Academic literature on the topic 'Westmoreland Museum of American Art'

The Whitney Museum of American Art founded in 1931 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney offers insight into the role of women patrons in the American art world. Furthermore, the Museumâs contemporary identification with the Museum of Modern Art obscures its unique history and different founding principles. This paper explores the foundation of the Whitney Museum in roughly the first two decades of its existence from 1931 to 1953 to examine how Whitney and the Museumâs first director, Juliana Force, negotiated gender and class ideology and the Modernist discourse to found the first museum solely devoted to American art. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and Juliana Force operated the Whitney Museum based on three main principles: the primacy of the individual artist, the promotion of American art, and the importance of an informal museum space. The Whitney Museum of American Art, staked Whitney and Forceâs claim in a male dominated art world. The Museum was a complex space, representing a modern feminine viewpoint that embraced inclusivity and elitism, masculine and feminine, Modernism and conservatism. Whitney and Force wanted the Whitney Museum to be less formal and more inclusive, so they designed it like a middle class home with intimate galleries, furniture, carpets, and curtains. However, the decor hindered the Whitney Museumâs influence on the modern art canon because critics perceived the Museum as feminine and personal, Modernismâs rejection of the feminine and realism that ultimately led to the exclusion of the Whitney Museumâs collection of realist art from the modern art historical canon.

This detailed report of a registration internship at the Smithsonian American Art Museum includes an organizational profile of the Smithsonian Institute, the Smithsonian Institute Affiliate Program, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, a description of the activities performed during the internship, an analysis of a volunteer management challenge, a proposed resolution to the volunteer management challenge, and a discussion of the short and long term effects of the internship. The duties and expectations of volunteers, the staff preparation for volunteers, and the empowerment of volunteers are important aspects of the analysis and resolution of the volunteer management challenge.

This project-based thesis has added five stops and an introduction to American Silver to the Currier Museum of Art’s mobile tour. The Museum has an extensive silver collection but has very little information readily available for its visitors in the galleries. This thesis provides those visitors with information about the Currier’s American silver collection. It uses the Currier’s current mobile application as a template while incorporating museum education teaching methods to create an engaging tour. The thesis begins with a history of silver in America from Colonial times to the start of the nineteenth century. This time period is best represented in the Currier’s American silver collection. The thesis discusses the role and development of the silversmith as a craftsman as well as the social history of silver in America during this period. It also discusses the use and advantages of using mobile technology in the museum setting. Many visitors already own mobile devices. Museums can take advantage of visitors’ familiarity with these tools by creating programs specifically for this technology. The tour itself is based on teaching methods outlined by the museum educator George E. Hein in his book: Learning in the Museum (1998). These methods are used to build upon the standards set by the Currier Museum of Art’s “Audience Engagement and Interpretation Philosophy” in order to make the tour more engaging for visitors. Articles by museum technology professionals Robert Stein and Nancy Proctor were also consulted when researching the best practices for mobile tours. Their work lays out many key elements for successful mobile applications including the use of media assets, stops where these assets are experienced and the connections used to move between the stops. The accessibility benefits of mobile technology for visitors, especially the use of audio recordings for visitors with disabilities, are also discussed and were taken into account when creating the tour.

Since the inception of new museum theory, and the emphasis it places on the social purpose of museums within society, museum professionals and museum studies theorists have struggled to define what role museums must take in combating prejudices and fostering better understating of difference. Richard Sandell is one such theorist who writes about the importance of, and need for, greater inclusion of disabled artists and works of art containing themes of disability into exhibitions and display. This thesis examines Sandell’s scholarship, noting its foundation in new museum theory and disability studies, and then, employing a case study of the American Visionary Art Museum, illustrates the issues illuminated in Sandell’s writing. Finally, utilizing the case study, this thesis will offer aims for further research within museum studies not yet considered by Sandell, especially within educational goals and activities of the museum.