Louisville’s Speed Art Museum, which I visited a few years ago, is a gem. Nice collection, nice building.
And now it’s an example of how museums should be addressing their collections. In a Mar. 9 press release, the museum said it had embarked on a comprehensive analysis of its 14,000 piece collection. Now, halfway through the process, conducted by staff and outside experts, the Speed said that this scholarship:
…is shedding new light on the significance of key pieces, leading to the reattribution of works [including the picture at left], revealing collection strengths not previously fully recognized, and yielding new perspectives on the history and development of the Museum’s collection.
It’s doing this to “identify key areas for collection growth and refinement, with the goal of strengthening the Museum’s holdings and making the collection more relevant and meaningful for the community it serves.” (That last part makes me a tad nervous, but nevermind for now.)
As a result, the release said,
The Speed will be deaccessioning works that are in poor condition, of lesser quality, have been discovered to be modified, or are inappropriate for an art museum…
The museum will sell through Christie’s, and the funds will go into acquisitions. Further:
…the Museum will post information on deaccessioned objects on its website beginning this spring. The Museum is developing a searchable online database of its entire collection, which will include information on deaccessioned works.
Great! And gosh, I thought, since I’ve been arguing for what I call deaccessioning in public for a while now (AKA transparency), maybe I am having an impact — others, including Max Anderson, are of course trying to foster the same thing.
But I had Five Questions, and Charles L. Venable, the Speed’s director, agreed to answer them.
1) It’s not often that a museum undertakes a comprehensive review of its entire collection. Many would probably say they don’t have the staff, the time, etc. for this. Why are you willing to devote the resources to this?
One of the primary reasons I came to the Speed in 2007 was to advance the expansion and renovation planning that was already underway. A key part of that process was to determine how much additional space we needed for improved public areas (galleries, education areas, performance space, etc.) vs. back of house space, including art storage. We were considering the ramifications of building off-site storage and I asked the staff to think about how many of the works would be stored and probably never shown. While that question could obviously not be answered exactly, it was clear that the Speed, like most museums, had many objects that had not been on public view for decades due to their condition, attribution, etc. Thus was born the idea of reviewing the entire collection over approximately three years to better understand the collection, and how to strengthen it and provide for its long-term care.
2) In examining the first half, can you give me an example of how research shed “new light on the significance of key pieces”?
A result of the research we’ve been conducting has been to reaffirm the importance of works we believed were significant to our collection. Walter Liedtke of the Met examined Anthony van Dyck’s Portrait of a Woman and confirmed it was likely painted entirely by the master, an important distinction since many of his monumental canvases were largely executed by workshop assistants.
One of the great aspects of looking at the collection as a whole is that you see how the pieces fit together. Charles Traub, from the School of Visual Arts in New York, reviewed our photographic works and helped us better understand what remarkable holdings we have of 1970s street and topographic photography.
3) Among the reattributed works, were any significantly upgraded? May I have the names of the works with previous and new attribution?
We have a panel painting in our collection, Banqueting Hall of a Palace [pictured above], which is signed by Dirk van Delen. Despite the signature, we’d wondered about that attribution for many years on stylistic grounds, but it was only after our research that we came to think it was probably painted by the Flemish artist Hendrick van Steenwyck. A reattribution, as in this case, isn’t always about “up-grading” or “down-grading” – it’s about understanding a work more thoroughly.
4) I was pleased to see the announcement about deaccessioning procedures. Will you clarify when the titles of the art works (not the natural history items, etc.) will be posted on the web — before they are sold, correct?
Yes, information on works of art, as well as the natural history objects, being deaccessioned will be posted on our website before they are sold.
5) How will you share all of this new information about the collections? Will it lead to a special exhibition, or an essay about the finds, or anything like that?
We’re still early enough in this process that I don’t have a full answer to your question, but the ultimate goal is to share new information on works of art in the collection with our public now and especially after our expansion is complete in the next few years. We’ll also share information in the meantime through our website, our newsletter, and possibly through special exhibitions and perhaps even interactive kiosks in the gallery. A good example of the latter is a web-based interactive we recently produced on an early 15th century book of hours in the collection. New research about this work has made this educational piece very successful and popular with the public. You can see the interactive on our website at http://www.speedmuseum.org/book_of_hours/
Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Speed Art Museum