ArtPourri

Textile Professional Honored – The George Hewitt Myers Award for lifetime achievement recognizes an individual’s exceptional contributions to the study and understanding of the textile arts and is the most distinguished honor in the field of textile arts. Milton Sonday, the foremost researcher of textile techniques, structure and pattern, is the 2011 honoree and will be presented his award on Oct. 16 at The Textile Museum in Washington, DC.

Art Results in Economic Impact – The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s (NYC) concurrent presentation of four acclaimed and widely attended exhibitions in the summer 2011 season generated $908 million in spending by regional, national and international tourists to NY. A study found that the direct tax benefit to the City and State from out-of-town visitors to the Museum totaled some $90.8 million.

New Acquisitions Made – The Carnegie Museum of Art has acquired two remarkable cut and engraved glass water decanters commissioned as part of a large service by President James Monroe in 1818 and made by renowned Pittsburgh glass firm Bakewell, Page and Bakewell. These two objects resurfaced in a rural auction in 2010 and are now on view in the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Galleries. The objects are significant not only for their presidential provenance but also their rarity as the earliest known fully cut and engraved American water decanters

Artist Honored – The U. S. Postal Service forged ahead with its American Treasures series by issuing the tenth entry, a forever stamp featuring Edward Hopper’s sailboat painting, “The Long Leg.” The 1935 sunlit painting depicts a boat sailing against the wind near Provincetown, MA.

Record Attendance Set – The Cincinnati Art Museum has just finished its last fiscal year with the third highest visitor attendance in the history of the art museum, numbering 272,352. While they came for world class exhibitions derived from permanent collections, they stayed for lectures, educational programs, the Museum Shop and the Terrace Café, all of which saw significant increases in attendance and revenue this past year. Look forward this coming season to exhibitions on Art Deco design, Monet, Picasso, Musical Instruments and more.

Egyptian Statue on Loan — A monumental ancient Egyptian statue of a seated pharaoh—probably Amenemhat II—is on loan to The Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC) by Berlin's renowned Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Preussischer Kulturbesitz for a period of ten years. The ten-foot-tall, nearly nine-ton, 4,000-year-old sculpture is an outstanding example of ancient Egypt's magnificent colossal statuary, of which very few examples can be found in American museums.

Successful Program Concluded – On Labor Day Weekend in September, more than 1,500 museums nationwide offered a final “thank you” to military families through the Blue Star Museums program. This national partnership among Blue Star families, the National Endowment for the Arts and museums across the country offers free admission to active duty military personnel and their families between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

Copyright ARTtalk Vol. 21, No. 12 — October 2011