coming up in affiliateland in november 2010

/in , , , , /by

November is another busy month in Affiliateland!

ILLINOIS
Sousa and His League of Players: America’s Music and the Golden Age of Baseball opens at the Sousa Archives at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in Champaign, 11.1.

NEW YORK:
The Smithsonian American Art Museum loans a 1966 Charmion von Wiegand painting to the Rubin Museum of Art, in New York, 11.5. 

WASHINGTON:
The Museum of History and Industry will announce their Affiliation at an event with Smithsonian Regent Patty Stonesifer, in Seattle, 11.5. 

NORTH CAROLINA:
David Bohaska, collections manager in the Department of Paleobiology at the National Museum of Natural History will participate in the annual Fossil Festival at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, in Raleigh, 11.6. 

MISSISSIPPI:
The Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art will host a Grand Opening of their new museum  and will unveil “Blackberry Woman,” a Richmond Barthe bronze sculpture, on loan from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, in Biloxi, 11.6.

PENNSYLVANIA:
The National Museum of American Jewish History hosts a Grand Opening Weekend showcasing several Smithsonian loans, in Philadelphia, 11.12-14. 

PUERTO RICO
Three José Campeche paintings travel for the first time from the Smithsonian American Art Museum to the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, in San Juan, 11.18. 

FLORIDA:
Smithsonian Secretary, G. Wayne Clough, will give a public lecture at the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University, in Miami, 11.19. 

CALIFORNIA:
The SITES’ exhibition, Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program, 1942-1964 will open at the Sonoma County Museum, in Santa Rosa, 11.20. 

September 25 is Smithsonian Magazine Museum Day

/1 Comment/in , , , /by

Smithsonian Magazine Museum Day

On Saturday, September 25, 2010, Smithsonian Affiliates across the country will participate in the sixth annual Museum Day, presented by Toyota on behalf of the redesigned 2011 Avalon.  More than 90 Smithsonian Affiliates will open their doors free of charge to all visitors who download the Museum Day Ticket from Smithsonian.com. Find a participating Affiliate in your neighborhood! 

And check out the Around the Mall blog to learn where you can find Smithsonian artifacts at an Affiliate near you during Museum Day.

Here’s a sample of what a few Affiliates are doing to bring the Smithsonian to their neighborhoods on Museum Day: 

Greensboro Historical Museum (Greensboro, North Carolina) will host The Smithsonian Associates Discovery Theater’s traveling show, African Roots, Latino Soul, a vibrant play that explores what it means to grow up in the American melting pot. Filled with laughs and surprises, and written with the Young Playwrights’ Theater, the play is a look into the triumphs of today’s multicultural kids. There will be two performances at the museum on Museum Day. The performance will highlight their new permanent exhibition, Voices of a City, which emphasizes the expression of voice and their multicultural local story.  

Rayna Green, curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History (NMAH), will give a series of talks at two Affiliates over the weekend. At The Silo at Hunt Hill Farm Trust (New Milford, Connecticut) on Friday, September 24, she’ll discuss her experiences as co-curator of the Julia Child exhibition at NMAH, followed by a reception featuring some of Child’s favorite desserts, prepared by The Silo Cooking School. Next, Rayna travels to The Long Island Museum of American Art, History & Carriages (Stony Brook, New York) for an evening “Dinner with Julia” event on Saturday, September 25. She’ll speak about Julia Child’s Kitchen at the Smithsonian and its acquisition.  On Sunday, September 26, to complement their exhibition of America’s Kitchens, organized by the New England Historical Association, she’ll discuss her experience with the Smithsonian’s Julia’s Kitchen exhibition during a public lecture on the social history of kitchens. 

Virginia Museum of Natural History (Martinsville, Virginia) will be presenting a series of special Smithsonian films in the Walker Lecture Hall on Museum Day. The programs to be shown are part of the Stories from the Vaults series presented by Smithsonian Networks. In the series, host Tom Cavanagh (“Ed”) takes you on an entertaining insider’s tour of the private rooms, high-tech vaults, and cutting edge labs of the Smithsonian Institution, revealing some of the amazing artifacts and rarely seen treasures that visitors can’t see. 

Spacecraft Model

Challenger Space Center (Peoria, Arizona) opens their new exhibition, An Astronaut’s Life: Articles Flown In Space, including 23 items on loan from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Nineteen of the artifacts have flown in space on Gemini 8, Skylab 2, and several STS (Shuttle) missions. The artifacts tell the story of how astronauts live in space. Included are personal hygiene items such as a Gemini Survival Kit, a washcloth from the first Space Shuttle, STS-1 Columbia, clothing and bio-belt worn on Skylab 2 by astronaut Paul Weitz, space food from STS-27 Atlantis, and an actual heat shield fragment from Gemini 8 which carried astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott into orbit on March 16, 1966.  Photo: Spacecraft Model, Gemini. Courtesy National Air & Space Museum. Transferred from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Museum Day 2010 is poised to be the largest to date, outdoing last year’s record-breaking event.  Over 300,000 museum-goers and 1,300 venues in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico participated in Museum Day 2009. Last year, two million visitors logged on to Museum Day’s website to learn more about the program.

Affiliate collections on View at the Smithsonian

/in , , , /by

With more than an estimated 137 million artifacts, 19 museums, galleries and the National Zoological Park, one may think that there’s not a lot that the Smithsonian doesn’t have.  But Smithsonian curators and researchers frequently reach out to other experts, borrowing objects to complement Smithsonian exhibitions.     

Smithsonian Affiliations promotes the mutual sharing of ideas and expertise; and Smithsonian Affiliates are proud to help when called upon.  Currently, five Smithsonian Affiliates have objects and images from their collections on view in Smithsonian exhibitions.  So what’s out there?

Elvis at Three by Howard Finster on display at the National Portrait Gallery. High Museum of Art

At the National Portrait Gallery, One Life: Echoes of Elvis commemorates the 75th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s birth.  The High Museum of Art (Atlanta, GA) lent two paintings by Howard Finster to tell the story of this iconic American, as popular today as he was during his lifetime.  The exhibition’s curator, Warren Perry, explains the importance of the High’s contribution: “The mission behind our Elvis show was to find works that paid tribute to Elvis since his death.  Howard Finster’s work–he began painting images of Elvis shortly after Elvis died–fit the bill exactly, if not to the extreme.  Finster believed that Elvis was an emissary of God and often he painted him as such, as we see in the High Museum’s portrait of Elvis with angel’s wings.  The composition of these pieces is wonderful; Finster’s appreciation of Elvis exudes from them both. I am really grateful to the High Museum for making these works available to us.”

Objects related to the "Spruce Goose" from the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum, on view at the National Air & Space Museum

Objects from the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum (McMinnville, OR) help tell the story of another legendary American, Howard Hughes.  The Hughes H-4 Hercules aircraft (nicknamed the “Spruce Goose”) was built during World War II to transport materials.  As wartime rations limited the use of metal, the massive aircraft was mostly built of wood; its wingspan is still the largest of any aircraft in history.  While the “Spruce Goose” is on display at the Evergreen in Oregon, objects related to its groundbreaking construction are on view at the National Air and Space Museum.   Chris Moore, Museum Specialist in the Aeronautics Division at the Air and Space Museum said, “The exhibit includes objects related to the aircraft’s manufacture. We don’t have any artifacts from the aircraft in our collection, so borrowing them allowed us to tell a story we could otherwise not have told.”

The Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, CA) lent three artifacts to The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946, organized by author and guest curator, Delphine Hirasuna.  “The Japanese American National Museum was pleased to lend artifacts from its extensive permanent collection to the traveling exhibition, The Art of Gaman,” stated National Museum President & CEO Akemi Kikumura Yano. “Delphine Hirasuna’s work in exploring the cultural connections between the objects and art created in the camps by the inmates helps to illuminate the spirit of those falsely incarcerated. As an Affiliate, the Japanese American National Museum was delighted to collaborate with this show and the Renwick Gallery, since all parties seek to explore and share this important chapter of U.S. history.”

Mother in Jerome Camp, 1943 by Henry Sugimoto, who was also interned in Jerome, Arkansas, on view at the Renwick Gallery. Japanese American National Museum

At the National Zoo, the Center for the History of Psychology (Akron, OH) shared its collections — permanently — by giving a gift of early 20th century IQ tests to the Zoo.  “Think Tank interprets animal thinking and the challenges of measuring human and animal intelligence.  The gift of the artifacts from the Center for the History of Psychology helps us to interpret this topic for our visitors,” says Lisa Stevens, Curator of Primates and Giant Pandas.

Institute of Texan Cultures (San Antonio, TX) works to document the multicultural  history of the state of Texas.  Their photo archives supplied images to the Anacostia Community Museum’s latest exhibition, Word, Shout, Song: Lorenzo Dow Turner Connecting Communities through Language.  The exhibition documents the historical journey made by people from Africa to the Americas.  “It’s a great pleasure and privilege to share our resources with the Smithsonian Institution’s Anacostia Community Museum,” said Tim Gette, executive director of the Institute of Texan Cultures.  “We have nearly 3.5 million historic images of Texas and Texans, including the Black Seminole or Gullah peoples and their descendants.  This is a wonderful opportunity to showcase a unique culture whose influence can be felt throughout the Southern States.”

Each of these collaborations highlight the best part of the Affiliate relationship – museums working together to share knowledge and ideas with visitors.

August at an Affiliate near you!

/in , , , , /by

It’s August! Here are a few things you can see at a Smithsonian Affiliate in your neighborhood this month:

Alabama
Let Your Motto Be Resistance, a Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) exhibition, opens at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham) on August 28.

Anacostia's (then Uniontown) Birney Public School children lined up with a teacher behind the Kennebec Ice horse-drawn wagon as the ice man shows them large chunk of ice suspended by tongs. Photograph by Frances Benjamin Johnston, Courtesy of the Library of Congress, circa 1899

District of Columbia
The Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum’s exhibition East of the River is on view at the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. until January 2011.

Georgia
You can see another SITES exhibition, The Working White House: Two Centuries of Traditions and Memories, at The Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History (Kennesaw) until August 29.

Iowa
The new expansion at The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque) features artifacts from the National Museum of Natural History in its new immersive galleries.

Kentucky
Opening this month at the Headley-Whitney Museum (Lexington) is The Horse in Decorative Arts, including artifacts from the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Museum of American History, on view through December 2010.

A visitor to the "Native Words, Native Warriors" exhibit at Montana Historical Society. Photo courtesy Montana Office of Governor Brian Schweitzer

Montana
Montana Historical Society (Helena)- Native Words, Native Warriors.  This exhibition organized in collaboration with the National Museum of the American Indian will travel to Native American reservations across Montana through December.

Nebraska
Lasting Light: 125 Years of Grand Canyon Photography is on view until September 2010 at the Durham Museum (Omaha), organized for travel by SITES.

Ohio
The Archives of the History of American Psychology (Akron) will celebrate the opening of their new building on August 28.

Toroweap overlook in morning light. Part of the exhibition "Lasting Light: 125 Years of Grand Canyon Photography" at the Durham Museum. Photo by Jack Dykinga

Pennsylvania
The Senator John Heinz History Center (Pittsburgh) welcomes Smithsonian conservator Don Williams for their Hidden Treasures event on August 29.

Texas
Twenty black and white photographs from the National Air and Space Museum are featured in the exhibition Dreams of Flight: A Journey through Air and Space at The Women’s Museum: An Institute for the Future (Dallas) through October 2010.

Wyoming
Last chance to see Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Warriors: Photographs by Gertrude Käsebier at Buffalo Bill Historical Center (Cody). On view until August 8, the exhibition includes photographs from the Photographic History Collection in the National Museum of American History.

Click here to find a Smithsonian Affiliate in your neighborhood!

Goodbye Texas. Hello New York! The 10,000 Springs Pavilion is on the move

/3 Comments/in , , , , , , /by

Special thanks to Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute Conservator Don Williams for this guest post.

Two weeks ago found me in Irving, Texas, along with Groopsters Bob Klein and Bill Ferguson from the Professional Refinisher’s Group (aka “Groop”), dismantling the Ten Thousand Springs Pavilion at Smithsonian Affiliate, Irving Arts Center.  We’re packing it for travel to its next temporary home in Flushing, NY, at Affiliate, Flushing Town Hall. Thus far Groop members have donated over 75 man-days toward the installation and de-installation of the exhibit, which could not be accomplished otherwise. Here’s a peek at the de-installation:

The setting for the Ten Thousand Springs Pavilion in the lobby of the Irving Arts Center was truly spectacular, exposing the magnificent artifact to tens of thousands of patrons.

Bill (l) and Bob (r) were real troopers. This was Bill's second rodeo with me, and Bob's fifth(!).

We were joined in our endeavor by the skilled and burly crew for the Irving Arts Center when it came time to handle the really heavy and awkward stuff.

The building crew for the Irving Arts Center was an amazingly helpful and professional group. The gigantic roof portions had to be hand carried a few hundred feet through the building to get reunited with the crates.

Not too surprisingly, it comes apart much faster than it goes together.

A place for everything, and everything in its place.

Bill got the honors this time of removing the impossibly ornate carved finial.

All packed up with somewhere to go.

 The project went smoothly and quickly.  I had allotted three full days of work, but we were done by late  afternoon of day two. It was truly a delight to spend productive time with these two Groop brothers and the fellowship it entailed.

Next stop is Flushing, New York, where the local logistics will require a sunrise Sunday beginning.  The exhibit will open October 16, 2010.

About the Ten Thousand Springs Pavilion
The structure is a 1 to 5 model of the celebrated and intricate classic Chinese pavilion that stands within the Forbidden City in the heart of Beijing. The model of the pavilion was gifted to the Smithsonian by Dr. Chan Laiwa and the China Red Sandalwood Museum in Beijing. Dr. Chan founded the museum to preserve and perpetuate the ancient Chinese art of red sandalwood carving.

Made by Chinese artisans using traditional Chinese carving and fine furniture techniques, the model captures the beauty of the original pavilion, and is an outstanding example of traditional Chinese carving. Artisans at the China Red Sandalwood Museum constructed this model of red sandalwood, treasured for its dark glossy color and musty floral fragrance. No nails are used; the entire structure is put together with mortise-and-tenon joinery. Currently, nearly 60 percent of red sandalwood carvers are women. Red sandalwood was highly prized in imperial China, and was used to create intricately carved furniture and decorative objects. Because of the demand for this wood, the tree nearly disappeared in China – along with the art of carving it.

The Ten Thousand Springs Pavilion is one of the 20 or so structures that are part of the private pleasure grounds for two dynasties of Chinese emperors. The Imperial Garden of the Forbidden City was a retreat for the emperor and his family allowing quiet contemplation of nature and communion with the spiritual world. 

how will you commemorate the Civil War’s 150th anniversary?

/2 Comments/in , , , , , /by
cwdrummer

Winslow Homer's 1862 Study of a Drummer, in the collection of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

Here at Affiliations, we’ve been hearing about all kinds of plans to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.   Thinking about borrowing artifacts?  Looking for a speaker for a conference or public program?  Wonder what kinds of exhibitions other museums are organizing?   Here’s what we’ve heard so far from inside the Smithsonian and around the Affiliate network.

 

For the Smithsonian, the best and first stop to view the vast and manifold collections on this topic is the Civil War@Smithsonian website.  There, artifacts from several Smithsonian museums are grouped under such topics as Slavery & Abolition, Soldiering, Life & Culture, Leaders and Abraham Lincoln, among others.  (The site even talks about the various ways that the Smithsonian itself was involved in the Civil War.) 

 

And speaking of Lincoln, you’ll find a treasure trove of resources (and possible speakers) at the Lincoln Online Conference site, sponsored by the Center for Education and Museum Studies.   Here, Smithsonian scholars discuss a wide range of issues related to our 16th President from Lincoln’s Air Force to Mathew Brady’s photographs. 

 

For even more ideas on programming or group tour itineraries, turn to the Smithsonian Associates’ Civil War Studies site.  You can also sign up here for the Civil War Studies enewsletter for up-to-date program information and original essays exploring all facets of the War.  Want to hear about the largest stash of money ever discovered?   Invite American History numismatics curator Richard Doty to talk to your audiences about confederate currency, and show a few examples from our collection.

 

If you’re an art museum, don’t despair – you might be interested in what the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum is planning to commemorate the War.  Better Angels of Our Nature: Art During the Civil War and Reconstruction will examine the impact of the Civil War and its aftermath on visual arts in America.   Information on commemorative exhibitions at the Portrait Gallery will be posted soon so watch out for that.

 

And how about in Affiliateland?  Many Affiliates are already planning commemorations of their own.  Here are some of the plans we’ve heard about so far:

 

–          the Frazier International History Museum (Louisville, KY) is planning a Civil War symposium, update to its permanent exhibition, & a traveling show called My Brother My Enemy

–          the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar (Richmond, VA) is partnering with the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Alabama) on a 2011 Civil War Conference

–          the American Textile History Museum (Lowell, MA) is organizing a traveling exhibition on Civil War textiles

–          the Heinz History Center (Pittsburgh, PA) will be one of three sites to host a major Civil War exhibition and will produce two publications on photography and the role of African Americans in the Civil War, as part of PA 150,  a major statewide commemoration  

–          the African American Museum in Philadelphia (PA) has already opened the Audacious Freedoms exhibition which explores the Underground Railroad, African American soldiers in the Civil War, and other topics

–          B & O Museum (Baltimore, MD) is planning a Civil War Railroading exhibition and symposium.

 

What are you planning?  Leave us a comment and let us know.