Showcasing Old Master Italian paintings under consideration for the upcoming reinstallation of the permanent collection galleries, the fifth floor of the Davis Museum will become a laboratory for the exploration of the curatorial process. One wall will be lined with 3D models of the Davis Museum on a smaller scale, affording visitors, students, and faculty alike transparent access to the reinstallation process. The other three walls of the space will be devoted to understanding the curatorial process through the exhibition of Old Master Italian paintings. Issues and concerns—including questions of display, conservation, and aesthetics—that inform whether an individual work of art will be included in the reinstallation will be explored and, hopefully, demystified for the viewer.

Co-curated by Eve Straussman-Pflanzer, Assistant Director of Curatorial Affairs/Senior Curator of Collections, and Claire Whitner, Associate Curator. Presented with generous support from the Sandra Cohen Bakalar ’55 Fund and the Mildred Cooper Glimcher ‘61 Endowed Fund.

Related Events:

Gallery Talk: Hanging with the Old Masters and Conservation

Tuesday, March 3, 2015, 3:00pm

Davis Galleries

Co-curators Eve Straussman-Pflanzer and Claire Whitner will discuss how the current installation of the Davis’s Italian Old Master paintings collection is intended to provoke discussion of the behind-the-scenes decision-making that happens among curators: which paintings should be placed on view and why, whether  conservation is an option, how should “hangs” be arranged, what information should be included in labels, among others.  Objects conservator, Gerri Strickler, will join the conversation with her assessment of the Davis’s collection of polychrome sculpture and discuss how these preliminary findings will determine whether treatment is possible and if so, how it will be carried out.