posted 10-02-2006 11:59 AM            

I totally understand a donor's desire that objects donated to a museum be viewed--after all that is the reason to give.

But is it? What is the purpose of a donation to a museum? If a donor gives books to a library, or funds for the purchase of books, is he angry if the books aren't checked out constantly? Why (reasons the curator) should a donor of objects feel any differently? No museum, or almost no museum, has room to show every single object all the time. But the prime mission of museums is NOT to display objects, but to preserve, study, and conserve objects. Exhibition of objects is part of the museum's role, but not its PRIMARY role. An ART GALLERY'S primary role is to exhibit objects.

There are many objects I collect because they are meaningful for one reason or another--historical, local maker, etc. Often I realize that I may never see these objects on display in my galleries, because their primary purpose is as a document, which I feel the museum must preserve to keep the information it holds from disappearing.

I have on occasion, if the gift was important enough to me to justify it, allowed donors to affix a condition to a gift that the museum will never deaccession it(unless to another museum). This is the only sort of conditional gift I will accept,and only if the gift is of tremendous importance.

posted 10-02-2006 01:25 PM            

As the owner of probably the largest active collections of English silver shoe buckles in the world, I intend that my collection will be sold at auction on my death, with a very comprehensive sale catalogue to act as a reference work. The extra cost of the catalogue , by agreement with the auctioneers, will to be subsidised from the sale proceeds. This means I do not intend the objects which have given me much pleasure ( and poverty ) to be locked away in a museum , but to enable other people to enjoy them, and creating new experts - who will probably dispute all my findings !

posted 10-02-2006 01:37 PM            

Of course, I cannot speak for shoe buckles in museum collections in England, but I'd wager there are quite a few socked away. In fact, my own little Newark museum has just two rather nice English shoe buckles (and another that I think is a knee buckle) with local histories--documenting nicely that these pieces were in fact sold to colonists (not that it's a surprise, but one likes to know).

So, my question would be, wouldn't it be nice to donate some of the shoebuckles to museums in various parts of England, assuming they really wanted them and could at least imagine how they might display them (as I am displaying my shoebuckles right now)? Then your or your executors could go ahead and sell the majority of the collection, creating the documentary auction catalogue, and including these donated buckles as part of the foreward to the catalogue. That way all sides are served.

As a final note, I agree totally that if museums are going to keep scads of stuff stashed away in vaults, then it is truly their moral imperative to make that material accessible to scholars and collectors. That means minimal red tape to get into a collection, and (a more difficult task, sadly) adequate staff to deal with such requests and all the additional work they demand. This was the motive behind the creation of the Ratti Textile center at the Metropolitan Museum--accessibility.

A digital image is never as good as a real object, because you can't feel it. That's why I'm against microfilming old periodicals and then discarding the originals.

posted 10-02-2006 04:10 PM            

But to give three examples from my own field. I have deliberately not been matched the data so one cannot indentify which museum is which.
All three museums have major, important collections, all given by three major donors. One has about one third of the collection on display. One has only two pairs on show, the third has only one (out of several hundred ). One has a very good catalogue , one originally had a good booklet but sold them all off cheaply some years ago - so nothing now available - although a card index can be used if requested a few days in advance . The other has nothing other than a poor unillustrated list not easily available to the public . One was supposed to organise a loan system for other museums to show all the buckles on a rota system - this has never happened. One keeps their collection very quiet.
In all cases access is allowed without problem . However one of them has very poor unorganised storage , does not insist on cotton gloves , and does not properly supervise viewings. In view of this I will not access this collection. Having being left alone unattended with the collection for nearly twenty minutes on the last occasion I was there I feel unhappy that if anything goes missing I could be a suspect. In view of their frankly chaotic storage the likelihood of items being mislaid is high.

All three donors would , frankly, be appalled at what has happened to their collections. At least donor had stipulated that the entire collection be on view for most of the year - which has not been the case for years.

So I would much prefer to sell my entire collection and allow the museums to buy any they really want.

I think many people have fairly strong views on this and when I get back in a weeks time I will be most interested to see other views .

posted 10-02-2006 11:23 PM            

And once in a museum saw a table set with 1847 Rogers Vintage Grape, part of the original furnishings of the house. Remarked about it to the curator who immediately lectured me that this was sterling and mid 1870's. Decided to just shut up. This was a house made into a museum.

Have also observed first hand the rather cavelier way the Chicago Art Institute lets employees 'borrow' art works not on display. They would take them home and decorate with paintings they kept for decades.

posted 10-03-2006 09:44 AM            

However, if a museum (in Chicago or anywhere) has decided that it doesn't care about eletroplated silver, then that's their right. Of course there's no excuse for bad manners, but no institution can collect everything. However, I share in the expressed frustration that museums do seem to make snobbish and short-sighted choices as to what is and what is not "museum quality." Curators are, after all, human (more or less). But every museum has its own distinct personality, and "museum quality" is an extremely vague term. I actively purchase things for Newark that the Metropolitan Museum wouldn't accept as gifts, and yet we also collect some of the same sorts of things. Many museums are driven by the "masterpiece" syndrome, while others paint with broader brushes.

I'd also follow up with an affirmation that the mission of a museum THAT GETS PUBLIC FUNDING is to serve the public, even if that public isn't wise or even interested. Collectors are NOT the public, but a portion of the public. I personally believe that museums who turn their backs on collectors are failing in their duty as institutions of learning and intellectual exploration; but museums who do not seek to engage the public are also failing in their duty. A museum's role--at least my museum's founding mission--is to engage people who might not care about what we have, and to MAKE them care.

Conversely, I will agree that the race to seek public funding and to get bodies in the door by any means necessary has diluted the museums in America as cultural beacons, and has demoralized curators all across the country.

But, when you all see a museum behaving badly, and you see curators overworked and under-supported, your response is to take your toys and go home (metaphorically speaking). Again, where is the charity? What might a collector do to help the museum stop behaving badly?

Let's see where this goes.

posted 10-03-2006 10:18 PM            

This was in the context of an exhibit or whatnot on the topic of silver made in Chicago. With a particular emphasis on Chicago products sold nationwide. By and large, the only Chicago sterling is the Arts and Crafts which was a very elite, small production high end sold only in the immediate environs.

On the other hand, Chicago and surrounding areas had 3 major silverplate makers whose wares were sold nationwide: Rockford/Racine, Yourex and Aurora. These also had major private collections and inventories which were available to the exhibit. The curator managed to alienate each and every collector in one way or another. It did not seem to dawn on him that many of the dealers with the plate also had access to and some stock of Chicago silver. Which would have been handy for the exhibit also. Instead AIR it became yet another tour of one certain dealer's inventory.

The museum turned down items that meet its published criteria. It excluded the only items that had been 'sold nationwide'. It managed to alienate a signifigant portion of the silver buying community.

As usual in the upper midwest there was an ethnic dimension. The curators and museum staff tended to be sort of WASPish. And the collectors etc were generally from ethnic type backgrounds. Someone remarked that they had shown no interest in Swedish silver made in Chicago, which does exist. Only in things made for the rich WASPs.

posted 10-04-2006 09:29 AM            

Mind you, I embrace all American silver, and everything produced in Newark in addition to that. It appalls me to see museums being narrow minded--but sometimes that's their mission. If they have the right to be dimwitted, you have the right to ignore them.

posted 10-04-2006 04:50 PM            

quote:

---

So, why do people ignore my museum, when we're neither narrow-minded nor snobbish? The old catch-22.

---

It sounds like you have the old "What if you gave a party and nobody came" feeling. I know it well, as I too have had that experience of preparing presentations and exhibits to which few people came.

I assume the above is a rhetorical question, but I have to ask whether you depend of a local newspaper to find something newsworthy in the exhibit or just let them bury a notice in the week's events section? After all:

"The codfish lays a million eggs,
and the helpful hen but one,
Yet the codfish never cackles
to inform you what she's done.
And so we scorn the codfish
and the helpful hen we prize,
Which indicates to thoughtful minds
it pays to advertise."

Even with good advertising though, it may be just that there are not that many people out there interested enough to go out of their way (or to pay admission, if any)- a disturbing thought when the expense of an exhibit (or even a collection itself) has to be justified to the "bean counters."

quote:

---

My head whirls with all the disappointment and anger in these posts. It makes my heart sink.

---

posted 10-04-2006 11:21 PM            

Other than that I have toured some quirky little ones. Like the Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary. Large ones tend not to intrigue me much. The Denver museum was always such a zoo that I came to avoid it. Except when friends visited from out of town.

posted 10-05-2006 06:27 PM            

But what my rhetorical flourish meant was to ask why COLLECTORS still seem to ignore us, in spite of the fact that we do care for our collections well and interpret them well. I won't flatter us unnecessarily, because we suffer the same silliness that many museums suffer. We do in fact pay huge amounts of money for advertising each year now, because we cannot rely on the newspapers to cover us. We are routinely ignored by the NY Times, in spite of advertising, except in their suburban section--because of course no Manhattanite (or Brooklynite) would ever come to Newark (nine miles away and easily accessed by public transit).

The bottom line is that collectors seem to believe that museums make their treasures inaccessible, while selling them at auction makes them accessible. Well, at least while the auction is going on, people can actually TOUCH things, which is pretty neat. But then they disappear. In 1998 I bought a great Tiffany sideboard dish from the Centennial exhibitio that had been hidden in some family's silver vault since 1886. So it only took four generations to get that back into the public view.

posted 10-05-2006 11:03 PM            

I regard myself as knowlegable in a narrow range of silver; plated wares. And when I have seen plated silver in museums I have never seen it correctly identified. Nor have I ever had any luck in correcting a misidentification. Just rolled eyes and waving hands.

Perhaps what is needed is for museum people to learn that any dealer who has dealt in something for a length of time is almost always a knowlegable person. I once visited at a show with a curator. He told me his museum had 'buckets of silverplate', that no one there knew anything about it. I asked to see it, offering to do some elementary id's for them. He just dismissed that out of hand.

posted 10-06-2006 12:08 AM            

quote:

---

And when I have seen plated silver in museums I have never seen it correctly identified. Nor have I ever had any luck in correcting a misidentification.

---

What we are dealing with here is basic human nature - there is a natural clannish/elitist attitude in any group of people who specialize in anything. With few exceptions they (we) always think they (we) know more about their (our) subject than anyone else - particularly when they do not know or know of you.

If you stop to think about it, it is perfectly understandable.

Annoying, but understandable.

Very annoying.

Who do they think they are, anyway?

posted 10-16-2006 12:35 PM            

quote:

---

I would consider donating a valuable object to a museum where I would hope it could be preserved and made available for study rather than see it go to a private collector who might effectively hide it for the duration of his lifetime

---