Home: Departure and Destination

Complementing the 9th biennial Bryn Mawr College Graduate Group Symposium, an exhibition of domestic artifacts and imagery is being held in the Kaiser Reading Room in Carpenter Library on the theme of “Home: Departure and Destination.” Held in honor of Bryn Mawr Professor Emeritus Barbara Miller Lane, the Symposium reflects her notable research on architecture, culture, and the role of the home.

In this exhibition, we endeavor to capture just some of the home’s many iterations in both visual and material culture. In doing so, we also wanted to represent the broad range of disciplines called upon in the Symposium to define the home.

Whether it’s the objects from a local Bryn Mawr home, or those intimately tied to the functions of the generic home, we hope you find a way to meaningfully engage with the diverse range of photographs, artifacts, manuscripts and decorative objects on display here. In our choices, we sought to engage with the ways each object represents the home as a dynamic, multivalent category capable of physically, psychically, and emotionally defining us as individuals and as a society.

The exhibition opens on October 4th and will remain on view through the Fall term.

Spending the Summer with Special Collections

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With my final year of college rapidly approaching, I have been thinking immensely about how I would apply my History of Art degree after graduation. Because attending a liberal art college has equipped me with a wide variety of skills, narrowing the list of potential careers is rather arduous. Thank goodness for my position this summer in Bryn Mawr College’s Special Collections, as I have had the opportunity to explore a myriad of job types surrounding the visual arts.

On Mondays and Tuesdays, I devote my time to working in the Arts and Artifacts Collection. This summer, the department is gathering items around campus that once belonged to President M. Carey Thomas and her partner Mary Garrett in hopes of creating an exhibit about the Deanery, the women’s residence for many years. They collected an astounding number of precious items for their home—chairs, tables, dressers, prints, vases, lamps, and much more. Working alongside fellow students, both of the undergraduate and graduate levels, has provided me with a great amount of experience handling art and decorative objects. Additionally, we’re responsible for photographing, measuring, and inputting information to be viewed on TriArte, the TriCo’s art database. Our responsibilities, particularly photographing, are exciting and new, and I’m ever-so-grateful for the experience.

My focus shifts on Wednesdays and Thursdays towards digitization, the process of converting information and works into digital formats. Another position of mine is within the Digital Archives to reorganize its expansive collection of alumnae photo albums and scrapbooks. This mostly involves cataloguing, crafting custom boxes, and rehousing. My favorite benefit of this position is the ability to explore each of the scrapbooks and discover how Bryn Mawr College has—or hasn’t—changed over the years. Gazing at the personal words, photographs, and Bryn Mawr memorabilia conjures a connection within me to the school that completely lacked at the start of the summer. It’s refreshing to reflect upon how I contribute to the college’s legacy.

I utilize Fridays to complete what is both the most challenging and exciting task entrusted upon me this summer: completing a digital exhibit for the Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women’s Education. I spent the earlier half of the summer acquainting myself with the website and easing accessibility for visitors. Currently, I am researching and organizing information regarding lesser-known aspects about the college. An incredible amount of work goes into planning an exhibit, but I find the process enthralling. It implements many of the practical and critical skills I’ve honed at Bryn Mawr and newly acquired this summer. Creating this exhibit, in addition to working within the Digital Collections and Arts and Artifacts, has provided me with amazing insight towards potential library- and archive-related careers following graduation. While I’m sad that this experience is coming to an end, I’m eager to apply what I’ve learned towards my future art historical endeavors.

Written by Samone Rowe, Class of 2014

The Deanery

Deanery_Aerial_View

For most students at Bryn Mawr, “the Deanery” Deanery__Christmas_Cardis an unfamiliar name. Half a century ago, however, this would certainly not have been the case. The Deanery was the home of the first Dean and second President of the college, M. Carey Thomas. When she moved there in 1885 at the age of 29, it was a modest Victorian cottage of five rooms, situated downhill from what was then the central campus building, Taylor Hall. Thomas lived in the Deanery for almost five decades, sharing it first with her friend Mamie Gwinn and later with her friend and partner, Mary Garrett. In 1896 and again in 1908, the building was renovated and expanded, ultimately becoming a sprawling 46-room mansion filled with the art and furniture that Thomas and Garret collected on their travels. While Thomas lived there, she entertained such famous figures as Henry James, Bertrand Russell, and Anna Howard Shaw, but she also held Senior receptions and other events for Bryn Mawr students.

Deanery_garden_fountain_Bryn_Mawr_CollegeWhen Thomas moved away from the campus in 1933, she left the Deanery and most of its contents to the Alumnae Association for use as the college’s Alumnae Center and Inn. It stood for another 35 years as a living memorial to the President, until it was demolished in 1968 for the construction of Canaday Library, which stands on the site today. In 1974, the Deanery’s garden was transformed into the Blanca Noel Taft Memorial Garden, which can still be visited behind Canaday.

Over time, the memory of the building, which had as much personality as the women who lived there, has faded from Bryn Mawr’s collective consciousness. I had never heard of the Deanery before I was assigned to work on this project, despite the fact that an exhibition called “The Deanery Remembered” was held in the Canaday foyer in 1985, as part of the college’s Centennial Celebration.

As work on the project has progressed, archival material from that exhibition as well as hundreds of works of decorative art have resurfaced. One of the most exciting aspects of 2012.4.6.u_BMC_f_2the project is the search for objects around campus that were used in the Deanery; once found, many are brought to Special Collections for cataloguing and conservation. The “treasure hunt” has brought to light beautiful eighteenth- and nineteenth-century suites of furniture, charming bronze statues and figurines, and fragments of the brass filigree stencils and painted burlap panels that decorated the Deanery’s ceilings, among many other wonderful finds. As we dust off the china and bring the chairs out of their forgotten hiding places, we are able to slowly reconstruct what was clearly a unique and amazing place.

We have made incredible progress this summer in reassembling the Deanery Collection, but much work remains to be done. I am looking forward to the end result of our endeavors: the exhibition that will bring the Deanery back to life and remind us again of the significance of Bryn Mawr’s heritage collections. Check out the Deanery portfolio on Triarte!

by Rachel Starry, Graduate Student in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology

Endymion Recumbent (Sleeping Pan) Leaves Bryn Mawr College

 

EndymionToday Bryn Mawr College’s life-size marble sculpture of Endymion Recumbent by William Rinehart was safely packed for transit to New York by Atelier Art Services, Inc. (http://www.atelierartservices.com).  There the sculpture will undergo conservation in the studio of Steve Tatti (http://www.stevetatti.com).

The marble was originally purchased in 1874 by Baltimore railroad tycoon John Garrett.  Later it came to Bryn Mawr with John Garrett’s daughter Mary Garrett and was on display at the Deanery as a garden sculpture.  After an encounter in which young men spending the night at the Deanery decorated the Endymion with a mustache, pink cheeks and clothing the sculpture was placed in storage where it has remained.  (For a history of the Deanery see: http://repository.brynmawr.edu/bmc_books/7/)

Although there is no immediately obvious evidence of the pre-1947 grafitti, the sculpture has dirt engrained in its surface from many years in an outdoor environment.  The first part of the conservation treatment is to clean the surface.  At that point, we will re-examine the work and determine if additional surface re-finishing is necessary and make decisions about replacing broken elements.  Our goal is to exhibit the sculpture in Carpenter Library upon completion of its conservation treatment.

This conservation treatment was generously funded by an alumna of the college who wishes to remain anonymous.

Asian Scroll Conservation

 

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Last Friday we took a Japanese Scroll Painting of Birds and Flowers by Motonobu Kano, a 15th century painter, to Nishio Conservation Studio for a condition report and treatment estimate.  Above is a detail image of the painting in it’s current condition. Below you see conservator Yoshi Nishio examining the scroll.

Nishio Conservation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The painting was donated to Bryn Mawr College by Elizabeth Gray Vining, Class of 1923.  Vining was the tutor for the Crown Prince of Japan from 1946-1950 and received this scroll as a gift from the royal family.

For an oral history interview with Elizabeth Gray Vining go to: http://greenfield.brynmawr.edu/items/show/1452

Pottery Analysis of Late Bronze Age IIA (LB IIA) pottery from the site of Tarsus-Gozlukule

Steven Karacic is currently working on a dissertation is addressing the Late Bronze Age IIA (LB IIA) pottery from the site of Tarsus-Gozlukule.  The pottery, specifically the so-called Hittite Monochrome Ware (HMW), is often used as evidence for the Hittite political expansion into the region of Cilicia in the latter half of the second millennium BCE.  The broader historical narrative interprets HMW as the standardized product of an economy centralized under Hittite imperial bureaucracy.  His dissertation will test this narrative by way of mineralogical and geochemical analyses that speak to the production locales of the LB IIA pottery.  At present, he is conducting geochemical tests with a portable XRF machine in special collections at Bryn Mawr College.

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Collections Management & Practices; an AASLH Workshop Comes to Bryn Mawr College

Collections Management & Practices

July 11-12, 2013
Bryn Mawr, PA

Host: Bryn Mawr College

Cost: $270 members/$345 nonmembers; $40 discount if fee is received by June 5.

Participants will learn about their institution’s responsibility toward its collection, the necessary policies and procedures, and the best practices of collection management. During lively group discussions and hands-on activities, participants will become familiar with current issues and trends to better understand how collections fit within the context of history organizations. Participants will explore other topics including the role of collections in exhibition and interpretation, the basic steps of collections management from acquisition to disposal, professional standards and ethics, conservation on a shoe-string budget, as well as learning about the multitude of resources available for collections preservation.

Who Should Attend:
This workshop is targeted to new professionals and dedicated volunteers with responsibility for collections.

What Participants Said: “Structured well–time to get to know each other, time to interact about specific problems.” “Particularly enjoyed the participation exercise, followed by practical ideas.” “The thinking through of problems with mission statements, pest problems, and interpretation was helpful.” “I was able to see the ‘big picture’ instead of focusing on my own small concerns.”

StEps Connections:
This workshop may help institutions achieve the standards in the Mission, Vision, and Governance, Management, and Stewardship of Collections sections of AASLH’s StEPs program.

Travel Information:
Bryn Mawr College is just outside of Philadelphia. More information will be coming soon.

Instructors:

Dr. Vicki L. Berger has been a faculty member of the American Association for State and Local History for the long-running Collection Care Workshop for several years. Berger retired from North Carolina state government service in 2003. She served as Curator of Costume and Textiles and Collections Management Section Chief at the North Carolina Museum of History. During that time, she developed and taught Introduction to Museology, the beginning graduate level public history course, at North Carolina State University. Since moving to Phoenix, AZ in 2003, she has worked at the Arizona Historical Society Museum at Papago Park and the Phoenix Museum of History. In addition to her AASLH service, Berger is active in several professional organizations. She is Secretary of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) Costume Committee and travels internationally to participate in the annual meetings. A long-time board member of the Costume Society of America, Berger co-chaired the 2009 national symposium which was held in Phoenix, AZ. She also serves on the boards of the Central Arizona Museum Association, Museum Association of Arizona, and the Costume Society of America Southwest Region. She and costume colleague Sally Queen published Clothing and Textile Collections in the United States: A CSA Guide in 2006. Berger earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Arizona and her Ph.D. at Florida State University.

Helen Alten, is the Director of Northern States Conservation Center and its chief Objects Conservator. For nearly 30 years she has been involved in objects conservation. She completed a degree in Archaeological Conservation and Materials Science from the Institute of Archaeology at the University of London in England. She has built and run conservation laboratories in Bulgaria, Montana, Greece, Alaska and Minnesota. She has a broad understanding of three-dimensional materials and their deterioration, wrote and edited the quarterly Collections Caretaker, maintains the popular www.collectioncare.org website, was instrumental in developing a state-wide protocol for disaster response in small Minnesota museums, and is always in search of the perfect museum mannequin. She has published chapters on conservation and deterioration of archeological glass with the Materials Research Society and the York Archaeological Trust, four chapters on different mannequin construction techniques in Museum Mannequins: A Guide for Creating the Perfect Fit (2002), preservation planning, policies, forms and procedures needed for a small museum in The Minnesota Alliance of Local History Museums’ Collection Initiative Manual, and is co-editor of the penultimate book on numbering museum collections (still in process) by the Gilcrease Museum in Oklahoma. Helen Alten has been a Field Education Director, Conservator, and staff trainer. She began working with people from small, rural, and tribal museums while as the state conservator for Montana and Alaska. Helen currently conducts conservation treatments and operates a conservation center in Charleston, WV and St. Paul, MN.

Tentative Agenda:

The workshop will begin with registration at 8 a.m. on Thursday and conclude at 5 p.m. on Friday. Click here for a copy of the 2011 workshop agenda. Please note that this agenda is subject to change. A final workshop agenda and participant materials will be distributed at registration.

To register: http://www.aaslh.org/collwork.htm

Theory and Practice: Students in Spring course produce exhibition and education program Part 4

making our worldThe Spring 2013 course “The Curator in the Museum” at Bryn Mawr College mixes theory into practice in the new exhibition “Making our World” located on the second floor of Canaday Library. Through readings and guest lectures related to the broader course theme of analyzing the “institution” of the museum and all its related parts, we integrated these models into our own project exhibition and corresponding education program for local high school students.

The following updates — written and edited by students as part of the team-based approach to the entire project — are reports on our progress along the way. Please let us know your thoughts.

Oral Histories: Gathering Information and Making Connections

Student bloggers: Xingzhe He, Jennifer Rabowsky, Alison Whitney

Jennifer:

Courtney Pinkerton oral history interview with (clockwise from lower left) Jennifer Rabowsky, Xingzhe He, Pinkerton, Brian Wallace, and Alison Whitney.

Courtney Pinkerton oral history interview with (clockwise from lower left) Jennifer Rabowsky, Xingzhe He, Pinkerton, Brian Wallace, and Alison Whitney.


Back in late February, while sitting across from our first interviewee, Courtney Pinkerton, our nerves threatened to botch our first oral history.  Just a week before, we had sat down with Professor Brian Wallace and Educator Shari Osborn, where quite simply put, we were told that we were going to be conducting oral history interviews of Bryn Mawr alumna for the “Making Our World” exhibition.  The process seemed intimidating—there is a widely known, appropriate way to go about conducting these interviews—and all three of us had never done one before.  Luckily for us, Courtney was excited to participate, had a wonderful sense of humor, and was incredibly patient.  When we had to spend five minutes to figure out why our recorders weren’t working, this last quality turned out to be a godsend.  And, by the time we started the interview the ice had been broken and it was smooth sailing.

Courtney’s answers to our questions were engaging and, most importantly, were full of emotion.  She told us a humorous anecdote of a prank she performed sophomore year—she and two friends replace the flags from the Thomas Hall turrets with Texas flags—followed by more serious anecdotes about how Bryn Mawr helped her view her fiscal independence as a positive.  Courtney allowed us to see the influence that Bryn Mawr College had on her, and by the end of the interview we had captured a snapshot of Courtney’s life.   When we walked away, we were all excited that we had conducted a successful oral history interview.  But more so than this, we were excited that we had created something that would be accessioned into Bryn Mawr’s permanent collection, and that would be used as an integral part of “Making Our World”.

Xingzhe:

Xingzhe He interviewing Kimberly Blessing '97.

Xingzhe He interviewing Kimberly Blessing ’97.

I interviewed two alumnae, Margery Lee, who graduated in 1951 with a BA in History, and Kimberly Blessing, who graduated in 1997 with a degree in Computer Science. Kimberly was my first interviewee, and the interview was conducted over the phone. While I was a little nervous for my first oral history project, I became more relaxed as the conversation unfolded. Kimberly was an engaging and inspiring character, and it was truly a pleasure to share with her some of the best memories she has had at Bryn Mawr, the moments of accomplishment, difficulties and confusion she had encountered as a young college student.

Later I interviewed Ms. Lee in person. Almost 60 years have passed since she left Bryn Mawr, yet she is still deeply attached to the college and the place. She recalled the classes she loved while being an undergraduate, her role as the coordinator of her Garden Party, and her involvement with the alumnae association after graduation.

Alison:

I was the second person in our group to interview an alumna on our own, and I have to say, it was nerve-wracking. But I could not have interviewed a more charming, interesting woman than Jackie Koldin Levine, graduate of Bryn Mawr’s class of 1946. Jackie received her BA from Bryn Mawr in psychology, with a minor in political science, and has led a fulfilled life as a self-described “full time volunteer”.  Jackie has been very involved in national organizations for the National Jewish Community, and also with the Civil Rights Movement.

Jennifer Rabowsky and Alison Whitney during the Jackie Levine interview.

Jennifer Rabowsky and Alison Whitney during the Jackie Levine interview.

In our interview Jackie spoke proudly of her experiences marching with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to Montgomery, and attending the march on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. She shared that she gained her strength at Bryn Mawr, a place where she learned to not be afraid and to express herself and her beliefs — even when others disagree. My favorite moment during our interview had to have been the discovery that Jackie lived in Rockefeller dorm, where I have lived for three years. I realized that the dorm room I am living in now has been occupied by incredible women like Jackie Levine (or even Jackie herself!) who have gone on to graduate from Bryn Mawr, achieve great things, and live fulfilled lives. I am proud to know that I am a part of that legacy.

Theory and Practice: Students in Spring course produce exhibition and education program Part 3

making our worldThe Spring 2013 course “The Curator in the Museum” at Bryn Mawr College mixes theory into practice in the new exhibition “Making our World” located on the second floor of Canaday Library. Through readings and guest lectures related to the broader course theme of analyzing the “institution” of the museum and all its related parts, we integrated these models into our own project exhibition and corresponding education program for local high school students.

The following updates — written and edited by students as part of the team-based approach to the entire project — are reports on our progress along the way. Please let us know your thoughts.

Communicating Personality and Displaying a Life

Student blogger: Claudia Keep

Pinkerton (left) and Levine sections of Making Our World. Photograph by Alison Whitney

Pinkerton (left) and Levine sections of Making Our World. Photograph by Alison Whitney

One of the challenges of creating an exhibit around living individuals is how to portray their personality and the intangible qualities and values that they hold. How do you show something that is not an object? We were working with various objects that hopefully, when displayed together, would tell /create an accurate description of the individual. But how does one pick and choose the object or series of objects that would best represent the various qualities that made up these individuals?

One of the subjects of our “Making Our World” show, recent Bryn Mawr graduate Courtney Pinkerton had many interests and fascinating stories, but they did not all lend themselves to a visual display. Other subjects of our show were easier to portray visually, particularly as interviewees Jackie Levine and Margery Lee are both art collectors, and had donated numerous books and works of art to Bryn Mawr’s Special Collections.

Only having graduated last year, most of Courtney’s life experiences and interests have been defined by her time in high school, and most especially by her time at Bryn Mawr. Courtney’s time at Bryn Mawr was shaped greatly by her independence, and her work ethic. But how do you show independence, hard work, and commitment inside of a glass case?

To design and fill the portion of the display case reserved for Courtney, we had several objects to work with.  We had a portrait of Courtney Pinkerton and her mother taken last year at commencement, by artist Gilbert Plantinga; the pair of pink sequined cow girl boots that Courtney is wearing in the photograph; the flag of Courtney’s native state, Texas; a copy of the 3.5 resolution Courtney drafted and proposed at plenary; a copy of Courtney’s senior thesis on the intersection of popular culture and race relations; and finally, the crime blotter entry that describes the prank Courtney and her friends played where they switched the flags on Thomas Great Hall with Texas state flags.

Gilbert Plantinga Mary & Courtney Pinkerton, 2012 Digital print Seymour Adelman Fund Purchase Bryn Mawr College 2013.6.32

Gilbert Plantinga
Mary & Courtney Pinkerton, 2012
Digital print
Seymour Adelman Fund Purchase
Bryn Mawr College
2013.6.32

For the final display, we decided to include the portrait of Courtney, her pink boots, the Texas flag, the crime blotter, and the plenary resolution.  These objects seemed to both create an image of Courtney’s personality as well reflect on her time at Bryn Mawr, combining her personal experiences, like her flag prank, and experiences that all Bryn Mawr students could relate to, like a plenary resolution and the Bi-Co news crime blotter. The flag of Texas and her pink cowgirl boots were visual nods to her home state as well as too her strong sense of individuality (not many Bryn Mawr students regularly wear such striking boots). We decided not to include her thesis for, as stimulating as it might be to read, it would not look very compelling sitting in a glass case where no one could read it. We also felt that as almost all students will write a thesis during their time at Bryn Mawr, it did not communicate anything specific enough about Courtney or her time at Bryn Mawr.

We hoped to achieve a balance between objects and text to create a display that was both informative and visually arresting.

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Theory and Practice: Students in Spring course produce exhibition and education program part 2

making our worldThe Spring 2013 course “The Curator in the Museum” at Bryn Mawr College mixes theory into practice in the new exhibition “Making our World” located on the second floor of Canaday Library. Through readings and guest lectures related to the broader course theme of analyzing the “institution” of the museum and all its related parts, we integrated these models into our own project exhibition and corresponding education program for local high school students.

The following updates — written and edited by students as part of the team-based approach to the entire project — are reports on our progress along the way. Please let us know your thoughts.

Decision-making and “Making Our World”

Student blogger: Christine Villanueva

Curator Jennifer Redmond, Director, The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women's Education, introduces students to the Taking Her Place exhibition on the first day of the semester.

Curator Jennifer Redmond, Director, The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women’s Education, introduces students to the Taking Her Place exhibition on the first day of the semester.

Making Our World is a satellite exhibit centered on main exhibition Taking Her Place located in Canaday’s Rare Book Room. As a departure from Taking Her Place (an exhibition dedicated in exploring the early history of women’s higher education and Bryn Mawr College’s parallel role in providing women of the 19th/early-20th centuries public access beyond the domestic sphere), Making Our World focuses on four contemporary Bryn Mawr alumnae. Since the post-war period, Bryn Mawr has remained an environment that fosters the same intense intellectual curiosity that it did for women in the 19th/early 20th centuries, giving them public access to contribute more actively to the world around them.

The collected cultural ephemera that included (among other things) a computer, yearbooks, magazines, pamphlets, photographs, and artworks were donated by each of the four Bryn Mawr alumnae profiled. Each was generous with her time and participation with the project, but discretion as a value revealed itself of tantamount importance as research in developing the story and thematic elements of Making Our World. The alumnae profiled in Making Our World –Courtney Pinkerton, Kimberly Blessing, Margery Lee, and Jacqueline Levine –not only served as subjects in order to explore how experiences at Bryn Mawr shaped their lives, but also as women to celebrate. In that light, the exhibitions group sought to find objects that best represented and respected the women and their stories, and also how each have impacted Bryn Mawr’s community.

In the case of Margery Lee, Class of 1951, instead of focusing on her experiences as an undergraduate at Bryn Mawr College and her professional career, Lee insisted on focusing on the collection of artworks she donated to Bryn Mawr College and her numerous experiences in the art world. It was clear that her love of art she shared with her husband had been a vital and defining experience in her life. We respected her insistence on this significant aspect of her life by having her collection of artworks take center stage as indicative of Lee’s experiences and accomplishments from Bryn Mawr. She has donated over a dozen artworks to the college, and selecting which works to highlight from the impressive pool of candidates proved a fun task for the exhibitions group as executive “curators” of Making Our World. The objects group pulled several pieces for us to consider. These included a large-scale photograph by local and contemporary artist David Graham, a photograph by prolific and controversial artist Andres Serrano, a screen print by Warren Rohrer, and lithographs by Jim Dine and Jody Pinto.

Working out the installation details

Working out the installation details

Initially unsatisfied by the pool of works pulled by the objects group, we used triarte.brynmawr.edu, the arts and artifacts database of Bryn Mawr and Haverford colleges to see what other works could be considered for the exhibit. We rejected the Jim Dine lithograph because we felt its heart motif too sentimental, obvious and ‘on the nose’ for the exhibit’s theme and title. We loved that Bryn Mawr owned an Andrew Serrano photograph of a close-up girl’s pierced ear and earring titled “Child Abuse II”, but felt the content of the photograph incongruous with our exhibit, and felt that Serrano’s piece could be better served in a future exhibit. Its inclusion in Making Our World felt forced to us given Serrano’s critical intent for the work. Rohrer’s screen print “Barks and Marks”, David Graham’s photograph of a William Penn impersonator “Bud Burkhart as William Penn, Three Arches, Levittown, PA”, and Jody Pinto’s landscape lithograph “Fingerspan for Climbers Rock Fairmount Park” were all seriously considered to display for the exhibit.

To be frank, however, we wondered if there were other works in Lee’s collection that held the same “big-name” artist recognition as Andres Serrano. Though our anticipated audience was not geared towards a distinctly informed art audience familiar with an artist like Serrano, we felt that, in part, by focusing on Margery Lee’s donated works as indicative of Bryn Mawr’s first-rate Art and Artifacts Collections, we wanted to display works that could carry broad-based appeal and familiarity, and excite an audience approaching not only Making Our World, but Bryn Mawr College itself. Although Rohrer, Graham, and Pinto’s works are of great quality and content (representative of Lee’s strong local connection to the Pennsylvania art scene), we were confident that Lee’s collection was deep enough to pull other works representative of Bryn Mawr’s world class art collection.

As such, we were excited to discover Lee had also donated George Segal and James Rosenquist serigraphs and an Ansel Adams photograph to the college. We wanted to include the Ansel Adams photograph “Dead Tree, Sunset Crater National Monument, Arizona” but were informed that it had already been exhibited in a prior show, Double Take, a year ago. Because of the photographic medium and the work’s age, conservation rules dictate that photographs only be displayed (under strict lighting guidelines) every few years. In order to preserve Adams’s work for future Mawrtyrs, we were unable to display it for this exhibit. However, the James Rosenquist serigraph “For the Young Artist”, an imitation of a color perception test called an Ishihara Color Test that spells out “ICU2RA*” (roughly “I see you too are a star), proved to be the fulcrum around which we based Margery Lee’s display. It was colorful and dynamic, it was by renowned Pop artist James Rosenquist (whose works are in the collection of MoMA and the Met, among others), and most importantly, its thematic content of mentorship between young and old generations proved a home run. As the only abstract, non-figurative artwork displayed, we chose the Rosenquist piece over Rohrer’s “Barks and Marks”.

For the Young Artist, James Rosenquist Serigraph on wove paper 2007.12.3

For the Young Artist, James Rosenquist
Serigraph on wove paper
2007.12.3

However, its size proved to be slightly detrimental and highly difficult within our display case. But, the exhibitions group pushed for its inclusion as it also worked well loosely juxtaposed next to alumna Kimberly Blessing’s technology oriented objects. We were happy with the other artworks the objects grouped pulled –Marlene Dumas’s “Supermodel”, John Kindness’s “China Cabinet Fly”, and David Graham’s William Penn photo –but their respective sizes proved too large for the space, and we found ourselves needing to cut one piece. Dumas’s “Supermodel” was a shoe-in; it is the only work by a female artist, and, we felt, played well against other featured alumna and art collector Jacqueline Levine’s displayed artworks of figuratively focused, and politically/racially charged (in different degrees) works. Ultimately, we chose etching “China Cabinet Fly” against Graham’s photograph because it paired better between the Rosenquist and Dumas prints.


Upon reflection, perhaps it would have proved better to mix up the displayed artworks, exhibiting the large-scale William Penn photograph instead in order to challenge audience expectations. But, as exhibition designers, we stand strongly behind our decisions to display other works against others, as all decisions were reached thoughtfully and collaboratively. We feel that the final three artworks exhibited for Margery Lee cohesively celebrate both her and the college’s art collection, and more broadly, the community oriented engaged learning of Making Our World.