both the Fogg and the Clark are already on the art map for scholars: not so much for the general public. These gifts give another reason for making them a destination. Whether a museum that already has one and a half million objects needs 1700 more is open to debate, but clearly stellar collections, like these above, enhance the institutions.

The display of the Tavitan donation will attract more visitors to the Clark. The Abrams gift makes the Fogg a must-go to for the study of Northern European drawing, for, it is now the largest collection outside of Europe. Similarly, the David collection makes the British Museum a permanent center for the study of Chinese art.

The Power of the Political Cartoon

Though subjects here will clearly be reminiscent of the current political climate they merely reflect life in America since the white man arrived from abroad.

My interest was sparked by the cover story, “Win, Lose & Draw: The Power of the Political Cartoon”, in our local newspaper’s Pasatiempo weekly magazine. The article was about the renowned cartoonist Pat Oliphant who is a long-time resident of Santa Fe. An Oliphant cartoon from 1970, when the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia and rising inflation and unemployment as well as Nixon’s diminishing approval rating, shows numerous Democrats leapfrogging to be Presidential candidates.

When I set off researching, I found that the first political cartoon published in an American Newspaper is credited to the Pennsylvania Express of May 9, 1754. It was created by none other than Benjamin Franklin. It was his call to the British colonies to unite against their enemies the French and the Indians. It shows a snake cut in eight pieces each with the initial of a colony at the time.

Some 40 plus years later we are no longer fighting the French or the British but rather amongst ourselves. This was a fight on the floor of Congress between Vermont Representative Matthew Lyon and Roger Griswold of Connecticut. The controversy was over the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts. These were a series of laws passed by Congress in that year that restricted the free speech and the rights of non-citizens.

It is hard to find anything amusing from the Civil War, period, though I did have to chuckle at this image of General Ulysses S. Grant whooping the rear end of General Robert E. Lee. It refers to the Wilderness Battle during the Overland Campaign.

Illustrated in this 1924 cartoon is Senator William Borah giving a speech to Congress about corruption in campaign contributions which the Senate was investigating. Cartoonist Clifford Berryman responded thusly to his words.

In 1934 the country (not to mention the world) was still suffering the results of the Great Depression. FDR is shown as a doctor with a bag of New Deal remedies for an ailing Uncle Sam while Congress is a nurse wringing its hands with worry over whether Roosevelt’s grandiose plans can work.

The political cartoonists’ addition of humor to current controversy often allows us to consider two points of view. In this cartoon, the leaders of Israel and Egypt pointed their peace signs in opposite directions when President Jimmy Carter greeted them. Carter ultimately worked out a peace treaty between President Begin and President Sadat which was signed in 1979 known as the Camp David Accords.

Here is another controversy over which a great deal of ink has been spilled and I fear may be coming up again. I do not believe it requires any more explanation.

To prove there is nothing new under the sun I will conclude with a cartoon about the currently hot issue of immigration. Of the many cartoons I found on the subject over our nation’s history, here is one from over 150 years ago.

Joni Mitchell’s song "The Circle Game" keeps coming to mind, as the chorus goes:

"And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game."

Putting It Together

I love it when people make suggestions of what to write about. After 15 years of weekly Missives, it is not always easy to come up with an idea. Recently a friend wrote, “… I was again reminded how difficult it must be to design the hoped for collection, get permissions to move the objects, packing those objects, moving them, insuring them, unpacking them, and displaying them, while assuring their safety. Then you must produce the catalogue and sell the tickets.”

All these issues are what goes into an exhibition, and I probably have answered the question over the past 15 years in bits and pieces but never in one Missive so here goes: Here is a list which covers the entire process so, obviously, there is no way to give the process its due:

-The Concept
-The List
-The Contact
-The In-Person view
-The Deal
-The Catalog
-The Packing and shipping
-The Installation
-The Opening
-Did I forget Funding?!
-The Crossed fingers

An idea is not enough. You need to think of how you turn it into the museum visitor experience. Is it possible to get the cooperation of those who will be involved which starts at your own institution? Possibly they will want to form a committee which makes the curator’s job more complicated but may or may not make the concept clearer. The larger the committee the greater the risks.

Then you make a list or, cull a list if it is a one artist show, for your ideal exhibition. Inevitably this will be adjusted along the way. Will the museum or collector lend the work you believe is the best work for your exhibition?

Most exhibitions, unless they are done exclusively from your institution’s collection, will require some travel. If possible, you need to see the works in real life. When my wife was doing international exhibitions, she was continuously flying abroad to deal with the art for the show and the possessors of it.

The desired work may be too fragile to travel or the insurance value the owner wants on the work sounds prohibitive. How long will the exhibition be on? Are there plans to travel it? Will there be a catalog? All considerations of the owner deciding if they will lend the work, and it is your job to convince them it is worth the risk and for that owner to be missing that work for that length of time. If you are dealing with another institution they may ask for a specific work from your museum when they do an exhibition two years from now. You can be sure there will be hiccups along the way, and you will have to compromise your original “ideal” list.

You will probably enlist outside experts to contribute to your catalog well ahead of time. You really want that catalog to arrive from the printer before the show opens. If the catalog happens to come from abroad you may have to deal with U.S. Customs which, of course, goes for the art works as well.

You will work with your registrar on the arrangements for packing, shipping and insurance. Is there a packer in Timbuctoo that you and the owner will trust with that work of art, or can you send a registrar to pick it up in person? Museums will sometimes ask to have a curator accompany the work of art even if it means flying on a cargo plane… an official escort. Works of art are installed and must be taken down again when the exhibition closes. This image from the Bowes Museum in County Durham, England.

Meanwhile, the installation must be worked out. The art must be fitted into the available gallery space and installed in a way that tells the story you wish to convey. You need to work with a museum exhibition designer, here I will refer you to a previous Missive.

https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2021/06/the-designer.html

You have to prepare a schedule with your partners within the museum needed for the project. As the works of art arrive at your institution, a conservator will be needed to check their condition. Maybe you made a prior deal to have your conservator clean or restore a work for the owner in advance. Did you agree to have protective glazing on the picture before it was being shown? Damage during travel as minor as a chip on a frame has to be addressed. Skilled mount makers and additional art handlers may be needed. You may still be putting up the labels when the crew of lampers arrive for the critical final step of lighting.

Hopefully, your institution has left enough money in the till for advertising and a great opening… did I forget to say that the funds to do the exhibition have to be raised? You needed to have worked with your development department to accomplish this.

Obviously, each bit of what I have written could easily be a chapter in a book, so this is merely a gloss. I will leave it to you to think of all the issues that can come up in each circumstance!

Tacita Dean

We were in Houston, Texas a couple of weeks ago with an afternoon free, so we decided to go to The Menil Collection. In 1954 John and Dominique de Menil established a foundation whose stated purpose was “to foster greater public understanding and appreciation of art, architecture, culture, religion, and philosophy”. The museum, beautiful in its simplicity, built to house their collection by the famed architect Renzo Piano, opened in 1987.

It is designed with pods usually consisting of 2 exhibition rooms each. When we were there, in one was a wonderful show by surrealist Max Ernst and another of ancient as well as indigenous arts. However, what especially grabbed us on this visit was the exhibition of a contemporary artist, Tacita Dean.

Clearly, we are not with it, as they say, because the artist was new to us. Ms. Dean is represented, for one, by the esteemed Marian Goodman Gallery. Dean was born in 1965 in Canterbury, England and the biography sent me by the Gallery refers to her as “British European”. Today she splits her time between Los Angeles and Berlin. She received her MFA in painting from The Slade School of Fine Art in London. There is a long list of awards and solo exhibitions going back to 1994. In 1992 she created a 16mm, 16 mm, color, optical sound, 8 minutes; continuous loop called The Story of Beard.

This exhibit at The Menil is her first major museum survey in the U.S. though she has had shows at the National Gallery, The National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Academy in London, and also in Basel, Switzerland, in Mexico City and Sydney, Australia.

The show we saw was called “Blind Folly”. A short pamphlet that is available in the exhibition has a quote from the artist which says in part, “I have allowed the making of my work to be open to interpretation and redirection by chance …” and that is what I found particularly intriguing. My wife and I saw different but similar things in the works.

There was much more to the show than I will give examples of here, but these are images that really struck me. A fantastic (including all of that word’s meanings) work is The Montafon Letter, 2017, lent by the Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland. It looks to be a photograph but it is actually a white chalk drawing on black board. It measures 12 by 24 feet. Montafon is a 39 km long valley in the westernmost Austrian federal state of Vorarlberg and Dean’s image is a scene of its icy Alpine peaks. The artist says she based it on an account of a fatal 17th century avalanche in the Austrian Alps in which 300 people died and one priest survived making it a symbol of hope. The story goes on and may be historically interesting, but for me, who lives in the mountains of New Mexico and has loved Switzerland since I was a child, I prefer to see mountains and not tragedy. Here you will see the image in the installation and a photograph of the work alone. (images gallery shot Montafon 1 and image solo Montafon 2)

One of my wife’s favorite works was the Delfern Tondo, 2024. Delfern refers to an estate in Los Angeles. The work is 10 feet in diameter and again looks like a photo but is not. It is chalk on blackboard and paint on Formica. In preparation, however, the artist did lie on the grass and point her camera upwards for inspiration. Living outside of town we often look up but at night we do not see clearly the cloud patterns we are able to see during the day. Dean evokes those magical moments that are so difficult if not impossible to capture with a camera. The close up is from the frontispiece to the catalog.

An image that the curator, Michelle White clearly loves since it is the cover of the museum brochure, and the press release, is “Beauty 2006” lent by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It represents a barren tree. Here Dean did use a photograph blown up to roughly 12 by 12 feet but she isolated the tree from its surroundings and enhanced its image by painting in gouache with a small brush around its limbs. This was one of her first in a series of what is called in the catalog “portraits of trees”, sometimes in color, that she found in different locations around the world. (image Beauty, 2006)

This is such a multifaceted artist! Dean has made 16mm films which are being shown in rotation at The Menil. She believes in creating works with found objects and her unusual surfaces include abandoned locomotive windows. One series in the show is composed of found postcards where she has painted mirror images to mount next to them. I was tantalized by the thoughts she left in partially erased notes in her larger drawings. She says she does not know what she will create until she serendipitously sees and does it. How do you capture that?

The exhibition will be on view at The Menil until April 19, 2025.