A Trip to Williamstown

One of my roles as a museum director is to oversee the process of conservation of the Alice's collection. This requires looking at priorities designated by a conservator who surveyed our objects years ago as well as heeding the recommendations of our collections committee in light of the inherent value of the objects to the museum. "Value" can be a very subjective term, so I'll clarify that by saying we decide what to send for conservation based on what is valuable and necessary for telling the story of this museum, it's founder, and it's wonderful collection.

(All photos courtesy PHOTOPIA/Shaun Heffernan)

the furniture conservation studio at Williamstown

We recently delivered two tables from the collection to Williamstown Art Conservation Center in Williamstown, MA. Although it requires a very long day of driving, I really enjoy this aspect of my job. The drive is lovely and what awaits in Williamstown is always interesting and stimulating. Unless I am in a hurry to get back on the road home I always happily accept a tour of the conservation rooms. I find it really exciting to see the works of art being gently and painstakingly cared for by skilled and patient professionals.

highly skilled furniture conservator Hugh Glover points out a music bench currently undergoing conservation

detail of the music bench

Included in the many pieces currently in process in the furniture conservation studio is the ornate music bench pictured above. The work that furniture conservator Hugh Glover is doing on the bench is very detailed. The inlay was damaged in several places and  the ivory-monogrammed initials of the original owner had for some reason been crudely gouged out of the piece.  Hugh was able to obtain a cast made from a companion piece but subsequently found it was slightly too large. He will need to work to make a new one the proper size and will then carefully affix it in the original place.

At Williamstown it never fails that I will see pieces by artists familiar to me. This time the paintings conservators had about half a dozen George Inness works in their studio. They are in the midst of conserving the pieces for the Clark museum, which is affiliated with the art conservation studios and is located on the same campus. Inness (1825-1894) was an American landscape painter whose influences included the Hudson River school.

one of a group of George Inness paintings in the conservation studios

Hugh Glover explains work in progress on a mirror in the furniture conservation studio

Hugh and I examine the drawers from one of our objects brought for conservation

The two tables I left with Hugh for conservation will likely be at Williamstown for months as they undergo treatment. The museum will get a detailed report on the work completed as well as before and after photographs taken at the studios. Later this year I will drive back to see what new works are in progress and to usher our collection items back to their home in the North Country. Hopefully I will have time for another tour. Aside from the variety of wonderful artwork, furniture and objects in progress at Williamstown, the studios are the envy of any serious artist or craftsperson. The recently erected facility has very well planned studios with state of the art lighting, ventilation, storage and workspace - so much wonderful space! As an artist I dream of having just a portion of one of these wonderful studios within which to do my printmaking, drawing, painting and dreaming!

a sculpture from the New York State art collection

Alice on Ivory

When you visit our museum website (www.minermuseum.org) the first image you see is a lovely painted portrait of Alice T. Miner welcoming you to the site. The original, on loan from Miner Institute, sits on a table in the Parlor here at the museum, and it is truly a lovely image. The portrait was done on ivory by Mira Edgerly Korzybski, a well-known woman artist in her day. Miniature painted portraiture had fallen off in popularity with the rise of photography, but the genre was making a come-back with artists who appreciated the works they were still seeing in Europe.

Alice T. Miner painted portrait by Mira Edgerly, ca. 1915

A largely self-taught artist, Mira Edgerly was born in Illinois in 1879, but grew up in Michigan where her father was an inventor and the director of the Michigan Central Railroad. Her fascination with drawing started when she was quite young, and as a teen she was sent to Europe to study art in England and Paris. Mira later studied at the Art Institute in San Francisco where she met and posed for her friend, photographer Arnold Genthe. John Singer Sargent urged her to pursue her love of portraiture by painting on ivory.

Mira Edgerly Burt (Mr. Burt was her first husband) portrait by Arnold Genthe

Mira Edgerly eventually took the medium one step further by painting on larger pieces of ivory, such as the 4.5"x 10" portrait of our founder, Alice T. Miner. Mira chose more translucent pieces of ivory to give greater luminescence to her colors, ordering the large pieces from London. Her skills were in demand around the world and she painted portraits of socialites, statesman and the upper echelons of American and European society in New York, London, Paris, San Francisco, Chicago, and Latin America.

In 1919 Mira Edgerly married her second husband Alfred Korzybski, a Polish-American philosopher and scientist best known for developing the theory of General Semantics. She led an extremely interesting life! She worked to forward the career of Gertrude Stein, and painted a portrait of Princess Patricia, a grand daughter of Queen Victoria, while in Ottawa. Mira Edgerly is mentioned in the autobiography of Alice B. Toklas in 1933, "Mildred Aldrich once brought a very extraordinary person Myra Edgerly. I remembered very well that when I was quite young and went to a fancy-dress ball, a Mardi Gras ball in San Francisco, I saw a very tall and very beautiful and very brilliant woman there. This was Myra Edgerly young. Genthe, the well known photographer did endless photographs of her, mostly with a cat. She had come to London as a miniaturist and she had one of those phenomenal successes that Americans do have in Europe. She had miniatured everybody, and the royal family, and she had maintained her earnest gay careless outspoken San Francisco way through it all."

An independent and strong character seemed to sustain her and help further her career as well as those of her friends. Today, however, there is not much known about Ms. Korzybski. Her work can be found at The Art Institute in Chicago, and there is a large collection of her personal papers, letters, journals and photographs, along with forty of her ivory portraits at Columbia University in New York City. But if you are in northern New York, you need only travel to The Alice to see an amazing example of her work!