Robert Mapplethorpe
(American, 1947-1989),
Louise Nevelson, 1986, gelatin silver print,
Gruber Family Fund, 2002
Insights into Building a Great Art Collection
By Ellen S. Wilson
Museum collections tell a story. In the case of Carnegie Museum of Art,
the story is about Pittsburgh, about personal connections, curatorial
instinct, and luck. While much of
the museum's collection is currently on view in Panopticon, visitors may well
wonder where it all came from, and what stories lie behind some of the
pieces assembled during a century of collecting.
Andrew Carnegie’s mandate in founding the museum of art
was to focus on contemporary art, and he established the Carnegie International as the avenue for
acquiring the “Old Masters of tomorrow.”
As a result, about one third of the collection has been acquired from
past Internationals. Equally important, changes in museum leadership,
economic fluctuations, public taste, and even war have influenced the rate and the quality of
acquisitions.
“Traditionally, there was no acquisitions budget,”
explains Richard Armstrong, Henry J Heinz II director of the museum. “The Scaife family’s gifts through the
1960s and 1970s were the most transformational thing that has happened in
the history of this institution.
Between their decisions to buy, under curatorial guidance, a series
of very important 19th and 20th century works, and to
concomitantly build a facility to accommodate them, they changed the museum.
It was the single most important act of patronage since the founding of the
museum.
“Our contemporary collection, principally works after
1970, is what distinguishes us,” Armstrong continues. “Since 1982, we’ve been in a good moment
in terms of acquisitions and exhibitions. And in the wake of the Second
Century Fund, the purchases that predate 1945 over the last ten years have
also been very distinguished.”
Twenty-one years may seem like a long "moment,"
but curators at art museums take the long view. Putting an object in a
museum makes a statement about its value, and buying work from a living
artist is tantamount to blessing that artist’s career. Exhibiting work in the Carnegie International may not guarantee
long-term artistic or monetary success, but it does elevate an artist’s
reputation and name recognition. For
many artists, it is the most important exhibition of their career.
Because the contemporary “canon” is still being formed, “ determining what is ‘good’ or not is,
of course, a matter of, hopefully, good judgment, some instinct, and – this
is important – experience and research,” says Laura Hoptman, curator of
contemporary art and curator of the 2004 Carnegie International. “One will
not be right all the time, particularly since we are assembling the
collection not only for our generation but for subsequent ones. But one can be smart a lot of the time –
smart enough to create a coherent record of the time in which we are
living, from the point of view of international visual culture.”
Making Sense of a Century
When curators consider making a purchase, they think
primarily about how it fits with what the museum already has, and with the "story"
the collection tells. And they all
speak of it as a story. While the last century has not been easy to
summarize, the collection does reflect major themes. Love, hate, sex,
death, and the eternal battles over who we are and how we function are all
illustrated here, but selectively. The curators become editors, judging
what pieces fit to further the plot.
“Just because something is a great object doesn’t mean that
it is appropriate for this collection,” says Sarah Nichols, chief curator
and curator of decorative arts. “You
try to collect objectively, rather
than subjectively, but there is a gut feeling. It has to be a great piece of design,
wonderful proportions, interesting use of materials. It might be innovative for its
time.”
Montreuil
Fountain, St. Antoine District (at the corner of rue de Charonne) 1904-1905, vintage albumen prints from glass plate
negatives, Second Centruy Acquisition Fund, 2002.
And it has to fit.
“One area where we have depth is circa 1900, which was the height of
the Arts and Crafts movement in America and England, Art Nouveau in France,
the birth of Modernism in Europe,” Nichols continues. “We are strong in Arts and Crafts and Art
Nouveau, and it makes sense to collect from the other European countries that
were introducing the idea of Modernism at this time. We also focus on architect-designed
objects, especially chairs. We already have a good chair collection, and we
are known for that.”
For contemporary purchases, Laura Hoptman takes into
consideration a work’s relevance to global culture. “We just purchased a video installation by
the Albanian artist Anri Sala,” she explains. “Sala is the first Albanian artist in
anyone’s memory to participate in the contemporary art discourse. His films and installations touch on
contemporary life in Tirana, Albania’s capital, but they also reflect the
contemporary anomie of European life fifty years after the Second World
War.”
Building on Strengths
For fine arts, says curator Louise Lippincott, “We try to build out from our strengths,
geographically and chronologically, which are French and American paintings
from 1870 to 1910. The nice thing about that is that we already own the
expensive pieces. Now when we need
to represent the major figures, or the major movements, we buy more
expensive things less often. For
this type of collecting, I am very disciplined. The dealers in this country and Europe
know what I’m looking for, and I follow the international auctions
carefully.”
Because Lippincott’s field is painting and sculpture
before 1945, new discoveries are rare, and opportunities to buy rarer
still. Occasionally, however, a
piece comes to light unexpectedly, and for that there is what Lippincott
calls “mad money,” in hand and ready to go without the year or so of
planning required by the big expenditures.
“I was flipping through an auction catalogue in 1993,
and there was an 1845 Roman landscape painting by Andreas Achenbach.”
Lippincott recounts. “The sale was a week away, in Germany, and there was
no way I could go. But the painting
fit in very well with our collection.”
“By sheer good
luck,” the painting did not sell at auction. Lippincott had the condition of the
painting checked by a trusted agent, negotiated the price, and was able to
bring it to Pittsburgh.
“This is a big, important painting in perfect condition,
and it turned out to be a very important picture in Achenbach’s
career. We lent it back to the
Düsseldorf museum for an Achenbach show.” Achenbach’s Italian Landscape is on view in Panopticon,
number 316.
Beatriz Meilhazes (Brazilian, b. 1960) Nazareth das
Frainhas, 2002, acrylic on canvas, Alexander C. and Tillie S. Speyer Fund
for Contemporary Art, in honor of Madeline Grynsztejn, 2002. One of the
foremost painters in South America, Milhazes mixes stenciling with paint
and straight painting, producing an effect that recalls the fabrics that
are one of her most important sources.
Sometimes major gifts dictate the course of the
collection. The recent gift by Mr.
and Mrs. William Block of 39 pieces of contemporary glass, featured
recently in Contemporary Directions:
Glass from the Maxine and William Block Collection, means that the
museum suddenly has a significant glass collection. “We’re going to make sure we maintain
that collection,” states Nichols.
“And with the new Pittsburgh Glass Center, a teaching facility,
having opened, it makes sense to develop a contemporary glass
collection.”
Gifts from the Charles and Mary Grace Carpenter Collection
had a similarly transforming effect, “bringing to the collection key works
by some of the most important American artists of the past fifty years,”
says Hoptman. “Claes Oldenburg’s Sandwich (1961) comes from his
earliest and most groundbreaking period –
around 1962 – when he first began sculpting commonplace objects in papier mache. This will be the jewel in our growing Pop
collection, a perfect foil for our Warhol Campbell’s Tomato Soup Box.”
Relying on Relationships
Luck, however well-deserved, often has little to do with
the acquisitions and how they are discovered. “It depends,” explains Linda Batis,
associate curator of fine arts, “on the relationships we build by hitting
the pavement and going from gallery to gallery, going to fairs regularly. I try to keep in touch with the dealers I
know, who might have something I’m interested in.”
Sometimes, in other words, it all depends on getting the
right tip, in time to act on it. And
that depends on the curator.
“The curatorial staff is really without peer,” says
Armstrong. “Not only in their ability to find and purchase art but also in
their ability to exhibit it, and in the number and quality of exhibitions
they mount. It’s unusual.”
Like any story, then, the pieces have to be in the proper
order. But the mystery still lies in the choosing. Carnegie Museum of Art, like all art
museums, may not exactly establish the canon, but it does suggest what it
ought to be, suggestions that are borne out of education and experience as
well as instinct. As Armstrong says, the museum participates in the
“consensual discernment” of which art objects are the important ones.
“That is one of
the processes that distinguishes the Carnegie International, the
demonstrable prescience of our curatorial staff since the mid-1980s.
“One strategy of contemporary art is to collect
aggressively, recognizing that only a portion--and we hope a significant
portion--of what has been collected will prove to be consensually
significant, worthy of prolonged consideration by the culture. There are
empirical ways of testing that. One of them is the marketplace.
"At the most fundamental level, however” Armstrong
adds, "the museum buys something simply because it is beautiful.”
Several
of Carnegie Museum of Art's recent acquisitions will be on display in the
2nd floor gallery to the left of the museum's Grand Staircase, March 1
through March 25.
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