From Gift to Gallery: A Curator’s Guide to Presenting 25 New Paintings
Take a behind-the-scenes look at how installations come together in the High Museum’s galleries.
By Claudia Einecke, Frances B. Bunzl Family Curator of European Art, High Museum of Art
This past fall, the High Museum received an amazing surprise gift: twenty-five Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings from the collection of Doris and Shouky Shaheen. Several of the artists in the group were newcomers to the Museum’s collection, notably Henri Matisse and Amedeo Modigliani; others saw their numbers dramatically boosted — for example, Claude Monet (three new paintings, bringing the total to five) and Camille Pissarro (doubling the existing holdings to a total of six).
In short, the new paintings are a huge deal for our visitors: they mean enjoyment, beauty, world-renowned talent, historical significance.
But first, before visitors could enjoy the paintings, a lot of work had to be done involving many of my skilled colleagues across various Museum departments. The paintings arrived in unglamorous crates and bins; now they sparkle on the walls of the newly named Doris and Shouky Shaheen Gallery. What follows is an outline of how that happened — at least from the curator’s perspective (me) — in eight busy steps.
Eight Steps from Gift to Gallery
Step 1
Identify a space within the suite of European galleries large enough to accommodate the twenty-five new paintings.
Persons involved: Curator of European Art, Chief Curator, and Director
We finally settled on Gallery 205, the very heart of the European galleries on the Second Level of the Stent Wing.
Step 2
Empty Gallery 205 and move paintings and sculptures previously on view there to other display areas.
Persons involved: Curator decides which works are to go where; preparators handle the physical move; curatorial assistant and registrars keep the collections database updated to track and record changing locations of works
Gallery 205 was housing paintings and sculptures from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, plus a handful of paintings by American artists active in Europe in the nineteenth century. To make room for the new paintings, those works from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries — including the very popular Burial of Atala by Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson — were moved to Gallery 208, a balcony space that before had displayed only sculptures.
Happily, this arrangement provided space for several additional paintings that had been in storage for some time. Among these is a charming portrait of a girl with a dove from the studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds. (The sitter looks ghostly pale because the experimental red pigments Reynolds used have almost completely faded.)
Landscape paintings from the middle of the nineteenth century that had hung in Gallery 205 were integrated into a new configuration of Gallery 207. Here, too, I used the opportunity to add works from storage.
Step 3
Remove a freestanding wall from Gallery 205; patch and paint walls as needed.
Persons involved: Outside contractor for demolition; preparators for fine work
A non-load-bearing wall (painted dark purple, if you remember) that had subdivided the gallery was dismantled to create the elegant, open space of the Doris and Shouky Shaheen Gallery. Now, paintings freely “speak” to each other across the room, and visitors can take in the full panoply from every spot.
Step 4
Write, edit, and produce labels for the new paintings.
Persons involved: Curator, museum educators, editor, graphic design team
We want visitors to the High to have at least a modicum of information about artists and individual works, intended to make their experience more meaningful. While the final responsibility for what is said on labels rests with the curator, museum educators, curatorial assistants, and sometimes curatorial fellows participate in the research and writing. The editor ensures good diction and correct grammar, and the graphic design team produces and eventually installs labels and text panels in the galleries.
Step 5
Arrange paintings within the Doris and Shouky Shaheen Gallery.
Persons involved: Curator, preparators
While the gallery was being emptied and repaired, I used a scale model and paper cutouts to devise a preliminary hanging plan that would make sense of the new paintings both visually and in terms of art history.
However, the final layout emerged only once the paintings were present in the gallery, placed against the walls in their estimated place. Only “in the flesh” can the true expressive power or “personality” of a work of art be seen or felt. What might look good together on paper or on a computer screen does not always do so in reality: colors are different, scale comes into play, and sometimes even the frames can make paintings visually incompatible. This step in the process requires sensitivity, creativity, and concentration on the part of the curator, as well as a lot of patience and forbearance on the part of the art handlers as they move paintings — sometimes more than once — until they have found their “right” spot.
Step 6
Physically install paintings and labels.
Persons involved: Preparators, graphic design team
Thanks to the long practice, vast experience, and total professionalism of the High’s staff, this part of the process progresses rapidly but always with the utmost care.
Step 7
Adjust gallery lighting.
Persons involved: Lighting specialist on the preparators team, with curator’s input
Lighting to a very large degree determines a gallery’s feel and atmosphere and thus greatly influences our experience of the works within. Light levels should be pleasant and comfortable — not too bright, not too dim — and calibrated to the needs of individual works: for example, a dramatic, dark painting may need more wattage than an airy, pastel-colored one. In the overall effect, they should be equally strong to the eye.
Step 8
Open the gallery to the public and watch visitors enjoy the High’s magnificent new paintings in all their glory.
Persons involved: Everyone!
Come see the Shaheen Collection of French Works at the High Museum of Art.
