J.P. Morgan's Library

As you have surely read by now, The Morgan Library and Museum recently opened their refurbished building, commissioned by J.P. Morgan (1837-1917) and designed by McKim, Mead and White architects in 1906. This is the first major restoration to the interior since that time and was done in a record four and one half months. Yet, if you do not go regularly to the Morgan you would hardly realize what all the fuss is about. It is a brilliant job, a perfect restoration that only brings out the original grandeur and beauty of the space without trying to improve upon it!













You don’t think about the use of non-reflective glass but the glass on the vitrines has been swapped out so that you now can see the objects and not your reflection in the vitrines. What probably makes the most obvious difference is the new lighting which shows off, for instance, the wonderful painting of the great men of the arts on the library ceiling and the mosaic work in the ceiling of the rotunda. If you think about it, these were probably never before as visible, since it was still early days for electric light when the building was originally put up.

Over the years other buildings have been added to the complex. The most recent of these additions is an award winning new entrance on Madison Avenue and Atrium by Renzo Piano which brings all the Morgan buildings together. Personally, however, I find it an eyesore, not in keeping with Morgan’s aesthetic, but then I am a dinosaur when it comes to tradition and do not embrace change for its own sake. This entrance, however, is in such stark contrast to the original space that when one goes up a short flight of steps on the right side at the back of the Atrium and through the glass door one feels as if one has walked through Alice’s looking glass into another world. I liked that, an oasis from 21st century New York.

The McKim building is relatively small including only three rooms connected by a rotunda. The library itself, study cum office and the annex to the library where the librarian was situated. When you enter into the rotunda that connects all three spaces, there is now installed a rotating exhibition of Americana from the Morgan’s collections. At the moment the cases include one of the 26 original copies of the Declaration of Independence, notes that Lincoln wrote before the Lincoln Douglas debates, a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to his daughter signed “Affectionately, Th. Jefferson”, a copy of the first bible printed in this country and a life mask of George Washington for which he had to lie down when the famous French Neo-Classical sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828) came to visit him at Mount Vernon. Houdon was also known for the busts he made of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin when they, themselves, were in France.














The librarian’s office or library annex has for the first time been opened to the public and the only physical change that was made to the building during the restoration. It is a double storied room and the library shelves on the lower section have been turned into vitrines to show Near Eastern art from the collection.

Jennifer Tonkovitch, curator of drawings and prints headed the project renovation with the guidance of the director, William Griswold and the Deputy Director, Brian Egan and she was the one who gave us the tour. In this room she pointed out handles on the library shelves on the second story. These bookshelves pivoted to give access to the second floor of the building. Somehow quite exciting, particularly if you are fond of mystery stories!

The library itself is three stories tall and a most impressive room. A couple of manuscripts have been taken out to show both a spectacular modern and early binding. In some ways even more illuminating as to their importance than the fine manuscripts in the cases where you have to read the labels to learn why they are interesting. For this space a “new” large carpet appropriate for the period was needed and a net was cast internationally to find the right one. In the end it was found at a carpet dealer a few blocks from the Morgan itself!













It is hard to say whether it is the library or Morgan’s study cum office that is the most impressive. Never mind the great paintings, sculptures and manuscripts being shown but this double storied room itself in its fabric covered walls and red velvet upholstery (duplicated from the original fabric) with a large vault in the corner is quite something. So when you have a house full of treasures in the building what does the banker decide to put in his vault? Well, in Morgan’s case it was his 600 medieval manuscripts.

J.P. Morgan was 69 years old when he commissioned the building but it represented a very important statement. This was his private space in the image he wished to project and more importantly wanted to think of himself - the beneficent financier, philanthropist and man of the arts.

WMF

The World Monument’s Fund (WMF) had its genesis in 1965 as The International Fund for Monuments but changed its name and direction in 1985 to the World Monuments Fund . I have known the Executive Director, Bonnie Burnham, since 1976 when we both attended the first International Congress on art theft in Paris. She had been with ICOM, The International Council of Museums which was administered by UNESCO. They developed the “UNESCO Agreement”, the first effort made on an international basis, to repatriate works of art to their countries of origin. I, of course, was there as one of many representatives of the collecting community. After becoming Executive Director of IFAR, the International Foundation for Art Research, she was asked to join WMF as Executive Director in 1985 and proceeded to revive a rather sleepy institution.









WMF has an annual benefit dinner which I attended a few weeks ago. On this occasion WMF gave its prestigious Hadrian Award to a worthy benefactor of preservation of the world’s treasured art and architecture. The award is named after the Roman Emperor Hadrian (a.d. 76-138), who was himself concerned with the preservation of outstanding artistic works of his time. For a list of all the recipients go to click here. In an introduction to their many worthy projects Board Chairman. Christopher Ohrstrom stated their credo saying, "A society that has lost touch with it's past is a society that no longer knows who it is...... Because our past is what defines us. It gives us our identity".

WMF publishes every year a “Watch List” of approximately 100 sites that it considers most require attention. It gets directly involved in some of these and joins projects where it can contribute expertise to the local effort. At the moment it has about 150 projects on seven continents, to view click here.

They have not neglected their country of origin and have had projects near both my homes advising, for instance, at the Taos and Hopi Pueblos in the Southwest. To show how WMF works they took a group of us to Ellis Island in New York Harbor and demonstrated how a long term project can begin.









Ellis Island was the principal port of entry into the U.S. between 1892 and 1924 when 12 million immigrants were processed there. The Northside with its Registstry building began its restoration in the 1980’s at a final cost of around 260 million dollars and this is the site we can take the ferry to visit today. But there is a huge territory on the Southside of the Island where the original state of the art hospital complex was built. Having been neglected for many decades it had turned into a veritable jungle. Nature had taken over and literally grown into the buildings coming in with all the elements. It had been a most important part of Ellis Island at the time. It was where all those that showed any sign of physical or mental illness were held until they were thought fit to be admitted into the United States or sent back to where they came from and it is estimated that two to three percent were. Ellis Island became known as “The Island of Hope - The Island of Tears”.


Today, it would cost well over half a billion dollars to restore the Southside and the funds don’t exist for the time being. WMF, however, listed Ellis Island on their “Watch List” both in 1996 and 2006. The 1996 listing helped draw National and International attention to the amount of work that remained to restore the island in its entirety. A member of the Lowes family (Lowes Stores) pitched in with $25,000, which though generous and appreciated was not going to make a big dent in beginning this massive restoration.

Boiling down his impressive curriculum vitae, our tour guide, John H. Stubbs received his advanced training at Columbia University’s Graduate Program for Historic Preservation. In 1980 he started at Beyer Blinder Bell Architects & Plannners which specialized in the world of preservation architecture . The firm was hired from 1981 to 1984 by The U.S. National Park Service to restore the main Registry Building and survey the history and 'as found' conditions of all buildings on the island. This included for example, the original toilets and doorknobs. John Stubbs supervised several skilled teams in this herculean task and they gave those doing the actual restoration of the Northside the “blueprint” for the project which was detailed in an 11 volume report which John edited and wrote a great deal of. In 1990 he was hired by Bonnie Burnham to become WMF’s project manager and oversee their many projects.

He had the idea that they could use the Lowes grant to demonstrate what was possible. They took one small building, the Surgeons offices, as an example and showed how it could be cleared out and mothballed so that things wouldn’t get worse until there was the money to continue on a grander scale.

When this relatively small project was completed WMF again listed the Southside of the island in 2006. Now, more substantial funds started to flow in and with the 7 million dollars raised they could seriously begin to clear and clean up many of the buildings, and board up the windows with slanted slats for air.

Of course, since the Ellis Island project was started 30 years ago the question of how the property on the Southside could be best used and over the years many suggestions have been made. A hotel, a convention center with overnight facilities, a study center for immigration and many more, as well from famous architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Philip Johnson. Some of these ideas involved eliminating the original structures but considering the entire island’s landmark designation it is doubtful that these plans would ever be allowed.

Not only was it fascinating seeing new frontiers in the big city and what can be accomplished but thanks to our afternoon with John Stubbs and his enthusiasm, also in a subsequent interview, I do hope to be able to come back to the subject of Ellis Island in my Missives… there is so much more to tell.

The Curator

Last week I wrote about the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum, “Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures: Jan Gossart’s Renaissance”. Though it takes many people to create an exhibition, those organized by committee often lose focus. Creating a good exhibition requires a good curator with a vision of what he or she wants to accomplish. The single mind behind the Gossart exhibition was Dr. Maryan Ainsworth.

I met Maryan when she was in the Paintings Conservation Department at the Metropolitan working with a new scientific technique called infrared reflectography. With an special camera a conservator could record the artist’s initial ideas represented by preparatory drawings lying beneath the layers of paint. Not all artists used under-drawings but it was a common practice in the Northern European Renaissance.

The investigation of a work of art where scientific data is needed is often performed in an independent lab and the results sent to the curator the same way a doctor might receive x-rays. It takes more than just a camera to make infrared reflectography of paintings useful. Meaningful comparisons can only be made after gathering many examples. Further it requires the skills of a trained art historian to put the new visual information into the perspective of the period and place. I was so impressed by Maryan because I quickly saw that she had the art historical background to create and use scientific data to come up with real insights. This dual expertise explains why Maryan made the unusual transition from the conservation side to the curatorial side, becoming a member of the Met’s European Paintings Department.

Her years of travel to national and foreign institutions pursuing reflectography research allowed her to know where many Northern Renaissance paintings were located and their quality. This knowledge allowed her to conceive and put together her exhibitions. Of course, she first looked at the collections in her own museum and in 1998 opened a blockbuster called “From Van Eyck to Bruegel - Early Netherlandish Painting in the Metropolitan Museum” I remember so many visitors going through the show saying things like: “That is wonderful! I have never seen that before”. Possibly not, Maryan might have found the work relegated to the Met’s storage and brought it out on view in order to better illustrate the Met's holdings.

An exhibition is not just a bunch of paintings A-Z, at least not a good one. Knowing what is out there is of paramount importance, but the editing decisions need to be made. It is just as important to know what to leave out as what to put in. You also have to able to show context, thereby adding a new dimension to our understanding of the artist, his place and time. Maryan has shown an ability to do this through her selections, installation, explanatory labels and catalogs. Besides holding more that one degree from both Oberlin and Yale, she has taught at Columbia and Barnard and thereby learned to express herself in a clear and concise manner.

The exhibition will come down within a few months but the catalog gives the show immortality. People can refer to it a generation or two later and not have lost all the work that was done to create the current exhibition. In the case of Gossart, Maryan used the opportunity to catalog all the known works by the artist and not just the ones which she was able to show at the Met. When you put together the 63 paintings and all the ancillary material that was brought in for comparison in the show itself you have an almost 500 page catalog printed on fine thick paper between hard covers.

I have not weighed the Gossart catalog but I can tell you lifting it up from the floor to my desk many times in the last couple of weeks I did not need to do any weight lifting at the gym! It reminded me of Philippe de Montebello’s remark about another exhibition catalog which he said two museum curators had worked on for 9 months and given birth to a 7-pound tome. Though there is no substitute for the beautiful book there is much to be said for a CD. Maybe one should be included with the catalogs.

One can go on for chapters about what it takes to pull together a good exhibition and the stories that make up the creation of these shows are incredible and often exciting. Here I just wanted to give the reader a taste of what it takes to be the curator for a world class exhibition.

Jan Gossart Known as Mabuse

The demise of the international traveling exhibition has long been heralded, but after 9-11-2001 it was said that they could definitely no longer occur. Yet, in 2010 you can find in almost every major city fabulous shows bringing together great works of art from all over. Works are brought together not just for the sake of the public, but also so that art historians can compare works that they have never seen together. This allows them to trace the development of the artist and distinguish between versions of the pictures, determining whether they are by the artist himself or a follower. Photographs are no substitute for the original as they only tell a small portion of the story.

Many of these exhibitions are worth traveling to see, but what luck when a great show is right in your own back yard where you can visit and revisit it. So it is with “Man, Myth and Sensual Pleasures: Jan Gossart’s Renaissance” an exhibition which opened recently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The exhibition brilliantly curated by Maryan Ainsworth will be on view until January 17, 2011 and then go on to the National Gallery in London.

The exhibition shows the development of Jan Gossart (Maubeuge 1478 - Antwerp? 1532) and demonstrates how he was a major force in bringing the Renaissance to Northern Europe. His visit to Rome in 1508-09 in the entourage of his patron Philip of Burgundy was a decisive influence on his work. We see this in a gallery showing classical antique sculpture along with Gossart’s related drawings. (Image with captions)














As mentioned in last week’s “Missive”, I believe that the visitor should walk through and look at an entire exhibition before singling out works to study further. What do you do, however, when there are so many wonderful works of art that draw you in? You will find that each time you go through the show another aspect of the story is revealed.

The loans here are amazing, and not just Gossarts. There are drawings and prints by Durer, a first class Jan van Eyck and Gerard David and many others. How was this all managed? Next week I will discuss the curatorial role and the curator that brought these works together.

Monographic exhibitions are the most difficult because the curator is always tempted to borrow and show as many works as possible by the artist. By neglecting the selection process the goal of the exhibition is often lost. I have gone to monographic exhibitions of artists I believed I loved, only to find that by the end I thought less of them.

In this case it is slightly easier since there are only 63 panel paintings known, and at the Met we can see 50 of them. The the show also has clearly delineated subject headings in each gallery, and within the category the works are juxtaposed to other works by the artist or related works by other artists. The labels are excellent and if you cannot figure out what the relationship between works is you need only read the label to make things clear.

While we have often been shown drawings and prints related to a painting, it is unusual to see related sculpture. Two of my favorite examples are sculptures by the German artist Conrad Meit (Worms 1475 - Antwerp, 1550/1). Gossart and Meit worked together in both the courts of Philip of Burgundy and Margaret of Austria. So there is no question that Meit’s sculpture was influential in the sculptural style of Gossart’s paintings. The juxtapositions are so compelling that the three examples that I had picked before even opening the catalog were already available in jpegs from the museum.














A stunning example is a small boxwood figure of Lucretia by Conrad Meit done between 1500 and 1515 and a painting of Venus and Cupid done by Gossart in 1521. Though the painting with its integral frame is twice as large as the sculpture, by setting them off in a case by themselves, the relationship between the similarly twisted fleshy torsos is made obvious.














The other telling comparison is a Conrad Meit marble Virgin and Child done between 1531 and 1534 that I had not seen before from the Brussels cathedral and a Gossart painting dating circa 1527 of roughly the same dimensions. Here it seems Meit was looking at Gossart’s work: note the texture of the hair and folds of the garments.

All that has been discovered about the artist and his time is covered in the catalog. But it is no substitute for going to see this exhibition that allows you to make visual discoveries for yourself.

The Audio Guide: Pluses and Minuses

In the New York Times of October 1, 2010 I read Arthur Rothstein’s column entitled “From Picassos to Sarcophagi, Guided by Phone Apps”. It is the newest in the use of audio and video technology to enhance the visitor experience in the Museum. His point is that the technology is in its infancy and, at the moment, can be more distracting than illuminating.

I am for anything that brings the visitor to the museum but then I want the visitors to look for themselves and have their own perceptions and reactions. The museum experience should not be like that of the tourist who rushes from one sight to another just to tick it off in a travel guide, i.e. Eifel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Louvre (Mona Lisa, Victory of Samothrace) etc.

Bring the audience in but don’t lead them around by the nose. The order and priorities of a museum visit should not be dictated. Visiting a museum is not like learning a language at school where you are made to learn the grammar first. It should be more like visiting a foreign country and wanting to learn more about the place and its people. At first you pick up a few phrases that may then lead to the study and mastery of the language.

Long before the audio guide existed, I was taught by my father that the first time you go to a museum or to an exhibition you should just walk around and become acquainted with what is there. In a large museum such as the Metropolitan you need to pick an area such as Greek and Roman or Medieval or American Wing or Old Master Paintings, because you can’t do it all at once. Then go through again more slowly to look more carefully at what interested you the first time round and read the labels. If you are still interested by all means take an audio guide. My complaint is that many still either tell you what is on the label or what you can see for yourself!

One audio guide that I really enjoyed accompanied the presentation at the Kimbell Art Museum of the exhibition “European Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia,” in 2000. Timothy Potts had just arrived as Director of the Kimbell from his previous post at the Australian museum. Since he had been in on the original organization of the loan exhibition he could comment on reasons for the selections and the amendments that had been made by the following administration. These inside stories make the art historical content more interesting and therefore more memorable.

Like Rothstein, I feel that the visual and audio aides can sometimes distance the viewer rather than bring him closer to the art. Art is intensely personal and I believe it should be first experienced at that level.

Two Dreamers....

…one with eyes lowered as if in prayer and the other looking to the stars. Who are these women? We will never know, for they are not commissioned portrait busts but rather idealized heads based on a sculptor’s study of a live model. Furthermore, they are not even in the traditional materials of “fine arts”, stone, or bronze. These two dreamers are made of red stoneware known as Böttgerware, and produced at the porcelain factory of Meissen somewhere between the late 1920’s and mid 1930’s. Their authors were sculptors who made their living creating models for ceramic production.



These sculptural studies are a world apart from the precious quality generally associated with porcelain figurines. But modelers for porcelain factories of the 18th century were often talented sculptors (Kaendler at Meissen, Bustelli at Nymphenburg foremost among them) who could shape the human figure to conform to the stylization of the Baroque and Rococo eras. Just so with these two heads, where the realistic study of models is transformed through the lens of the Art Deco style of the twenties and thirties.

We know little about the sculptors themselves. Professor Emile Paul Börner (1888-1970) studied in Florence and the Italian tradition of the depiction of the Virgin Mary is evident in the mystical tranquility he evokes in his female subject. Even less is known about Willi Münch-Khe (1885-1961), the author of the Balinese beauty, who worked as a modeler at several other German factories as well as at Meissen. He clearly shared in the fascination with the exotic that was current in the art deco and moderne periods.

They both realized the potential of the high-fired red-brown ceramic that had been overlooked in the centuries since it was developed by the alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger (1682-1719) in his attempts to produce porcelain for the princely patrons of the Meissen factory. He was the first in Europe to discover the formula for true porcelain known from oriental imports and Meissen began production in 1710. But the early vessels of red stoneware, now dubbed Bottgerware, are among the most prized by collectors today.

The exceptionally hard medium allows for the most refined detail and the contrast of matte and highly polished surfaces (see the eyelashes on Borner’s piece, the glistening lips on Münche-Khe’s) Did the director of the factory encourage the two sculptors to explore the medium in large sculpture? Did the two sculptors challenge each other? I have been so intrigued by my two ladies, their relationship and their contrasting beauty. They are hors de categorie, surpassing the stigma of “minor arts” associated with the products of porcelain factories.

Will we ever know the circumstance of their creation?

Paris - The XXVth Biennale and Beyond

I have been asked if American Museums were represented among the visitors to the Biennale. I had only run into a few American museum people myself but exhibitors in different fields told me that a number were present. Among the museums represented were The Metropolitan Museum, The Art Institute of Chicago, The National Gallery in Washington and the Speed Museum in Louisville. The Louisville curator brought a group of patrons as well. Of course, many French and even some German museums curators and directors came.

Regarding the younger contingent of exhibitors, my favorite gallery was definitely Jason Jacques. It is a New York gallery and they do not deal in my field but their specialty has been of interest since my wife was curator of 20th century decorative arts at the Metropolitan Museum many years ago. I met two of the principals Jason Jacques himself and Yoni Ben-Yosef. They were showing a large selection of late 19th century French art pottery with a choice selection of European furniture from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In fact, as a display case for some of the ceramics they used a large cabinet with the most wonderful mounts by the German artist Richard Riemerschmid (Munich 1868-1957). That was something I would have been happy to take home!

With the Biennale bringing so many French and foreign visitors to town, some dealers who do not participate use the opportunity to stage their own events, so there was much else to see.

A La Vieille Russie, the renowned New York gallery specializing in jewelry and Russian works of art, most especially Fabergé, have an exhibition at the Didier Aaron Gallery while the latter were exhibiting at the Biennale. Originally from Kiev the family firm came to Paris in 1920 and stayed until 1961. Complementing the works of art were photos and texts that lined the walls. They traced the history of the gallery and provided a prime illustration of the interesting ways in which the art world has evolved.

At Galerie Aveline on the Place Beauveau, Galerie Neuse from Bremen, Germany did a wonderful installation of their early German silver, objects and paintings. What particularly caught my eye were a few 16th century German pistols covered with engraved ivory inlays,-- another keeper! All this was wonderfully intermingled with great French 18th century furniture from Aveline’s proprietor, Jean-Marie Rossi.



But the prize for the most spectacular installation and exhibition had to go to the Galerie Kugel. The Kugel brothers transformed the courtyard of their hôtel particulier (well defined by Wikipedia as an urban ‘private house’ of a grand sort’) using a steel structure to turn it into a mini Panthéon. showcases and niches throughout displayed classical antiquities and 16th century Renaissance interpretations of the classical era.

There were many other exhibitions and events but as in any city with so much great culture one can never see it all. Whenever you come home again some one is bound to say: did you see thus and so? You may have missed that particular attraction, but remember, you enjoyed what you did see. By the time you read this one or the other be over but the Kugels’ extravaganza will be open until December 18.