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A History of the Museum
"My castles in the air were now reared more loftily and broadly;
for they began to include laboratories, museums and even galleries of art."
-Andrew Dickson White
Laying the Foundation
In 1865, Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White became cofounders of Cornell
University. Andrew Dickson White became Cornell's first president and laid
the intellectual foundation for an institution that would embrace education
in the broadest sense. White, a graduate of Yale (class of 1853), maintained
a strong interest in the arts throughout his lifetime and was an impassioned
collector. His vision of a university had begun to crystallize during his
postgraduate studies in Europe, and included a "union of liberal and
practical education" and "the full cultural development of the
individual." He was inspired by the libraries and museums of Europe,
which became important elements in his plan for Cornell.
From the beginning, White sought to create an educational environment
at Cornell that would inspire as well as instruct. He brought to the University
a collection of plaster casts of Greek and Roman sculpture to familiarize
students with the importance of classical art, and he enriched the campus
grounds with sculpture, paintings, and memorial plaques. He felt "art
should serve a moral purpose" and hoped to "inspire students to
high purpose and to develop in them an appreciation of beauty to 'leaven
the lump.'"
It seemed that White's art gallery might be realized in 1881 when Jennie
McGraw Fiske, the only child of Cornell benefactor John McGraw, passed away,
leaving a large portion of her assets to the University. White had hoped
that his gallery of fine and classical arts would find a home in the newly
constructed mansion that Mrs. Fiske had built on University Avenue. But
shortly after her death, a long and well-publicized battle over her will
ensued between the University and her husband of thirteen months, Professor
Willard Fiske. Infuriated by what he believed to be duplicitous dealings
on the part of the University, Fiske went to court to break the will. The
Great Will Case lasted until 1890, when the Supreme Court ruled against
Cornell. In the aftermath, the mansion was bought by a relative, Thomas
McGraw, for $30,000, and the art collection and furnishings were auctioned
off.
Even after he retired as president of Cornell in 1885, White continued
to use his influence and resources to help build a collection of art for
the University. Through his friendship with General Rush C. Hawkins, a collector
of art and books who lived in Providence, Rhode Island, White arranged for
a gift of an extraordinary painting by Gari Melchers, The Communion.
A prominent American expatriate painter, Melchers exhibited the work
in the Paris International Exposition in 1878, where it won the Grand Prix
for the American section. It was there that White first saw the painting,
which left a lasting impression. This major work was given to Cornell by
Hawkins in 1911 and was proudly displayed in the south vestibule of Goldwin
Smith Hall. Its placement was supervised by Melchers himself and Professor
Olaf Brauner, whose daughter was to marry Herbert F. Johnson. The painting
is now on view in the Johnson Museum.
White wrote to Hawkins in April of that year, "I cannot express
to you my gratitude for this superb gift. All I can say is that in my opinion
it will prove the beginning of a new epoch in the University feeling toward
the claims upon us of art in the highest places." White never gave
up his dream of an art gallery for Cornell, hoping that "some day we
shall find a Trustee or a public spirited citizen in the University or out
of it, who will add to the nucleus which this noble picture furnishes there
remains in me a faith that a gallery will begin to be developed some day
not very distant."
Although an art museum would not be forthcoming in White's lifetime,
a museum of casts was organized in 1891 by Alfred Emerson, newly appointed
professor of art and archaeology. This endeavor was funded by Henry W. Sage,
and the collection opened in McGraw Hall on January 31, 1894, Sage's eightieth
birthday. Regarded at the time as one of the finest collections in any American
institution, the casts were used to teach the classical tradition and remained
in McGraw Hall until they were moved to Goldwin Smith in 1906.
An Art Museum Is Born
There is little mention of an art museum in Cornell's history for the
next half century, except for a brief period in the mid-twenties when a
series of traveling exhibitions was brought to campus and shown in the gallery
located in the sculpture studio of old Morse Hall; an art gallery in Willard
Straight Hall was maintained by the College of Architecture for exhibitions
of work by eminent contemporary artists in the 1930s.
Finally in 1953, White's dream of an art museum for Cornell was realized
under the presidency of Deane Malott, with funds donated by Ernest I. White,
a nephew of Andrew Dickson White. On November 22, the Andrew Dickson White
Museum of Art celebrated its formal opening. Appropriately, the new museum
was housed in the very building that had served as the residence for A.
D. White and his family during his tenure as the University's first president.
This stately structure on the hill above East Avenue was designed by William
Henry Miller, one of the first graduates of Cornell's College of Architecture
and an architect who changed the face of Ithaca around the turn of the century.
(Side Bar with Photo of A. D. White Museum of Art)
President Andrew Dickson White built this house as a private residence
with the intention of giving it to the University for the use of future
presidents after he retired. In June of 1874 the house was completed,
and White, his wife Mary, and their four children moved into their new
home. In future years, the house would serve as the residence for University
presidents Livingston Farrand and Edmund Ezra Day. In 1953 it became
Cornell's first museum of art.
According to correspondence, Malott's decision to found an art museum
for Cornell was inspired by the first extensive gift of art to the University,
bequeathed by William Chapman in 1947-a distinguished collection of 3,000
prints, including works by the masters of the medium from the sixteenth
to the twentieth centuries. Shortly after the A. D. White Museum opened,
President Malott wrote to Chapman's niece, "The very existence of your
uncle's collection here was perhaps the single factor prompting me to work
for and finally establish this important facility."
(Side bar on the Chapman collection-and photo.)
The first extensive gift of art to the University came from William
P. Chapman, Jr., in the 1940s. Chapman acquired an impressive collection
of prints over a period of nearly forty years, including works by Dürer,
Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Meryon, and Whistler. His first gift to the University
in 1942 consisted of 52 etchings and 15 lithographs that survey Whistler's
development from 1858 to 1889; another gift of 772 prints followed in
1943, and a final bequest following his death of 2,339 prints was received
in 1947.
William Chapman graduated from Cornell in 1895. He was a lawyer by
profession and lived in New York City; as a young man he spent Saturday
afternoons studying in the print room of the New York Public Library.
Chapman began collecting prints in 1909. "I never bought any print
unless I liked it," he said, "never for the sole reason that
it was rare and that the artist was distinguished. That seemed to relate
to the history of art rather than to the philosophy and enjoyment of
the beautiful."
Converting the Victorian parlors of White's mansion into exhibition
galleries on a limited budget was no small task; it was undertaken with
skill and ingenuity by the Museum's first director, Alan R. Solomon. Malott
selected Solomon from the faculty of the Department of Fine Arts; he worked
part-time as museum director and part-time teaching art history. Under Solomon's
direction, the Museum got off to an impressive beginning. He was a graduate
of Harvard, and his area of expertise was modern art. He had ties to the
art scene in New York and a close relationship with Leo Castelli and other
dealers. With their help, Solomon began to show contemporary art at the
Museum, including works by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Richard
Diebenkorn.
When the Museum opened, the art collection was small-the most significant
holdings were the distinguished collection of prints donated by William
Chapman. Consequently, the Museum functioned more as a gallery in the early
years. During the first seven months of operation, the Museum offered forty-one
exhibitions (several were shown twice), an incredible number for a new museum
with a small staff. They included Hudson River School paintings, Dürer
prints, Whistler prints, Miró paintings, and several traveling shows
from major museums-Atget, Brady, and Adams photographs, Europe: The New
Generation, and Redon Prints from the Museum of Modern Art; Norwegian
Decorative Arts from the Smithsonian; and twentieth century European
art from the Guggenheim. In his annual report for 195354, Solomon noted,
"Because of the greater accessibility of contemporary material, the
exhibitions of twentieth-century art have tended to reach a higher level
of quality than those of the art from other periods. In spite of this qualification
it will be noted that the Museum maintained a schedule in which about nineteen
of the exhibitions were based on modern paintings or sculpture, while twenty-three
consisted of other kinds of material." Solomon also mentioned that
the vigorous exhibition schedule was deliberate, because he believed that
"a great deal of activity in our early period of operation was necessary
to attract and hold public interest."
The desire to link the Museum closely with other departments on campus
and to involve students in Museum activities is evident right from the beginning.
During the first year, more than 10,000 people visited the Museum, and joint
projects were planned with the Colleges of Architecture, Home Economics,
and Engineering, the Department of Fine Arts in the College of Arts and
Sciences, and the Willard Straight Art Committee. The Museum became the
center for the annual Festival of Contemporary Arts, which started on campus
in 1945. Solomon hoped "by the diversity of (museum) programs to involve
the general student in a dynamic way in the process of fitting art into
life." Looking back on the first year of the Museum, he noted that
it had become "an active force in campus life. Besides forty art exhibitions,
the museum has offered chamber music concerts, art films, panel discussions,
gallery talks, an art lending service, and other programs relating to the
arts."
Solomon left Cornell in 1961 to become director of the Jewish Museum
in New York. Under his direction, the A. D. White Museum offered exhibitions
that seem quite remarkable even today for a fledgling art museum with a
limited budget, often attracting national interest. He organized the first
retrospective of Arthur Dove, an alumnus, and the first major exhibition
of Robert Rauschenberg, as well as acquiring important works by Rauschenberg,
Lee Bontecou, and Adolph Gottlieb, among others. He firmly established the
idea that an art museum would invigorate the intellectual life of the campus
and enrich the education of Cornell students.
Following Solomon's departure, President Malott appointed Richard Madigan
as the first full-time director of the Museum. Madigan was a young man of
23 who had worked at the Corning Museum of Glass, where Malott served on
the Board of Trustees. (Madigan had received a bachelor's degree in Political
Science from Drew University.) Soon after Madigan's appointment, Malott
appointed six faculty curators to serve as an advisory committee for the
Museum. While the number of exhibitions was cut back dramatically to 24
in Madigan's first year, renovations to the building continued, new gallery
and office spaces were added, and several notable works were acquired for
the collection, among them, paintings by Eugène Boudin, Otto
Marseus van Schrieck, and Léon L'Hermitte, and prints by Picasso,
Bonnard, Manet, and Chagall.
The Second Decade-A Transitional Period
Following Madigan's departure in 1963 for the Corcoran Gallery of Art,
a series of interim directors was appointed before a final selection for
director was made in 1968. Inez Garson, who had served the Museum as assistant
to the director under Solomon and Madigan, became the Museum's acting director
from 1963-66; this "interim administration" also included part-time
curators-Professor Albert S. Roe, and Professor Martie W. Young, curator
of Asian art. Roe assumed responsibility for museum operations with the
title of Senior Curator in 1966-67 when Garson left for a position at the
Museum of Modern Art. He was followed by Young, who served as acting director
in 1967-1968.
By the early 1960s the Museum was experiencing serious problems with
the facility, which were noted in Garson's annual reports-inadequate storage
space for the growing collection, security issues, the constant maintenance
concerns of an older building, inadequate shipping and receiving facilities,
and lack of proper lighting in the galleries and temperature and humidity
controls. Because of these concerns, the Museum was having difficulty borrowing
shows and major works of art from other institutions. Interest was mounting
for a new art museum, and in May of 1963, shortly before his retirement,
President Malott set up a committee to help in the basic planning of requirements
for a new museum, with Provost Atwood as Chair. After his arrival on campus,
the new president of the University, James Perkins, appointed members to
the group. One year later, in August of 1964, the committee, headed by William
R. Keast, Vice President of Academic Affairs, sent the President their proposal.
They recommended that a building of 70,000 square feet be erected on "
the beautiful Morse Hall site" and advocated "an architectural
design of the very highest standard." The committee noted that the
new building "offers an unparalleled opportunity to bring to the campus
a new sense of quality."
As plans for a new building moved forward, the Museum staff grappled
with the constraints of their aging facility and continued to develop the
collections while maintaining an active exhibition and program schedule.
Due largely to gifts from collectors and donors (the Museum had minimal
funds for the purchase of art), the collection was growing in size and stature.
In the annual report for 1963-64, several notable additions were listed:
a large collection of Tiffany Favrile glass; a painting by Roberto
Matta; and Chinese, Indian, and Roman objects. Asian art was becoming a
gem among the collections under the direction of Martie Young. He had been
trained at Harvard where he received his Ph.D. in art history with a concentration
in Chinese painting and ceramics. He came to Cornell in 1959 to serve on
the faculty of the Fine Arts Department. In his dual role as professor and
curator, he began building a collection of Asian art from a mere handful
of objects. In the beginning, Young recalls a dozen or so Asian works: several
Chinese paintings, a Tibetan musket, what was purported to be the Dalai
Lama's robe, some ceramics, and Japanese prints, which were then housed
in the print room. With the help of collectors Mary Rockwell and her husband
George, the collection grew dramatically and remains a principal strength
of the Museum's holdings to this day.
(Side bar-Martie Young and Mrs. Rockwell-a Dynamic Duo- and photo).
Mrs. Rockwell's husband George was a University trustee, and a loyal
Cornellian (class of 1913). He brought Mary to his alma mater where she
met Professor Young in 1962. She was a collector of ceramics and had spent
several years in China as a young child. On one of her trips to Cornell,
Mrs. Rockwell brought some ceramics for Young to look at. From that point
on, a friendship developed that lasted until her death in 1988. She
slowly began to help Cornell's curator build a collection, and once the
plans for a new museum were underway, the collecting began in earnest.
Over the years, the Asian collection grew steadily, and after her
death her entire collection was given to the Museum. As a tribute to
their generosity, the fifth floor has been named the George and Mary
Rockwell Galleries of Asian Art. Thanks to them and many other donors,
the Asian collection now numbers over 7,000 works in many media from
China, Japan, Korea, India, Persia, and Southeast Asia.
A major event for the A.D. White Museum during the 1960s was ART:USA
in the winter of 1967. Organized by S.C. Johnson and Sons, Inc. the
exhibition consisted of 102 American paintings by Robert Rauschenberg, Ellsworth
Kelly, Stuart Davis, Andrew Wyeth, and many others. The response was overwhelming.
In just five weeks, five times as many people saw this exhibition as had
seen any previous show at the Museum; in fact, only a slightly larger number
of people had visited the Museum the entire previous year. Special tours
of the show were given to schoolchildren and adult groups by the curator
of the exhibition, John E. Brown. Eighty-five groups from 20 schools in
the region visited the show. It was a smashing success and underscored the
impact the Museum could have on the campus and the community.
Herbert Fisk Johnson, president of Johnson Wax, had a longstanding interest
in art and saw the project as "an act of faith in American art and
an experiment by a business firm in international relations on a people
to people level." The show traveled throughout the United States and
abroad and was seen by 750,000 people in 14 countries. The show ended its
tour at the Smithsonian Institution, where the works were given to the National
Gallery of Art.
A New Era Begins
Three major events in the Museum's history occurred in the mid-1960s
which moved the Museum forward dramatically-Herbert F. Johnson, class of
1922, agreed to fund the construction of the new museum building, Thomas
W. Leavitt was appointed director of the Museum, and I.M. Pei was selected
as the architect for the new structure.
President Perkins approached Johnson, a Cornell trustee, and he agreed
to give $4,000,000 for the project in 1967. His only condition was that
an architect of stature be hired, "the Frank Lloyd Wright of our time."
Johnson was a collector of art and appreciated fine architecture. He had
commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design the headquarters of Johnson Wax
and his private residence. Johnson wanted an adventurous architect for the
new museum who would create a building of distinction, one that the world
would pay attention to.
(Side Bar-Herbert Fisk Johnson-with photo)
After graduating from Cornell in 1922, Herbert F. Johnson joined the
family business, Johnson Wax (S.C. Johnson and Son, Inc.), which was founded
by his grandfather. Six years later he became president and chairman and
served in these positions until 1958, and as honorary chairman until 1966.
During his tenure, Johnson established the Johnson Foundation, which grew
out of his involvement with educational, cultural, and philanthropic projects.
His interest in art led to the creation of two major traveling exhibitions
that toured museums in this country and Europe, ART: USA, and OBJECTS: USA,
a collection of work by 250 American craftsmen. When the company needed
a new office building in the 1930s, Johnson hired Frank Lloyd Wright to
design the structure, which was hailed as "the greatest innovation
in business housing since the skyscraper." Pleased with the results,
he commissioned Wright for two more projects-the world-famous Johnson Research
Tower, and "Wingspread," the family residence which was later
converted into a headquarters and conference center for the Johnson Foundation.
Johnson was a member of the Board of Trustees of Cornell University and
later served as Trustee Emeritus and Presidential Councilor. Johnson's lifelong
interest in art and education and his dedication to the growth and development
of the University led to the gift of a new art museum for his alma mater.
With plans for the Museum underway, the search for a new director accelerated,
and the University chose Dr. Thomas W. Leavitt. Leavitt received his Ph.D.
in art history at Harvard with a concentration in American painting and
sculpture. He had extensive museum experience as director of the Pasadena
Art Museum and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Leavitt began his tenure
as director of the Johnson Museum of Art on July 1, 1968. Thomas W. Leavitt
was born in Boston in 1930, the son of a painter and the grandson of a sculptor.
He received a bachelor's degree in American literature from Middlebury College
in 1951, his Master of Arts in art history from Boston University in
1952, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1958. Throughout his career he
was a leader on the national art scene, serving as the first head of
the Museum Program at the National Endowment for the Arts and the first
university museum director to be elected President of the American Association
of Museums. He was director of the Johnson Museum from 1968 to 1991.
The exhibitions he organized received national recognition, and the collections
grew dramatically, to over 20,000 works of art. Leavitt felt that "the
most important talent a museum director can have is the ability to recognize
an important work of art or art movement and to decide whether people
need to see it at a given moment."
Shortly after Leavitt's appointment, Ieoh Ming Pei was chosen to design
the new building. Pei was selected from a list of leading architects after
an intensive search by a committee chaired by Thomas W. Mackesey, Cornell's
chief administrative officer for planning and former dean of the College
of Architecture. Among the other architects the committee considered were
Kevin Roche, Marcel Breuer, Louis Kahn, and Edward L. Barnes. Interest in
Pei grew as the committee became more familiar with his work. Young was
strongly interested in Pei, and Leavitt had looked at several of his buildings
and visited his firm. Pei had several important projects in the works, including
the Everson Museum and the Air and Space Museum in Boulder. The turning
point in the decision-making process occurred on a winter day in 1967 when
Young arranged a field trip to Syracuse for the committee to see the Newhouse
building at Syracuse University, recently completed by Pei, and the Everson
Museum, which was under construction.
The Newhouse building was striking but had operational problems; it was
the visit to the Everson that helped clinch the decision. Young remembers
the visit vividly: "We went into this building all shrouded by canvas,
and walked into the interior lobby it was just pure poured concrete and
wood forms. We walked in and it was glorious, it was the most exciting space
I had ever seen, an ingenious use of volume and form."
While plans for the new building continued, programs and collection development
at the A.D. White Museum continued uninterrupted. Upon his arrival on campus
in July of 1968 Leavitt recalls finding "a very viable museum program."
The first show he saw was the Tony Smith sculpture exhibition with "giant
pieces all over the arts quad and in front of the A.D. White Museum."
The Smith show was followed by Treasures of Medieval Art, organized
by Professor Robert Calkins. Print shows were organized from the museum
collections by Ruth Schlesinger, assistant curator of prints. Leavitt's
first exhibition was Earth Art in February 1969, a groundbreaking
event for the Museum. Nine young artists were brought together for their
first group show in a museum, among them Hans Haacke, Richard Long, Robert
Smithson, and Neil Jenney. Eight of the artists came to the Cornell campus
for three weeks to create works of art with dirt, coal, asbestos, rock,
salt, ice, and other natural materials in and around the Museum; Robert
Morris, who could not make it to campus because of a blizzard, sent instructions
by telephone. In conjunction with the show, a symposium was organized featuring
the eight artists, drawing national attention and interest. The exhibition
helped to establish environmental art as a legitimate art form, and furthered
the Museum's reputation for avant garde exhibitions. A tradition of wide-ranging
shows was attracting visitors from the University, the community, and central
New York State. During the academic year of 1968-69, attendance at the A.D.White
Museum reached 31,233, more than double the number of visitors three years
before.
The permanent collection was gaining in size and stature as well. The annual
report of 1968-69 noted that the Museum Associates gave over $30,000 for
acquisitions, and it highlighted several impressive additions to the collection,
including an early painting by Hans Hofmann, a major drawing by Claude-Emile
Schuffenecker, and a linoleum cut by Picasso. With funds provided by Mr.
and Mrs. George Rockwell, several acquisitions were made for the distinguished
Asian collection. Contemporary paintings also grew with the purchase of
several works made possible with a matching grant from the National Endowment
for the Arts.
Designing a Teaching Museum
It is part of campus legend that the location selected for the new museum,
a "prominent knoll" on the north end of Library Slope, is the
very spot where Ezra Cornell stood and said he wanted to found a university.
On the edge of campus near Fall Creek Gorge and overlooking Cayuga Lake,
it offers commanding views of the countryside and campus.
Initially, there was much discussion about where the new museum would be
located. It seemed logical to some to place it at the north end of the arts
quad close to the art, architecture, and art history departments. However,
in the end, the trustees decided the Library Slope site was the ideal location
for the new building, which was to be a major architectural statement, taking
full advantage of the spectacular views.
The location of the new museum would be a major factor in the evolution
of the building's design, coupled with the particular needs of a teaching
museum. The program for the building was worked on over an extended period
of time by Young, Garson, and Leavitt. It was decided that the Museum would
contain study galleries for course-related shows, a lecture room, and galleries
of varying sizes to accommodate both traveling exhibitions and the permanent
collections. Ada Louise Huxtable discussed the prerequisites in an article
in The New York Times: "The building is intended to act as a
kind of viewing platform for splendid vistas on all sides and is also meant
to serve as an attraction for alumni and parents as well as students and
art lovers, and to function as a place for trustees and other meetings"
comprising what she referred to as an "architectural mixed bag of essentially
conflicting uses."
All of these concerns were incorporated into the design of the structure
by I.M. Pei's firm. Pei brought into the project John L. Sullivan III, a
1962 graduate of Cornell's architecture program. He worked on the design
for the Museum in close consultation with Pei. Reflecting on the evolution
of the building shortly after the Museum opened in 1973, Sullivan noted
that the limited size of the site dictated a vertical structure and the
open space in the middle was meant to preserve the view from East Avenue,
the site of the A.D. White Mansion, and to avoid a walled-off feeling on
the west side of the Arts Quadrangle. This idea of transparency was also
reflected in the lobby of the building, surrounded on three sides by glass
walls.
Following budgetary adjustments (the overall scale of the building was
shrunk and a second passenger elevator and lobby cloakroom were eliminated),
the plans were finalized and construction began in August of 1970 and continued
for nearly three years. The William C. Pahl Construction Company of Syracuse,
the same firm used for the construction of the Everson Museum, won the bid.
The vertical structure would stand 110 feet high and would be constructed
of board-formed reinforced concrete and glass. With approximately 61,000
square feet, the building consisted of ten floors, three below ground, and
windows facing in all four directions on the fifth floor. The building was
constructed to allow for the future addition of an underground wing which
would face Fall Creek Gorge.
The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art
Named after its benefactor, the Johnson Museum opened its doors on May
23, 1973; nearly 1,000 guests attended the opening festivities. At the dedication
ceremony, Johnson expressed the "hope that the new museum will serve
the students of Cornell, present and future, as a wider window on the world
of fine arts, enabling them to add a broader dimension to their lives no
matter what their fields of study might be." His son, Samuel C. Johnson,
class of 1950, and a member of the Board of Trustees, formally turned the
building over to the University on behalf of his father. Quoting him he
said, "A full appreciation and understanding of the arts can provide
a deep enrichment of one's own life and especially, in today's world, can
help us strengthen our respect for the dignity and individual creativity
of man."
Nancy Hanks, director of the National Endowment for the Arts, was keynote
speaker at the dedication luncheon. President Dale R. Corson introduced
I. M. Pei, who spoke of his concerns in designing an appropriate building
for perhaps the University's most sacred site. Leavitt also spoke, stressing
that the Museum would be used as a teaching facility for the Cornell community
and as a cultural focal point for the residents of the Finger Lakes region.
In the first year, attendance reached 70,000, nearly the population of Ithaca
and the surrounding area. Ada Louise Huxtable wrote that Pei's design was
"an elegantly refined solution of its purposes (as a teaching museum)."
Two years after the Museum opened, the building received the American Institute
of Architects award for distinguished design.
The Collections
At the time the new museum opened, the collection of American art was
growing stronger, with special emphasis on 19th and early 20th century painting.
These holdings were significantly enhanced with gifts from Dr. and Mrs.
Milton Lurie Kramer. The Kramer collection contained work by many of the
major artists of the first half of the twentieth century-Stuart Davis, John
Marin, Arthur Dove, Georgia O'Keeffe, Abraham Rattner, Charles Sheeler,
and Jacob Lawrence, among others. Included in the decorative arts were 200
pieces of Tiffany glass donated by Edythe de Lorenzi and Arthur L. Nash.
The strongest of the European holdings, then and today, was the print collection.
The nucleus of this collection was the Chapman bequest, and by 1974 the
collection had grown to over 7,000 prints, including works by Mantegna,
Dürer, Callot, Hogarth, Canaletto, Piranesi, Goya, and Whistler, as
well as nineteenth century French artists and British and American printmakers
from the turn of the century.
At the same time, many friends of Cornell, such as Mr. and Mrs. Louis B.
Keeler, David Solinger, and Mr. and Mrs. Herman Metzger, among many others,
were instrumental in the growth of the European painting collection. Included
here were such distinguished works as Fields in the Month of June
by Charles-François Daubigny, Woman Lying on a Leopard Skin
by Otto Dix, and Smiling Face by Jean Dubuffet. In the early 1970s
the Museum acquired several pieces of medieval sculpture from Flanders,
Germany, France, and Italy, as well as drawings and watercolors by Whistler,
Nolde, Kirchner, Grosz, Léger, Matta, Matisse, and Picasso. The fledgling
photography collection grew as well with works by Eugène Atget, Alfred
Stieglitz, Lewis Hine, and Ansel Adams and younger photographers, including
Harry Callahan, Paul Caponigro, and Les Krims. A major component of the
collection was a large body of work by photojournalist and Cornell alumna,
Margaret Bourke-White. The most notable works in the small sculpture collection
were Walking Man II by Alberto Giacometti and pieces by Jacques
Lipchitz and Auguste Rodin. Holdings in Pre-Columbian, African, and Oceanic
art added to the richness and diversity of the collections.
The Museum Reaches Out
When the Johnson Museum opened in 1973, it became a primary center for
visual arts in central New York. Leavitt felt that with this distinction
came the responsibility to make the collections and exhibitions accessible
to the campus and the region. In 1975, he hired the first coordinator of
education to develop public programs for the Museum. A storage area on the
second lower level was converted to house the newly formed education department,
and the Museum in the Schools program was soon initiated. The staff
had grown to 21 full-time employees, plus part-time graduate student assistants
and undergraduate student guards.
The Museum continued to offer exhibitions of contemporary art which often
traveled to other institutions, balanced with a wide range of shows to meet
the teaching needs of the campus and the interests of central New York residents.
Among the exhibitions that received national attention were Far Eastern
Art in Upstate New York, Directions in Afro-American Art, and
Abstract Expressionism: The Formative Years, which traveled to the
Whitney Museum and the Seibu Museum of Art in Tokyo.
Building a collection of high quality in all periods of the history of
art continued to be a priority for the staff. Leavitt felt that "an
active museum with a good collection and a series of changing exhibitions
can alter the whole tenor of campus life." Interest in the Museum was
strong, and by 1979 attendance reached 96,000. With limited funds for the
purchase of art, the Museum relied heavily on gifts from alumni and friends.
By 1980 Museum holdings had grown to 12,000 works of art and the first Handbook
of the Collections was published; 231 of the most important works were
illustrated.
The decade of the 1980s was marked by significant growth in the print collection,
through purchases and gifts from donors such as Paul and Elizabeth Ehrenfest,
Paul and Helen Anbinder, Bill and Martha Eustis, Prof. Robert and Joan Bechhofer,
and Dr. Bruce and Judith Eissner. The body of work by Francisco Goya, already
significant with The Disasters of War and Caprichos, was enhanced
by the addition of the Proverbios. Matisse's Jazz and Wassily
Kandinsky's Kleine Welten were acquired, as were important Pop and
contemporary prints. Among the new photographs were works by Robert Frank
and Berenice Abbott, given by Arthur and Marilyn Penn, and several 19th
century photographers, including Julia Margaret Cameron, Timothy O'Sullivan,
William Henry Fox Talbot, and David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson.
During this period, the Museum continued its tradition of organizing traveling
exhibitions, several of which revisited the theme of environmental art.
Robert Smithson: Sculpture, a retrospective organized by the Museum
in 1980, traveled to the Walker Art Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art
in Chicago, and the Whitney Museum, among other institutions. The Lagoon
Cycle in 1985 had begun as a research project on the potential of developing
a crab from Sri Lanka as a world food source. It grew into a large-scale
artistic record of the project by Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison.
Contemporary painting was showcased in Painting Up Front in 1981,
and in a major retrospective of the work of Joan Mitchell in 1988 which
traveled to the Corcoran Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco,
the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Albright Knox Art Gallery.
In the mid-1980s the Museum began showing video and film with Expanding
Cinema, as well as exhibitions such as Media Buffs, drawing new audiences
to the Johnson. Cornell Collects: A Celebration of Art from the Collections
of Alumni and Friends in 1990, presented 162 works from 72 lenders at the
time of the University's 125th anniversary.
Into the 21st Century
Leavitt retired as Director of the Johnson Museum in 1991 after 23 years
of distinguished service. As a director, he sought to humanize the Museum
making art truly accessible to the individual. Reflecting on his career,
Leavitt said he "strove to keep the Museum flexible, and respond to
new ideas;" he wanted to create "a thinking museum that worked
with artists and historians."
Following Leavitt's retirement, Martie Young once again served as interim
director while a national search was conducted to find a replacement. In
1992 Frank Robinson was hired as director. Robinson came to the Johnson
from the Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design, where he served as
director for 13 years. An authority on Dutch art, he had taught at Dartmouth,
Williams, and Wellesley Colleges. Over the last several years, Richard J.
Schwartz, chair of the Musuem's Advisory Council, and Robinson have recommitted
the institution to serve as an educational resource for all Cornell students,
strengthening ties to the university community while maintaining outreach
to area schools and residents of the Finger Lakes region. Embracing new
technologies and recognizing their potential for increasing access to works
of art, the Museum has begun to create digitized images and on-line information
on the collections. Coming to terms with the economic realities of the 1990s,
an endowment campaign was launched in 1996 by the Advisory Council, now
chaired by Steven Ames, ensuring that the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art
will continue to be a vital, active learning resource in the next century
and beyond.
Cathy Rosa Klimaszewski
The Ames Assistant Director for Education |
