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| AMAM Curator Looks to the Past
for a Novel Way to Exhibit |
by Anne C. Paine | photos by Al Fuchs
January 31, 2003 |
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Stephen D. Borys,
curator of Western art, stands before Sir Thomas
Lawrence's Portrait of Eleanor, Lady Wigram.
The work, which measures 6 feet by 9 feet, has been
on view only once since its acquisition. |
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When Stephen D. Borys became curator of Western art at
the Allen Memorial Art Museum (AMAM) last fall, he brought
a fresh eye for the collection and some age-old ideas
on how best to display it.
Inspired by the 18-foot-high galleries in the AMAM's
main floor, and fresh from a curatorship at the National
Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, where he was responsible
for 18 European and American galleries, Borys embarked
on his exhibition mission.
His goals? "To flatter the art as well as the Cass
Gilbert architectural spaces, which are beaux-arts galleries,
and to increase the number of works installed," he
said.
By hanging three exhibitions in the "salon style"—a
format popular in 18th- and 19th-century Europe
in which works are hung side by side and above one another—Borys
succeeded on all counts.
The exhibitions—which will be up through early June—give
the galleries the warm, inviting feeling of a living room,
enticing visitors to linger and become entranced by the
art. And art is everywhere! Borys doubled the number of
European and American objects on display, including in
his shows some works that had not been on view in decades.
More than two-thirds of the European painting collection
is now on view.
Another plus for the salon style is that it suits the
educational purposes of the AMAM, Borys said.
"With a salon-style hang, you have to deal with the
aesthetics, but it's also a didactic tool,"
Borys said. "At many institutions, undergraduate
students often have only slides and reproductions in books
as references. Here, they have access to original works
of art, as well as to all the books. The Allen collection
is a teaching collection. It was built so that students
and visitors can see the major artistic developments of
each century. You can study history through social movements
or political events. You can also study history through
the visual arts. The galleries as now hung cover the scope
of Western art from 1400 to 1950. It's possible here
to get a good understanding of the evolution of Western
art."
Students who enroll in Developments in European Landscape
Painting, a seminar that Borys will teach during the
spring semester, will benefit greatly from that expansive
coverage, as most of the key works for the course are
on display in the galleries. With the installation in
the Ellen Johnson Gallery of an exhibition of contemporary
art organized by museum Director Sharon Patton, the historical
scope was expanded even further to include the 1960s to
the 1990s.
The salon-style hang has its roots in 18th-century
European academies, formal schools where art was taught
and exhibited in annual or biannual shows called salons.
More than 100 such academies operated throughout Europe
in the 18th century, Borys said.
Salons took place in great halls, palaces, public buildings,
or museums—places with soaring ceilings. A jury selected
works from among the art submitted by the members of the
academy, and paintings were hung in floor-to-ceiling displays.
Works by lesser-known artists often were placed up high,
while those by prominent artists were placed more centrally,
according to Borys.
Before academies hosted salons, most art was owned by
churches and religious institutions or by the nobility.
Art was displayed in churches, religious institutions,
royal palaces (including the Louvre, which was the palace
of Louis XIV before it became a museum), and private residences,
Borys said.
"There's no question that salons allowed many more
works to be exhibited and allowed the public to see a
great variety of works," Borys said. "From the
late-17th to the mid-19th century,
the salon was the principal way an artist could exhibit
his work. Before 1850, there were no art dealers, no private
galleries as we know them today. The church, the royal
court, and the nobility were the major patrons."
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