In this "Off the Cuff", President & CEO Charles Shepard discusses the collecting strategy for FWMoA and how it adheres to our mission as a museum.
Off the Cuff: Building Our Collection on a Budget
Now on View: Jimmy Ernst
Opposite of a Treasures from the Vault, Lauren Wolfer takes us through a work currently on display in our exhibition that displays artworks we've collected in the past year. What is it about an artist, or a specific artwork, that makes a museum choose to collect it? Read on to see why we love this painting by Jimmy Ernst!
In the News: Where Does Art Belong?
We asked our education intern, Laura Heirigs, to weigh in on a news story that had caught our eye, a competition in Switzerland to have a Picasso in your house for one day. Read on to get her thoughts on art and where it belongs: in our homes or in museums.
Art Term Tuesday: Permanent Collection
Seven distinct gallery spaces, over a dozen phenomenal sculptures spread throughout our grounds, and two giant doors we try extremely hard to hide in plain sight! We’ve featured several artworks in our “Treasures from the Vault” series, offering a peek behind our “barn doors”, but we can’t possible feature everything in our collection! We have over 6,500 items in our permanent collection, so even if we featured a new piece every day it would take us 19 years to show them all. How did we get so many items in our collection? Where did they come from? Why can’t they all be on display at once? Find out in today’s Art Term Tuesday!
Reality Check: Where’s Our Degas?
In my role at FWMoA, I’m lucky enough to be inextricably linked to all our social media accounts, so every little thing people say about us is conveniently delivered to my inbox. Most reviews are positive, accurate, and heartwarming. Some stretch the truth, and others inspire my blog posts. A common set of complaints seem to bubble to the surface of our negative reviews: “It’s not as big as I thought it would be;” “There’s not enough to see;” “There were no famous artists like Degas or Renoir;” “It’s not like Chicago or Los Angeles.” Read on to see how our museum compares to others and what makes our collection unique.
Art Term Tuesday: Quilt
The majority of our collection is from a single collector, David Pottinger, who focused on “Amish Quilts” from the early 20th century, though our earliest quilt is from 1876. Amish quilts have two definitions: quilts made by Amish or Mennonite quilters or quilts made using traditional Amish techniques and fabrics. Amish Quilts have a distinct style that persists to quilters today. A dark base color, striking geometric designs, and fantastically intricate hand stitching are hallmarks of Amish Quilts, though of course not the only techniques found in these types of quilts. Quilting is often a community project, where many friends and family members gather to work together to create a single quilt. Much like glassblowing, quilting is a collaborative art that is passed down to the next generation. Mothers would teach their daughters from an early age what they knew. When you look at the quilts, see if any share similarities in color or style, were they made by people from the same family? From the same community?