Revisiting History at Harvard's Fogg Art Museum

Exhibition highlights the innovation and inspiration of the museum's past

CAMBRIDGE, MA (May 3, 2004)-An exhibition beginning May 29, 2004, will show-case the Fogg Art Museum's unique and innovative history through archival photo-graphs, documents, building plans, and objects that were in the museum's collection when the Quincy Street building opened in 1927.

Including 47 objects, Vastly More Than Brick and Mortar: Reinventing the Fogg Art Museum in the 1920s demonstrates how Harvard created the first museum in North America to unite under one roof the elements now taken for granted as necessary for an advanced education in the fine arts: lecture halls, a research library, laboratories for conservation and technical examination, and, of course, galleries and study rooms. The exhibition, organized by art historian and scholar Kathryn Brush, can be seen at the Fogg Art Museum through September 26, 2004.

"The driving forces behind the creation of the new Fogg were the director, Edward W. Forbes, and his associate, Paul J. Sachs," noted Thomas W. Lentz, Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director of the Harvard University Art Museums. "They envisioned a University Art Museum as a kind of laboratory for art historians and museum professionals that would inspire the kind of scholarship necessary for a major art museum."

The Fogg's Quincy Street building "was hailed as a novel architectural and academic experiment" when it opened, said Brush, who documented the institution's history in her new book, Vastly More Than Brick and Mortar: Reinventing the Fogg Art Museum in the 1920s. The new Fogg "gave architectural expression to the concept that scholarship in the field of art was ideally shaped by the interactive study of objects, techniques, images, and texts in a single, unified space," wrote Brush, professor of art history at the University of Western Ontario in Canada.

Visitors to the exhibition will be able to see the wide range of objects collected by Forbes and Sachs from a variety of cultures: a 14th-century B.C. Chinese ritual vessel in the shape of a water buffalo; a medieval capital from Burgundy, France; Japanese woodblock prints from the 1700s; and a Degas portrait from 1872.

Also on display will be architectural drawings that document the evolution of the building's neo-Georgian brick exterior, designed to harmonize with the style Harvard was then adopting for its campus buildings, and its Italian Renaissance interior built of travertine and modeled upon the canon's house of the church of San Biagio in Montepulciano, Italy.

Because the Fogg's new building and its collection of art would not have been possible without generous benefactors, various archival documents will be exhibited. Examples include a 1924 pledge letter from John D. Rockefeller Jr. and a donation from Felix M. Warburg, a New York banker-philanthropist and one of the Fogg's most generous patrons, as well as a letter in which Warburg offered additional support to construct the museum.

Other objects on display include:
Christ Crucified Between the Two Thieves (The Three Crosses), by Rembrandt van Rijn; a lobed Maebyong bottle from the Koryo Dynasty of 12th-century Korea; a ceramic bowl from 16th-century Iran; Ukiyo-e woodblock prints from Japan, c. 1765-70; Portrait of Madame Olivier Villette, by Edgar Degas; a walnut Italian refectory table with scroll carving from the 16th century; and "The Great Salt," dating to c. 1637 and Harvard's oldest piece of ceremonial silver.

Vastly More Than Brick and Mortar was made possible by the gift of Jessie Lie Farber in honor of Thomas J. Fitzgerald, father of Lily Fitzgerald.

About the Harvard University Art Museums
The Harvard University Art Museums are one of the world's leading arts institutions, with the Arthur M. Sackler, Busch-Reisinger, and Fogg art museums, the Straus Center for Conservation, and the U.S. headquarters for the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis, an excavation project in western Turkey.

The Harvard University Art Museums are distinguished by the range and depth of their collections, their groundbreaking exhibitions, and the original research of their staff. As an integral part of the Harvard community, the three art museums serve as a resource for all students, adding a special dimension to their areas of study. The public is welcome to experience the collections and exhibitions as well as to enjoy lectures, symposia, and other programs.

For more than a century, the Harvard University Art Museums have been the nation's premier training ground for museum professionals and scholars and are renowned for their role in the development of the discipline of art history in this country.

Location and Hours
The Fogg Art Museum and the Busch-Reisinger Museum are located at 32 Quincy Street in Cambridge. The Arthur M. Sackler Museum is located next door at 485 Broadway. Each Museum is a short walk from the Harvard Square MBTA station.

Hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Sunday 1 - 5 p.m.; the Museums are closed on national holidays. Admission is $6.50; $5 for seniors; $5 for students; and free for those under 18 years of age. The Museums are free to everyone Saturday mornings, 10 a.m. - noon. The Harvard University Art Museums receive support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. More detailed information is available at 617-495-9400 or on the Internet at www.artmuseums.harvard.edu.

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For more information on this appointment or the Harvard University Art Museums, please contact:

Matthew Barone
Harvard University Art Museums
tel 617-495-2397; fax 617-496-9762
mbarone@fas.harvard.edu

or

Kim Gilbert/Jacquelyn Burke
Resnicow Schroeder Associates
tel 212-671-5157; fax 212-595-8354
kgilbert@resnicowschroeder.com
jburke@resnicowschroeder.com