We’ve tried for years to get our director, William U. Eiland, to tweet, but social media is not his forte. Instead, we’ll be bringing you occasional insights from him in a longer form on this blog. Recently, he passed along these words, written just after our most recent 90 Carlton reception.
Tonight (July 19, 2019), we officially opened seven exhibitions. I say “officially” because we don’t have real opening receptions for each exhibition. We quite simply have intense, deadline-driven programming, and neither the museum nor its Friends have the human or financial resources to hold approximately 22 vernissages per year.
Tonight, we welcomed guests to see seven exhibitions plus our special show in the M. Smith Griffith Grand Hall of the paintings of Susan Robert. I dutifully invited our guests to see each exhibition and tried to describe briefly as well as recognize such guests as Patti Phagan, from New York state. Patti, the organizer of the show on WPA-era mural studies from Vassar, was coming home; she is our former curator of prints and drawings.
During my remarks, I ascribed the curatorship of the exhibition “Color, Form and Light” to our curator of education, Callan Steinmann. Certainly, she was due such recognition for bringing important works from the post-1950s out from storage. But I forgot that she had held, in fact a great deal, from her co-curator Sage Kincaid, who is our associate curator of education. Certainly, both deserve our thanks for this first-rate show, but Sage deserves my apologies as well for neglecting to emphasize her involvement. Why am I emphasizing this point? Among other reasons, and there are several, is the work in general by our educators, a corps of four who are constantly busy with numerous projects and activities; tours, classes and symposia; films and other events; and secondary, sometimes primary research for our docents and volunteers. In addition, our education department developed and continues to propel the university’s popular museum studies certificate programs.
In apologizing for my oversight of Sage’s contributions, I am glad of the change to extol our education department for their dogged determination to fulfill our mission to serve all Georgians through life-long learning.
Authored by:
William U. Eiland
