ELIZABETH CROPPER:
Good afternoon, everyone.
I'm just delighted to have
this opportunity to speak to you
this afternoon about CASVA,
the Center for Advanced
Study in the Visual
Arts at the National
Gallery of Art,
which I am fortunate to direct
in my role as dean
since the very end of 2000.
When I first came to the gallery
as dean,
a member of the senior staff
at the Gallery
described the Center to me
as a sort of Vatican
within the Gallery:
somewhat opaque and mysterious,
exercising its own power
and influence within
and without.
Even the name of the Center
was confusing.
And as you ponder this slide,
I hope you'll see many
of the different versions
that many of us have used.
It continues to be
confusing in terms of singulars
and plurals, ofs and ins.
But here we are, this
is the correct title
at the bottom.
I saw the place quite
differently, because I'd come
from outside, from Johns Hopkins
University to be specific,
and I knew a great deal
about CASVA's
international reputation
for critical and outstanding
scholarship, its leadership
in the field of art history
broadly defined,
and I'd benefited
from its programs.
Often these had to do
with providing
special opportunities
for researchers
to explore the Gallery's
collections and exhibitions
in greater detail than possible
for the general public.
More specifically, I'd spent
a year here as Samuel H. Kress
Senior Fellow, working
to complete a book; and then
in 1994-96 I was appointed
the first Andrew W. Mellon
Professor, a position endowed
by the Mellon Foundation
in honor of the Gallery's
50th birthday.
Over that long period of time,
I had the opportunity to see how
the already strong relationship
between the Gallery
and the Center it housed
could be enriched and deepened,
and when I arrived as dean that
was just one of my goals.
And I hope I've had some success
in that direction.
Today's talk is, in fact, just
one more way of shining a light
on some of CASVA's activities
at the Gallery
and helping a wider public
understand what we do.
And I'm grateful to you
all for your interest.
As we celebrated the Gallery's
75th anniversary this past year,
our minds have been drawn back
to March 17, 1941,
that wonderful day when
President Roosevelt declared
the Gallery open.
The long work of building
completed
after the joint resolution
of Congress on March 24, 1937,
and after the deaths
of both Andrew Mellon
and his architect John Russell
Pope, had realized
a beautiful classical building.
The galleries remained sparsely
furnished, however, with works
of art, and the great challenge
of building the collection
and providing programs
for its interpretation
and conservation lay ahead.
When it comes to telling
the story of CASVA, we remember
a different building with
an equally long period
of planning, beginning with
these sketches by I.M. Pei
and construction,-- which you
see here--
as well as a different opening
day.
President Jimmy Carter declared
the East Building open.
As in the case of the West
Building, it took years to fill
it with the art of the highest
quality that we all enjoy here
today.
But this building, visionary
for its time in both form
and function, was designed
by I.M. Pei
for Paul Mellon and his sister
Ailsa Mellon Bruce
for several other purposes.
In addition
to the public spaces,
including this auditorium
in which we all are now,
the atrium,
and the nearby Cascade Cafe,
it was to house
administrative and curatorial
offices.
Especially important
in the commission to I.M. Pei
was the expanded space
for the library and then
for the new research center that
would require
the library's expansion, as well
as offices for fellows,
a seminar room-- and before we
look at the seminar room, I just
want you to see the offices
for the members there
on the right--
a seminar room, a lounge,--
which you see here on the left--
and a refectory,
where professional staff
and visiting members
could eat and talk together
in a communal way.
Now, the idea for a research
center at the National Gallery
goes much further back
to the early 1950s, when Paul
Mellon--
you see here on the left--
had conversations with director
David Finley--
in his office on the right--
and Chief Curator John Walker
about setting up a place
for scholars
to work in a great library
like that in ancient Alexandria.
In this immediate post-war
period, there was a very strong
sense that the cultural ties
between Europe and the United
States needed to be rebuilt,
and that the National Gallery
should play a leading role here.
And John Walker, you see here
in a photograph with Berenson
and Frederick Hartt--
Walker was especially
interested in what Berenson was
attempting to do at I Tatti,
where he had spent some time.
And in 1956, Berenson even wrote
that he wanted Walker to direct
I Tatti for Harvard.
The first concrete result of all
this general thinking
was the establishment
of the A.W. Mellon Lectures
in the Fine Arts,
inaugurated in 1949,
with funding again provided
by Paul Mellon
and his sister Ailsa.
The series was founded,
and I quote, "to bring
to the people of the United
States
the results of the best
contemporary thought
and scholarship bearing
upon the subject
of the fine arts," end quote.
With typical broadmindedness,
the trustees, inspired by Paul
Mellon's vision,
determined
that the distinguished speakers
might come from any discipline,
"provided such subjects have
a relationship to or bearing
on the Fine Arts"
or "their understanding,
appreciation, and promotion."
Paul Mellon and his first wife,
Mary, had been close to Carl
Jung before the war,
visiting him at Bollingen
in Switzerland.
And here you see Jung
with his wife
and below that, the house,
Bollingen, which gave its name
to so many
of the productions
of the Center.
Jung's teaching strongly
influenced the mandate
for the lectures
as it did the decision that they
would be published
in the Bollingen Series
established by the Mellons.
Now part of Princeton University
Press, number 35 of the series
continues at Princeton just
for the Mellon lectures.
The choice of early Mellon
lecturers
fell on philosophically minded
French Thomist thinkers,--
as you see here, Jacques
Maritain, Etienne Gilson, both
of them Thomist thinkers--
but also such cultural icons
as Kenneth Clark, Ernst
Gombrich, and, of course,
Anthony Blunt.
Their books have fulfilled
the hopes of our founders
in becoming art
historical classics that are
still read
and that often have an appeal
for non-specialized audiences.
And I think Gombrich is
the great example of that.
The East Building provided
the opportunity,
and when, on October the 10th,
1967, the board of trustees
accepted the gifts from Paul
Mellon and Ailsa Mellon Bruce
that made the building possible,
the creation of CASVA
was essentially approved.
In authorizing the building,
the United States Congress
recognized, and I quote
from the legislation,
"that it would house a Center
for Advanced Study in the Visual
Arts"
and cited the hope
of the trustees,
quote, "that the Center will
serve as a meeting ground
for teachers and scholars
from all over the world," end
quote.
It was understood
that fellowships would be
supported by private funds,
administered by the trustees,
and with this congressional
blessing plans moved ahead.
Now, the report prepared by then
deputy director J. Carter Brown
in the following year, 1968-69,
advocating
for a national advanced research
institute in the visual arts
is truly a remarkable document.
Just fifty years ago, he pointed
to the growth
in graduate training
in the history of art,
where four PhDs a year
had been granted in the 1930s,
twenty six were granted annually
in the 1960s, and of course,
very many more today.
The growth
in academic and museum programs
meant a greater demand
for highly qualified people.
While Washington was
at a relative disadvantage,
having no great university
departments such as those
at Harvard and Princeton,
the city was richly supplied
with collections and libraries
and rapidly becoming
a cultural and intellectual
center of importance.
Looking back now,
we can see that Carter Brown
grasped the significance
and potential of Washington's
growth as a cultural capital,
as it was in fact recently
defined by Neil Harris
in his "Capital Culture: J.
Carter Brown, the National
Gallery of Art,
and the Reinvention
of the Museum Experience,"
published in 2013.
The National Foundation
on the Arts and Humanities Act
had been passed in 1965
because as it was stated,
democracy demands wisdom
and vision in its citizens.
And the Kennedy Center
was finally under construction
between 1967 and 1971.
Carter Brown's visionary plan,
which recognized the importance
of scholarly contacts
within and beyond the United
States, was the result
of discussions
with a remarkable group
of international scholars
and directors
of other scientific institutes,
as well as public figures.
His report determined
that the National Gallery
on the National Mall
was an ideal place to establish
a national center for the study
of the visual arts.
It was, as he saw it,
independent
of the special interests
of individual universities,
and it was small
and streamlined enough
to be flexible and responsive
to the needs of such
an institute.
From the very beginning, it was
recognized that fellows-- and we
see some of our more recent
fellows here--
who were to be known as members,
like those at the Institute
for Advanced Study at Princeton,
to avoid confusion
with other fellows
at the Gallery, should be chosen
on merit
and not limited
to any particular field,
though the center of gravity
should be of areas of interest
to the Gallery
or represented
in other Washington collections.
And of course, this immediately
opened up
the worldwide collections
of the Smithsonian, Dumbarton
Oaks,
and other nearby institutions.
At this moment
in the late 1960s,
there was also a good deal
of discussion
about the Gallery's library
and the need to expand it,
together with photo archives,
as well as developing closer
ties with the Library
of Congress.
There should, the report
recommended, be about twenty
members in residence, and there
are still, more or less, that
number today-- and you see
our most recent class here,
celebrating the opening
of the roof of the East
Building--
drawn
from an international pool,
including independent scholars.
To avoid any favoritism,
the final choice of fellows
was to be ratified
by the Gallery's board
of trustees
on the recommendation
of the director of the Center.
The conclusion of the 1968
report was firm.
As Carter Brown wrote,
"there should be founded
a new Center for Advanced Study
in the Visual Arts,
to be housed in the new building
of the National Gallery of Art,
and capable of drawing
on the total spectrum
of its resources."
The vision that had begun
to take shape soon
after the completion of the West
Building was realized
with the resolution of the board
of trustees on September 29,
1977, as the East Building was
under completion.
The Center was to be given
broad autonomy, with its head
appointed as dean
by the trustees.
The board also determined
that the dean of the Center
should be an executive officer
of the Gallery,
giving the new institution
the budgetary and intellectual
independence it needed
to thrive,
and the same time giving even
more importance to the role
of research
throughout the Gallery.
The Center would have
its own rotating board
of advisors--
here, we see one of the very
early groups and our more recent
collection of advisers--
drawn from across the United
States, who would constitute
the various selection
committees, and provide guidance
about philosophy and programs.
And their role
is of inestimable importance.
With founding dean Henry A.
Millon in place,
and the advisory board
in action,
the first appointments were made
in 1980.
These included several positions
that had already existed
at the Gallery
in the nascent phase of support
for research.
Among them the most important
was the Samuel H. Kress
Professor, supported since 1965
by the Samuel H. Kress
Foundation, and here, you see
Dean Millon with one
of the early Kress Professors
in the 1980s.
Many distinguished senior men--
and here you see quite an array
of them--
held this position before 1980,
before the real opening
of CASVA, including Jakob
Rosenberg, Rudolf Wittkower,
William Chapin Seitz, and Sir
Ellis Waterhouse.
Finally, Agnes Mongan
was the first woman
to be appointed,-- again,
before the opening of CASVA--
and another would not come along
until 1988, when Sylvie Beguin,
from the Louvre,
took up the title.
Also rolled into the CASVA
community of scholars
were the David E. Finley, Samuel
H. Kress, and Chester Dale
predoctoral fellowships,
all of which had existed.
They would be joined immediately
by the newly endowed Robert H.
and Clarice Smith Predoctoral
Fellow.
Now, all of this history
merely brings us to a kind
of landing page to a beginning.
I think it's important, however,
to remember our history,
because we need to be reminded
of how fortunate
and how extraordinary was
the creation of the Center
within a national museum
at a moment
when private and public support
for research in the arts
and humanities
was enlightened and adventurous.
The building in which we find
ourselves, with its human scale
and thoughtful integration
of public and restricted spaces,
is a place in which
creative thought is encouraged
and exchange possible.
Carter Brown, working with I.M.
Pei and Paul Mellon--
here we see the presentation
of one of the drawings
with Chief Justice Warren
Burger--
they've all hoped for this,
expressing a belief
that "a Center, physically
situated in the National Gallery
would make it
possible for scholars,
at a variety of levels
and from a variety
of academic and museum
backgrounds,
to pursue their own studies
in the atmosphere of a company
of scholars,
working day to day
in conjunction
with great original works
of art"--
Carter Brown's words.
And he concluded
that "the constituency thus
served will be far broader,
ultimately,
than the few specialists
fortunate enough to work there."
And I can't resist adding here
that it was extremely
fortunate for all of us
that Rusty Powell, who became
director in 1992,
was present as Carter Brown's
right-hand man
in the final stages
of the planning of the Center.
Once given a building
with a library
and beautiful offices,
some financial support,
and a broad mandate,
all reflecting optimistic times,
what did CASVA actually set out
to do, and what is it doing
today?
Hank Millon-- you see here again
on the left with an early group
of fellows--
and his board laid out
a basic plan for activity that
was flexible from the beginning,
and it's worked well, even
as the history of art itself
has taken new directions.
The first issue of "Center,"
our annual report, spells out
that the field of study at CASVA
will not be limited
geographically, chronologically,
methodologically, or according
to discipline.
The original four programs--
which you see, more or less,
in the center of the image
here--
included fellowships, meetings,
research, and publication,
and those are basically
the programs we still have
today, more or less, though they
may take
some different directions.
From the beginning, Hank Millon
understood the values
of conviviality
in building
an intellectual community,
and I'm happy to say
the tradition of eating together
at CASVA endures.
Now, to look at the programs
and first to look
at the predoctoral program,
it's important to know
that with support
from various donors,
including the Wyeth Endowment
for American Art,
there are now nine PhD students
in each class with two
of these non-resident.
Several fellowships are two
and three years long,
with time for research,
and so we generally support
some twenty students overall.
With special support
it's been possible to designate
fellowships in other
than Western areas
and in contemporary fields not
originally encouraged or even
envisaged.
Whatever changes have come
about, I think it's true to say
this remains an absolutely
unique program
for the development
of new scholarship and talent
without parallel anywhere.
Chosen
through national competition,
with the finalists interviewed
by members of the CASVA board,
and the successful candidates
approved by the board
of trustees,
these outstanding young scholars
come with new ideas and lots
of energy.
Time at the National Gallery
gives them so many opportunities
for direct engagement with works
of art,
as well as for discussion
with outstanding senior members
of the profession.
In return, staff
throughout the gallery
have the chance to find out
what's going on
among the new generation.
The predoctoral fellows pursue
many different careers
in museums, universities
and colleges, journalism,
and education in the broadest
sense.
This year each of our fellows
in residence-- and here they all
are--
is going
on to a permanent position,
and we celebrate that.
These emerging colleagues also
benefit immensely
from the collegiality
of the senior fellowship
program.
You've been seeing some Samuel
H. Kress Professors as we go
by these images,
and they provide leadership
in this.
In fact, that is their only duty
while at the Center.
And over the decades,
the rotation of personalities,
nationalities, concentrations,
and approaches has provided
both enrichment and challenges.
Into this mix are added the six
senior fellows and six to eight,
two month visiting
senior fellows, each of whom
comes with a research project
and a set of experiences
to share.
In celebration of the Gallery's
50th anniversary, the Andrew W.
Mellon Foundation endowed
a new Mellon Professorship that
would support an invited scholar
for two years,
preferably at a highly
productive moment or mid-career.
This professor establishes
deep connections
with the fellows
and with the Gallery,
and is able to complete
a sustained piece of research.
I'm happy to acknowledge--
in this image here with Miguel
Falomir--
that I was the first, coming
to the Gallery at just
the moment
Rusty Powell became
the fourth director,
and as I said earlier, always
fully supportive
of CASVA's goals.
The Mellon professors have
helped forge links with leading
institutions worldwide.
The special meeting
and symposium program
established in the 1980s
is a more familiar practice--
and indeed, the proliferation
of meetings everywhere may have
become a bit distracting
and even sometimes excessive.
From the beginning, however,
CASVA has tried to make sure
that our study days and symposia
deal with new material
and with topics that require
some focused attention.
The papers of symposia
are published in the "Studies
in the History of Art" series
and so need
to be original contributions.
The topics may come
from any direction,
but over the decades,
we've devoted
considerable attention
to European sculpture,
with for example, volumes
on "Italian Medals," 1987;
"Italian Plaquettes," '89;
"Engraved Gems," '97; "Small
Bronzes," 2001;
"Large Bronzes," and finally,
"Collecting Sculpture" in 2008.
And the latter, of course,
a tribute to the Gallery's
great benefactor, Robert H.
Smith.
Occasionally, our symposia have
taken us to collaborate
with colleagues overseas as we
did with the discussion
of the sculptures
of Orsanmichele in Florence.
The outreach
to other civilizations
produced the important volumes
on Moche and Olmec art,
in addition to
a significant group
on ancient Greek and Roman art
and architecture.
Closer to home,
volumes on the National Mall
and the Modernist Museum,
with a special emphasis
on this very building, on Romare
Bearden, on Civil War memorials,
have produced groundbreaking
work in American studies.
"Art and the Early
Photographic Album" opened up
a new field in the history
of photography.
In our anniversary volume,
"Dialogues in Art History,"
we took a look
at controversial questions
across many of the fields
our fellows had researched.
Our special meetings are, then,
closely linked to publication,
and in turn the publication
program links very naturally
to the program of research,
even turning full circle
to the fellowship program.
The long-term research programs
at CASVA
have, from the very beginning,
been directed by the dean
and the two associate
or assistant deans, each of whom
is supported
by a post-doctoral research
associate.
And here you see brought
together, all of the members
of the various team
at the beginning
of the last academic year.
These projects are intended
to provide primary resources
for the field.
Hank Millon's life and work was
dedicated to the history
of early modern architecture
in Italy, especially in Rome
and Turin.
At the Gallery, his research
developed into two
major exhibitions
of architectural models,
"Italian Renaissance
Architecture from Brunelleschi
to Michelangelo"
and "The Triumph of the Baroque:
Architecture in Europe
1600-1750."
The Moche and Olmec volumes have
already been mentioned,
but I just wanted to point out
that they came about because
of the presence of Joanne
Pillsbury as assistant dean
at the Center.
Now Curator of Ancient American
Art at the Met, Joanne Pillsbury
devoted her research time here
to the production of "The Guide
to Documentary Sources
for Andean Studies 1530-1900."
This three-volume text, which
you see on the left in English,
appeared in 2008, almost
a decade after she left
the Gallery for the University
of East Anglia, Dumbarton Oaks,
and the Getty,
but CASVA provided
administrative support
throughout, as we did
for the translation
into Spanish
of these same volumes, which
appeared in Peru in 2016.
CASVA's interest in supporting
work
on the ancient and modern
Americas was reflected
in another initiative
in the late 20th century
to bring researchers
from Mexico, Central and South
America,
and the Caribbean to North
American institutions,
including the Gallery.
This fellowship program was
sponsored by ARIAH,
the Association of Research
Institutes
in Art History, of which CASVA
was a founding member.
In the past, before art history
became quite so thoroughly
global, CASVA sponsored
several such initiatives
independently, including one
to encourage fellows to apply
from China and from India,
and in fact, we continue
to encourage these relationships
with emerging Chinese scholars.
The present associate deans are
also engaged in major projects
that have led to publications.
Therese O'Malley completed
her volume-- now,
here we see Dean O'Malley
with her research group
in the East Building.
She completed her volume,
"Keywords in American Landscape
Design" in 2010,
when it was published by Yale
University Press.
This richly illustrated
historical dictionary provides
access to wide ranging
new materials excavated
from primary sources.
Over the past four or five
years, Therese O'Malley
and her team
have been transforming
this printed volume
into an expanded
and expanding database that will
reside on the Gallery's server,
providing connections
to over 2,000 images
and making it
possible
for
comparative cross-referencing
for researchers, students,
and designers alike.
Images and texts come
from dozens of repositories,
including our own collections.
And this is just one
wonderful comparison
of the documentation of Mount
Vernon, which is included
in the website on the left
and the image of Mount Vernon
here at the National Gallery.
And it also brings to mind
new ways of thinking
about paintings in the Gallery's
collection.
This will all
be accessible to the public
through HEALDD, which
is the History of the Early
American Landscape Design
Database, very soon, later,
I think, this year.
Associate Dean Peter Lukehart
began his work on artist
academies long ago, editing
the volume on "The Artist's
Workshop" in 1993 for CASVA.
When Peter returned
to the Gallery to supervise
the fellowship program,
after several years directing
the Trout Art Gallery
at Dickinson College,
he picked up his project
on the Accademia di San Luca,
the academy for artists that was
founded in Rome in 1593.
The academy aimed to make
the difficult apprenticeship
suffered by Taddeo Zuccaro--
and here you see him
in various spots in Rome,
unsupervised, desperately trying
to copy great works of art
sometimes even by moonlight.
They hoped to make
this difficult apprenticeship
as illustrated by his brother
Federico less haphazard.
In the first instance
Peter Lukehart organized
a series of seminars
to investigate the early history
of the academy, and these were
published as "The Accademia
Seminars" in 2009.
He has been a pioneer
in digital art history,
constructing a database
over the past two decades,
putting newly discovered
documents online,
and in the end,
linking the names of artists,
dates, and places to works
of art in the Gallery's
collection and to works
from the Samuel H. Kress
collection distributed
around the country.
This database is already
searchable on the Gallery's
website, and I hope you'll all
take a chance to look at it.
And with support
from the Gallery's IT Department
has been brought into conformity
with new standards
so that it, too, can move
forward safely into the future.
My own research project
at CASVA--
and here is the team
in the Print Study Room,
looking at a group
of interesting 17th century
Bolognese prints--
my project reflects my interest
in Italian art
of the early modern period,
and in the literature of art
criticism and early biographical
writings.
Carlo Cesare Malvasia published
his "Felsina Pittrice"-- you see
the frontispiece here--
or "Bologna the Paintress"
in 1678.
He was a professor of law--
and I may say obsessed by what
he called ocular inspection
or the direct evidence
of the eye--
as well as a canon
of the cathedral in Bologna.
When Giorgio Vasari's 1568
"Lives of the Artist"
was republished in Bologna
in 1647, he was spurred to write
his own history of the Bolognese
school,
beginning
with the contemporaries
of Giotto
and going up to his own time.
And here on the right,
you can see the National
Gallery's wonderful copy
of the two-volume edition
of Malvasia, which we've used
extensively in our work, which
belonged to the former Kress
Professor Rudolf Wittkower,
and then on the right,
the 1647 three-volume edition
of Vasari, published in Bologna,
which sparked Malvasia's
interest in rewriting
the history of his own times.
Malvasia was
furious about the perpetuation
of the view that Florentine art,
beginning with Giotto
and culminating in the figure
of Michelangelo,
was superior to any other,
especially given
that by the mid-17th century,
Bologna, home of such artists
as Guido Reni, Domenichino,
Guercino, and Albani,
could claim greater prominence.
The Vasarian paradigm
of the Renaissance in Florence
has been so strong, however,
that over the centuries,
Malvasia's admittedly polemical
position has been discredited.
Not only that, his Italian prose
is convoluted and complex,
difficult even
for Italian speakers.
The Malvasia project at CASVA
is dedicated to producing
a critical edition of the text,
annotated and richly illustrated
with an English translation.
Malvasia's two volumes-- which
you see here still
on the screen--
are envisioned ultimately
as becoming, through the CASVA
project, seventeen or eighteen
in our series.
So far we've published three
volumes: the first dedicated
to the earliest
Bolognese painters, in which
Malvasia lays out his opposition
to Vasari; the second volume
dedicated
to Domenichino, early 17th
century Bolognese artist;
and the third, which just
appeared a few weeks ago in two
volumes
to Marcantonio Raimondi
and the Bolognese print makers.
Needless to say, I can only hope
that others will be inspired
to finish this daunting
but absolutely
fascinating and important
project, which may take
many decades to complete.
Now, all of these projects
rely on teamwork,
and I think our efforts
represent a new direction
in scholarly work
in the humanities--
one that we in the United States
have been slower to take
than colleagues in Europe.
Digital projects are necessarily
collaborative, often taxing,
and sometimes even doomed
to expensive failure.
I'm grateful to my colleagues
for working so hard to avoid
the latter without losing
the courage to innovate.
The digital turn in the history
of art has yet to achieve
its full potential
beyond the obvious and amazing
successes of the digitization
of images and books
and the development
of powerful search engines.
CASVA does not have
the resources
for major experiment--
and I would say few, if any,
institutions do.
In the past two decades,
we've opened the doors
for digital work,
seeking to support it
and to demonstrate
our own commitment.
The National Gallery itself has
contributed in a similar way,
working to provide free access
to high level images,
to produce digital catalogs
of the highest standard,
and to take advantage
of digital products
where they can enhance
understanding of works of art.
And I would say on a very simple
level, our own application
process for fellowships is now
online.
I'm not sure that anyone really
knows what the relationship
of art museums
to digital technology
will be in another decade,
but we expect to be playing
an active role
across the National Gallery.
This turn to the digital aspects
of our work,
and the ongoing research
projects that are maturing,
gives me a chance to say
something
about other recent milestones.
First of all, CASVA
has been extraordinarily
fortunate in generous support
from a group
of dedicated benefactors.
And among these, I want
to mention the late Robert H.
Smith, who was president
of the National Gallery
when I came, and now the Smith
Family Foundation,
having been outstanding.
I mentioned the Robert H.
and Clarice Smith Predoctoral
Fellowship earlier.
As Mr. Smith stepped down
from his position
as president in 2003,
he offered me the greatest gift
and that was to help the Gallery
purchase apartments
within walking distance
of the National Gallery
for resident CASVA fellows.
This visionary act has probably
changed CASVA more
than
any technological or
methodological revolution,
for it's made it
possible to form
a real community
around the gallery and one
that I'm happy to say that can
also sometimes extend
into expeditions beyond it.
Washington, as we all know,
has become a more livable city,
with housing in demand,
and we would be hard pressed
to welcome scholars
from around the world
without this accommodation.
And it's that proximity
and community, I think,
that makes so many
of these other activities
around the Center possible.
A second significant benefactor
has been the Edmond J. Safra
Foundation.
Beginning in 2003,
the foundation provided support
to invite an Edmond J. Safra
Visiting Professor
to the Gallery for a period
of some four to six months.
The vision was to bring
to the Gallery
a figure
of high international
reputation,
working in an area in which
the Gallery has
a significant collection
or interest
and to forge new relationships
among the staff and members
of CASVA.
Over the years,
we've been able to invite
scholars and curators working
on Renaissance sculpture,
old master drawings,
early Italian painting,
American watercolors,
the French Academy,
early British photography,
the sculpture of Rodin,
and on and on.
A further benefit, often
with support from the Smith
Family Foundation,
has been the opportunity to put
together a workshop, or a sort
of master class,
often involving colleagues
in conservation, in which
invited emerging scholars can
engage in intensive study
of a set of problems proposed
by the Safra Professor.
In this way, we hope to share
a deep, first hand knowledge
of works of art
with a new generation, one that
will be
responsible
for their interpretation
and protection in the future.
We're absolutely
delighted that the success
of this program
has led to its endowment
in the Gallery's
75th anniversary year
by the Edmond J. Safra
Foundation inspired
by the Mellon challenge
grant for endowment.
This challenge grant
for new endowment from the A.W.
Mellon Foundation
in the 75th anniversary
continues to inspire giving.
And we're just
delighted that the Kress
Foundation, like the Safra
Foundation,
has recently determined to endow
the historic position
of the Kress Professor
in perpetuity.
In recent years, the Mellon
Foundation has also provided
support for seminars in modern
and contemporary art, which
resulted in "The Dada Seminars"
and "The Cubism Seminars"
in the new seminar series--
which you see here, flanking
the volume edited by Peter
Lukehart--
as well as supporting
a publication endowment
and an endowed
postdoctoral fellowship.
I also want to call attention
to the expanded and continuing
support we've received
over the past fifteen years
from the Wyeth Foundation
for American Art.
Our Wyeth predoctoral fellows
have had a significant impact
on the field of American Art.
A new funding
for a distinguished Wyeth
Lecture and a Wyeth Conference
in alternating years
guarantees a lively conversation
at the Gallery around American
Art.
This year's Wyeth Symposium on
"The African American Art World
in Twentieth Century Washington,
DC," was an important event
for the Gallery.
The incorporation
of a significant group of works
by African American artists
from the Corcoran Collection
and the acquisition
of the Thurlow Evans Tibbs
archive, not to mention
the opening of the National
Museum
of African American History
and Culture on the Mall, all
provided CASVA
with a compelling pretext
to undertake a long overdue
examination
of this important topic,
and we will be following up
with further initiatives
in this field.
There's so much more to tell
concerning the continuing
evolution of our programs,
including, as many of you know,
our more recent Mellon Lectures
and the ways in which we've been
working to make them
and other lectures more widely
available
through video podcasts.
And we are now, I think,
in the process of making all
of these volumes published
and also making all
of the Mellon Lectures
available online.
Leadership roles by our staff
in national organizations also,
I think, deserve recognition
as do the successes
of our alumni
in which we rejoice,
but I need to draw this
to a close
after making some more general
observations about the Center.
It's important first,
I think, to recognize that there
are now many research institutes
dedicated to art history
in the United States
they each have their own very
different histories
and characters.
The Yale Center for British Art,
for example, also created
by Paul Mellon,
has its own specialized
collections, which are available
not only for research purposes
but also for teaching and public
viewing.
The same is true of Harvard's
Dumbarton Oaks, here in DC.
Other collections, such as those
of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
and the Huntington Library, Art
Collections, and Botanical
Gardens, by contrast,
have generated
their own institutes.
The research
and academic program
at the Clark Art Institute
is part of a private museum set
in the beautiful landscape
of the Berkshires,
housed within it
and sharing its library.
The Getty Research Institute
is just one of several programs
of the J. Paul Getty Trust
in California,
independent of the museum
and with its own research
library and collections.
The Center for Advanced Study
in the Visual Arts
is the only national institution
for research in the visual arts
within a national gallery
in the United States.
It's gratifying to see
that research institutes are
being established
in other national museums
in emulation of CASVA,
notably at the Prado
and the Louvre.
CASVA, however, I think, will
surely retain its special role
as a place
where free investigation
and discovery concerning
the visual arts
are especially welcome.
Our founders believed
that the National Gallery could
and should influence education
through the discovery
of new knowledge.
Today, we have greater
opportunities to do this.
Our primary responsibility
is to the outstanding scholars
who come to CASVA
and to research
at the highest level,
putting people and resources
together
in a sphere of independence jump
starts research and spreads
new ideas.
But we now have the capacity
to share that research more
broadly and more quickly.
This is something we must do.
We all have
a primary responsibility
to think more
about the democratization
of knowledge,
for this is
the positive, reverse side
of the democratization
of untruths and alternative
facts through the media that has
manifested itself recently
worldwide.
We hope that our research
and our programs and lectures
and meetings-- such as this
marvelous lecture by Kirk
Savage, which you can now enjoy
online--
we hope all of this can be
of use, even for those who
cannot come to CASVA in person
and may serve as models
of inquiry for the future.
And thinking about that future,
I'm reminded of Daniel Coit
Gilman, the founding president
of Johns Hopkins University
from 1872-75, where I used
to teach,
who was
the first American university
president to act on the theory
that it was better to set aside
the question
of the useful purposes
of investigation.
Gilman's creation
of a graduate school
along European lines at Hopkins
quickly forced Harvard
and other universities
to develop similar programs.
According to Abraham Flexner,
who was the founding director
of the Institute for Advanced
Study at Princeton
from 1930 to '39, Gilman,
in Flexner's words,
"convinced the country
of the importance
of untrammeled research
in every field
of intellectual interest
and inquiry."
We take it too much for granted,
perhaps, that we all do research
these days,
whether in the academy,
the museum,
the research institute, so it's
worth remembering that not
so long ago universities
in the United States,
often guided by sectarian
beliefs
and dedicated to the explication
of the already known,
were hardly engaged in higher
education or research at all.
This is important background
for understanding the role
of research institutes
in the United States
and I think especially
in the humanities.
In a paper on "Why We Need
Independent Centers for Advanced
Study" published in 2003,
W. Robert Connor points
to the seminal role
of the Princeton Institute
for Advanced Study, which
inspired the creation of more
than 100 campus-based centers
in the United States
and several in Europe.
Connor believes
that these centers have had
an influence "vastly
disproportionate
to their size and resources,"
and he asks why.
His conclusions have to do
with the importance of community
for creative thinking
as opposed to simple free time
for research
through fellowships and grants,
and with the way
in which centers
free researchers
from the departmental structures
of universities--
and we could add museums.
These departmental affairs, not
teaching, in his view,
limit creative thinking
both on account
of their tradition-bound
identities and their isolation
of different generational
groups.
Work done in community
in a research center,
still following Connor here,
elevates public discourse
about issues,
strengthens teaching
at all levels, and enhances
understanding across fields
and cultures.
"By putting
the unfettered search
for knowledge
at the center
of their institutional life,"
Connor writes, "centers
for advanced study
provide a counterweight
to the tendencies
of narrow productivity.
They raise the sights
of scholars everywhere, help us
to recognize the benefits
of true collegiality,
and hold up to the university
and all who care for learning
an alternative model
for the life of the mind,"
end quote.
I think this is a very good
model for all research
institutes wherever they are.
Many CASVA fellows indeed find
in the research center
the working scholarly community
they'd always imagined and hoped
for.
I've asked some recent fellows
for their thoughts on this
and the following responses
were most frequent:
that the opportunity to work
freely with colleagues
at all levels of experience,
from predoctoral candidates
to the most senior professors
or curators, is invaluable;
that to spend extended periods
with scholars
in the same broad field,
but working in widely divergent
ways on diverse topics in fact
frees up a lot
of creative energy
to accept new ideas, to rethink
one's own direction,
and far more so, perhaps,
than being the minority art
historian in a humanities
center.
After lonely and long work
in the archives and libraries,
often far from home,
the opportunity to share ideas
and output is especially
valuable in sustaining younger
scholars.
Several coming from university
departments have said how deeply
they value being in the nation's
capital.
The daily relationship
with the National Gallery of Art
in particular serves not only
to widen and bring up
to currency
their general knowledge,
but also to remind them
of the public dimensions
of their work
and that what they produce will,
in the end,
reach a wider audience.
I think this sense
of responsibility
and accountability
is important, without suggesting
in any way
that it condition research.
Perhaps because CASVA is part
of a unique public-private
partnership, we feel this most
strongly.
Our responsibility to produce,
promote, and disseminate
new research concerning
the visual arts
is as
important on a national level
as anything else the National
Gallery of Art undertakes.
As we look back
to our beginnings, we very much
look forward to where the future
of our work may take us.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
