Description
Summary: Founded in 1842 with a vision for infusing art into the American experience, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (WAMA) is the oldest continuously operating public art museum in the United States. WAMA’s collection of nearly 50,000 works of art encompasses European art from Antiquity through Modernism, and American art from the 1600s through today. The American collections include renowned holdings of over 8,000 American decorative art objects.
WAMA has embarked on a phased re-envisioning of its American art installations and programs beginning with a deep reconsideration of its American precious metalwork holdings. This work has begun with a systematic survey, cataloguing, and conservation-assessment project. Its culmination, for which WAMA seeks funding from the Luce Foundation, will be the creation of a permanent installation of approximately 450 objects from the silver collection in a former vault located in a prime spot on the first floor of the museum’s Morgan Memorial Building.
The significant but rarely seen works slated for the installation are drawn from three distinct areas of WAMA’s silver collection: the Hammerslough Collection of 650 American silver objects; a group of over 250 eighteenth- and nineteenth-century objects with local histories; and the Elizabeth B. Miles Collection of British silver, assembled to demonstrate the imported forms and styles that served as direct inspiration for American silversmiths. Selected examples from the Miles collection will serve a holistic narrative of the evolution of the American silver design and practice.
The cataloguing and conservation assessments are well on their way, and will be completed in the fall of 2018. This groundwork will be followed by object treatments and content development. WAMA plans a convening of an interdisciplinary team of experts in 2019 to develop an installation narrative that will synthesize histories of material resources, global trade, aesthetic transference, production practices, cultural status, and social mores.
A major component of the project, and the primary focus of the proposed grant, would be the retrofitting of the vault space, including renovations that will accommodate climate controls and ADA compliance. Upgrades will range from the installation of energy-efficient LED lighting to silver-specific casework for dense displays. The gallery will be enlivened by projected videos of contemporary silversmiths demonstrating eighteenth- through twentieth-century metalwork techniques. Digital technologies will provide visitors with access to object and didactic information via their own smart phones or tablets that will be made available at the museum’s admissions desk.
In addition to the newly installed and programmed vault gallery, WAMA plans to extend its American metalwork initiative with selected installations throughout the suite of American permanent collection galleries. Overall, the project promises to provide dramatically expanded access to a vital collection area and deeply developed content to enliven the material for visitors.
The proposed project to reinvigorate WAMA’s American silver collection will be overseen by the museum’s decorative arts curators, Brandy S. Culp and Linda H. Roth. The proposed grant would underwrite the renovations, casework and mounts, installation and lighting design, and new digital collection portal, for the vault gallery.
Recommendation: That the Directors of the Henry Luce Foundation approve a two-year grant of $350,000 to the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art for a permanent installation of the American and British silver collection.
