Peter (A Young English Girl) by Romaine Brooks

The Luce Center staff can be a fairly competitive bunch: which of our scavenger hunts gets the most participants or which audio tour stops do visitors listen to most often. But lately, we’ve extended our competition to our ongoing Fill the Gap project where we ask you to help us fill the empty space in one of our cases when an artwork goes on exhibition, loan, or to our conservation center. With this latest version of Fill the Gap, we’ve begun making staff recommendations to help voters sift through the multitude of choices. Each staff person chooses an object she thinks will best fit in the case and then writes a short explanation for her reasoning. After a poor showing with my first attempt, I'm happy to announce that my latest pick for our Romaine Brooks case won in an incredibly tight race!

Our museum has 65 artworks by Romaine Brooks and it’s always a thrill when we have the opportunity to put another on view. Like many others, I am a huge fan of her work and of her as a person. Although American, Brooks spent most of her life in Europe painting portraits of her lovers and friends. Peter (A Young English Girl) is a portrait of the English artist Hannah Gluckstein, who attended the literary salons of Natalie Clifford Barney, Brooks’s longtime lover. Gluckstein (who painted under the name Gluck and was called Peter by friends) dressed in menswear, in a manner popular with many women of the upper and upper middle classes at this time, including Brooks. This trend not only allowed women to experiment with fashion, but also provided an outlet for lesbians, like Gluck and Brooks, to question and confront gender roles in the creation of a lesbian identity. This portrait is a wonderful example of Brooks’s work in both subject and style, and that’s why I suggested it for Fill the Gap.

Our current gap in need of a fill is in case 40b, which contains colorful, abstract pieces. This time, I’m throwing my hat in with Thomas Downing’s Red Span because the forms and colors the artist used will fit beautifully with the pieces already in this case. If you agree cast your vote for Downing. Not convinced? Check out the other options and the recommendations of other Luce Center staffers. When you vote (either in-gallery or online), feel free to leave your own comment—we love hearing what our citizen curators have to say!

American Art’s Fill the Gap project is mentioned in Arianna Huffington’s recent article, Museums 2.0: What Happens When Great Art Meets New Media?

• Romaine Brooks, Hannah Gluckstein, Luce Foundation Center, American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Kota Ezawa's LYAM 3D

A walk through the museum the other day in honor of one year ending and the new year beginning, was a feast for the eyes...and ears. It's not just getting up close to a painting that can be rewarding, it's also hearing what other people say to each other when looking. Love, hate, indifference...I've heard them all. Crowds queued for the last days of the Norman Rockwell exhibition, and many people came to see Alexis Rockman's vivid paintings on the third floor that offered a kind of counterpoint to the Rockwellian themes. Rockman's apocolyptic take on the world drew a lot of oohs and aahs from people. In the exhibition comment book, people responded with "cool," "wild," "great." One person drew a picture of somebody looking at a painting with the caption, "Art is inspiring."

What will inspire you this year? Outside the Rockman exhibition, in Watch This: New Directions in the Art of the Moving Image, recent acquisitions of video art, a group of children wearing 3-D glasses were delighting in Kota Ezawa's digital animation, LYAM 3D. I put on a pair and saw what all the fuss was about. Art, like people, comes in all shapes and sizes. All you have to do is keep your eyes wide open to see. Oh, and don’t forget to listen.

• Alexis Rockman, Kota Ezawa, Video Art, American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Norman Rockwell, Boy and Father: Homework, Four Seasons Calendar, 1962, oil on canvas, Collection of George Lucas, © Brown and Bigelow

With the exhibition Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg closing on January 2nd, we wanted to share some of the comments visitors have shared with us, both online as well as in notebooks in the gallery at American Art. The comments have enabled us to hear back from viewers, making the experience a two-way street. As you might have expected, Rockwell struck a chord with many visitors who found themselves drawn into his images and world, and perhaps sharing a Rockwell moment of their own. People from around the country and around the world contributed comments. The exhibition seemed to bring the generations together, as one visitor commented: "I grew up with ‘Saturday Evening Post’ covers. My son grew up with Star Wars. Showing him these covers helps connect us further. Thanks for the memories." Here are a handful more:

"Thank you to George & Steven for sharing your wonderful collections with all of us. It’s a beautiful vision and gives us a joy to see."

"I am only ten, but, I have a favorite artist…His name is Norman Rockwell. He is able to take those pure moments that all of us have, and turn them into art."

"Gracias por esta maravillosa exposición. Rockwell nos hace ser mejores personas." [Thank you for this marvelous show. Rockwell makes us better people.]

"Some artists strive to capture the physical. NR also captured those emotions that make us human."

"As a boy in the 30s & early 40s I delivered hundreds, even thousands, of copies of "The Saturday Evening Post." What memories this glorious exhibition brings back. Thank you."

"These are the stained glass windows of the American cathedral. Thank you for sharing them with us."

"Rarely have I ever been to an exhibit where there was so much interaction between the viewers—people making comments to strangers, laughing, smiling at one another. That is what makes Rockwell such an important artist."

"I served in Iraq and will soon go to Afghanistan. If other nations had their own Rockwell we would have more friends in the world and fewer enemies and wars."

"I have more of a sense of American history and American spirit after seeing these pictures than after all the monuments combined."

"I was born in Colombia, South America and learned about the USA reading Saturday Evening Post which my dad received after living in NYC from 1919 till 1927. My dream was to move to the USA! I made that dream a reality when I came in 1966…Norman Rockwell showed to me the beauty and wisdom of this privileged land of opportunity. My three sons and eight grandchildren owe a great deal to SEP and Norman Rockwell."

"Norman Rockwell paintings have always given me a nostalgic and wonderful feeling. Since I was a child I've felt a personal connection to his work. Marble Champion - the painting of two boys and a young girl playing marbles on the sidewalk does in fact have a personal connection to my family and our history. My grandfather is featured in this painting. He is the dark haired boy with the striped shirt, bent over with the puzzled look on his face as the young girl and apparent "marble champion" teach he and his friend a lesson in playing the game.. He was a child model and helped his family through financial hardships during The Great Depression with the money he earned posing for ads and paintings by various artists of his time. I am told by my grandmother that he was depicted in two Norman Rockwell paintings - this one, featured in the Saturday Evening Post in 1939 and another that did not make the Post that I've never seen. Throughout the years I've seen prints of this oil painting on everything from calendars to coffee mugs, in stores and at friend's homes... Most times when I've said "hey, that's my grandfather" the reaction is 'yeah right... sure it is.' But it is in fact him, and I'm proud to know that as I type this, he's hanging on the walls of the Smithsonian!"

People have really responded to the exhibition, to Rockwell as an artist, and to his place in their lives. Many people have written to say that they've identified strongly with a certain image, or a particular person in the painting. Rockwell had the ability to make you see your life before you. It seems that if there wasn't a Norman Rockwell in the last century, somebody would have had to invent him.

Do you have a story to tell? It's not too late to add your own comments. During the holidays (December 26–January 2) the Rockwell show will open at 10 a.m. instead of our normal 11:30 a.m. If you can't visit the exhibition, you can add your comments online.

• Norman Rockwell, American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Takashi Murakami's Kaikai and Kiki

My parents will be pleased. Murakami’s well known characters Kaikai and Kiki will be seen in helium balloon form this November at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, so for the first time in ten years I will be attending the parade with them.  From the New York Times: 

If familiar figures like Kermit the Frog and SpongeBob SquarePants are simply too jejune for you as their larger-than-life, helium-filled representations wind their way toward Herald Square on Thanksgiving morning, the organizers of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade have added two new entrants to the 2010 lineup that they hope will appeal to more erudite tastes. Kaikai and Kiki, two weirdly cute (or is that cutely weird?) characters created by Takashi Murakami, the Japanese pop artist, are being turned into larger-than-life balloons that will mix it up with the traditional cartoon stars and corporate trademarks that will populate the parade’s 84th annual run on Nov. 25, the parade’s producers said on Thursday.

I guess his action figure cowboy with ejaculate lasso didn’t make the cut. Via: Josh Spear

When the Carnegie mansion was built, it may have been lavish, but it was designed to be home. That spirit lives on in Cocktails@Cooper-Hewitt, our popular summer series. Every Friday evening, Members and museum visitors come “home” to Cooper-Hewitt to unwind for the weekend.

The Ed Fuqua Group provides smooth sounds of jazz wafting through the summer air of the Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden while visitors enjoy a sunset over the façade of the Fifth Avenue mansion. Others seek refuge from the heat and cool down in the galleries with National Design Triennial: Why Design Now? and Ted Muehling Selects: Lobmeyr Glass from the Permanent Collection.

Join us for the final Friday on August 27 at 6:00pm. Admission is only $5; Shop visitors enjoy an additional 10% off. Visitors will also have the opportunity to become a Member at a special rate and enjoy Cooper-Hewitt all year long.

John Scott's Thornbush Blues Totem

Thornbush Blues Totem by John Scott will be featured in our upcoming exhibition, African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond. In preparation, museum conservators and art handlers moved the eight-foot tall sculpture up to the conservation labs for examination and treatment. Staffer Mary Tait described the experience:

My expectations for this move were preceded only by my few experiences of moving furniture, particularly of moving a couch. Usually my friends and I just "grab and go" and hope it will fit through the door. If it accidentally bumps the door jam and tears a bit of fabric, then "oh well". But this was much more elaborate than an average apartment-to-apartment move.

The path for the sculpture was scoped out by the conservators and art handlers. Temporary doors and objects were moved out of the way ahead of time. Braces, blankets, and pads were all at the ready and seemed to appear out of nowhere as needed. During the move, the sculpture was carefully set down on the custom-made brace so that plans of action could be discussed on the spot, and the art handlers could reposition themselves for the next lift. Even though the path was thoroughly planned, careful adjustments and monitoring were crucial during the entire process. Because, unlike my couch, we cannot afford any dings or chips on our cultural artifacts.

four canopic jars with lids in the shape of the heads of the four sons of Horus -
10.-08. century B.C.

He may be small, but he's not named Trouble for nothing! Read more about Trouble's adventures at the Villa here.

Boijmans 3D.
Erven Milo. Ronald Snijsers. oieter Jouke

Porsche Oskar de Kiefte Boijmans 3D

Absalon Boijmans 3D