One of the treasures in the Miller House and Garden archives is a collection of over 1,000 3 x 5 inch index cards stored in a small file box. In the upper right hand corner of each card is a handwritten number, and on the front is typed information about items the Millers purchased with Girard’s assistance for the house.

Last spring Bradley Brooks, the Director of Historic Resources, and Annette Schlagenhauff, Associate Curator of Research, asked if I might be interested in helping them and IMA Archivist Jennifer Whitlock to make sense of what the archives contained. I immediately said yes. The House and Garden would be open in the spring of 2011, and the race was on to learn as much about the history of the house as possible.

During the first few weeks of perusing the cards, Annette and I tried to decide on their origins: Girard or the Millers. We came to the conclusion that the Millers generated these cards using the information from the invoices sent from Girard’s office in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The invoices are among the materials in the archives, and the cards contained much of the same information as the invoices, although in abbreviated form. Every invoice has a single item number which corresponds to the card’s item number.

We initially thought the cards provided a chronology until we noticed that the invoices are not organized chronologically. The earliest invoices are dated April 20, 1955 and correspond to Items 8 through 16 (there are no invoices for the first seven items). Invoices for Items 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 25, and 26 are dated April 23, 1956 – one year and two days later. And Item 24 was February, 15, 1957. With Items 29 and 30, we were back to April 1955. If the Item Numbers did not reflect the order in which items were purchased, what did they mean?

We hoped that by cracking the code of the Item Numbers we would better understand Girard’s design process and the extent of the Millers’ participation. We turned to the correspondence between Girard and the Millers for clues. After several long afternoons cross-referencing letters and invoices to the index cards, Annette and I were able to make sense of Girard’s code.

Our clue came in a letter from Girard to the Millers. He was arranging a meeting with the Millers in New York and wrote, “As I mentioned to you earlier, my chief concern is to have a good foundation on which to start building your interior furnishings schemes. The best way of achieving this is to try and make decisions on rugs, so I think we probably should concentrate our attention in that direction.” (AHG to JIM, 9-9-54; 32/380)

Many of the earliest item were rugs (14 of 28), and the number on each card seemed to correspond to a “to do” list of Girard’s making. In providing the furnishings for the house, Girard first found a rug for the living room in 1955 – Item No. 1. Item 24 is the entrance rug designed by Alexander Girard; its late invoice date of 1957 is easily explained: the design and fabrication of the rug took nearly two years.

Entering the house, the rugs do seem to be the foundation as they simultaneously define rooms and fade from consciousness. As Girard and the Millers selected furnishings for the house, Girard worked systematically to produce the house’s harmony of colors, shapes, and textures. Having made decisions concerning the rugs, Girard then turned to the pillows, and by June 1955 he had assembled the myriad textiles needed to make almost 100 pillows to be used throughout the house.  Fabrics for pillows came from Indonesia (Item 35), Peru and Guatemala (Item 38), Thailand (Items 47, 48, and 52), the United States (Item 61), and Persia (Item 94).  In July and August of 1955, materials for curtains were purchased (Items 36, 50, 53, 56, 60-63, and 65), and in August and December, all major decisions concerning textiles were made with the purchase of fabric for bedspreads (Items76–78, 161, and 179).

Having worked through so much material in the Miller House and Garden Archives has given me a much greater appreciation for Girard’s contributions.  His hand seemed to have touched most everything that, for me, makes the Miller House.

And it’s true. All of Dial’s paintings are 3-D so they present lighting challenges your average still life wouldn’t; but this exhibition makes no claims of being average and Carol has been doing lighting for 13 years. In fact, nearly every single light throughout the IMA galleries has been personally screwed-in by Carol Cody—that’s a lot of bulbs.

Dial’s show alone has around 500 fixtures. These lamps are chosen and adjusted after the pieces have been installed, giving it a final touch. Every light has a filter and Carol layers screens over lamps to dim them. She is part of the process from the beginning. The Lighting Designer has to collaborate with everyone else on the exhibition to “tell the story” as best as possible.

Carol took expert care in washing warm light into the room filled with work depicting the Southern Past. Bright light further excites Dial’s tributes to African American Yard Art and the creative spirit. Dimmer lamps kept the mood of the drawings room more restful. “I angled the light at the floor, with the light wood you get a lot of bounce and that way it doesn’t affect the art as much.”

Light exposure can degrade a piece of art, that’s why it’s regulated so closely and why you can’t take flash photography in a museum. Part of Carol’s job is understanding the conservation issues surrounding a work. The most difficult things to light are textiles and paper, because they’re more delicate and can fade. The easiest things to light are objects, especially stone or metal, which are hardier.

The role of lighting, as I understand, is to best display the message that is already being communicated. It takes care, precision and an aerial lift. Carol designs the lighting, as well as maintains it. With 10,000 square feet in the special exhibitions space alone, it’s a big job. But she keeps us out of the dark one bulb at a time.

Thornton Dial presents his perspective on the big issues of our time – from current events that speak to him from a constant stream of news television to the resulting impact of social issues in our nation’s history – through his incredibly layered and symbol-rich work.  The lack of abandon he demonstrates with his choices of materials builds upon traditions found in African American yard art, re-purposing salvaged items while still mindful of their previous incarnations.  As he stated, “I only want materials that have been used by people, the works of the United States, that have did people some good but once they got the service out of them they throwed them away. So I pick it up and make something new out of it.”

Throughout the course of the exhibition, we’ll be featuring a series of blog posts inspired by Thornton Dial – not only discussing his art, but also exploring the larger topics he references in his work.  We’ll also look at the many ways that staffers at the museum work on the exhibition, and how these behind-the-scenes stories contribute to the whole. Stay tuned!

And perhaps this is why we began a series of articles in the IMA’s magazine on the provenance of important works in the Museum’s collection, written by Annette Schlagenhauff. As the IMA’s Associate Curator for Research, Annette has spent years tracing the paths of works of art from the artists’ hands to the walls of the IMA. The stories are fascinating and not without moral ambiguities and missing pieces.

Landscape at Saint-Rémy (Enclosed Field with Peasant)

The fall issue of the magazine features the IMA’s Landscape at Saint-Rémy (Enclosed Field with Peasant) by Vincent van Gogh. As one of the most important and valuable works in the Museum’s collection, Annette peers beyond the paint into the 120 year life of the painting. Painted in southern France in 1889, its early history is well documented, however, during the time of Nazi regime power when many of Europe’s art collections were in jeopardy, its provenance is spotty. Did Landscape at Saint-Rémy leave Europe legitimately or was it tied up in the Nazi’s campaign of looting Jewish art collections?

[This is why the magazine should be online. I could link to the rest of the story here and you could happily finish reading. Soon enough!]

Long story short, papers found in the New York Public Library confirmed that the painting left Europe still in the family of the original owners and had been consigned to a New York-based art dealer when arriving in the United States. The IMA can breath a sigh of relief and say that the provenance of the Van Gogh is clear.

But what would have happened if the provenance was not clear? Should research suggest the name of a possible legitimate owner, the IMA is obligated to attempt to contact them to discover more. Many paintings in the IMA’s collection have gaps in their provenance in the critical years of 1933-1945. Per the American Association of Museums (AAM) and the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) guidelines, the Museum posts these works on the Nazi-era Provenance Internet Portal and the IMA Web site–provenance research project. The facts unique to each painting help determine the course of action. (More here)

I think there are more than a few of us who would like Annette’s captivating, Nancy Drew-like sleuth job. No doubt it’s nerve wracking, hard work. In the winter issue of the magazine, and online, you’ll be able to join Annette in her journey to discover the past of the Dutch painting Valkhof at Nijmegen by Aelbert Cuyp. I see National Geographic documentaries in her future.

The Valkhof at Nijmegen

But you don’t have to take my word for it. Come to the IMA on October 3 or 23 to see The Rape of Europa in The Toby. This is an amazing opportunity to watch a documentary film that examines Nazi looting of the great museums and private art collections of Europe in an attempt to obliterate cultural identities. The film’s epic scope explores a descendant of painter Gustav Klmit’s flight to regain a portrait of her aunt, Louvre staff members who packed and moved 400,000 pieces of art as the Nazis advanced, and the “Monuments Men” who plumbed salt mines to recover stolen art after the war. You’ll be faced with the question: “Which is of more value: a work of art or a human life?”

Preview The Rape of Europa below and get your tickets now.