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Exploration of Past Project Work and Possible Entities
Having started Matt Miller’s Program for Cultural Heritage class, I looked at a few of the past museum and art-focused projects done by students in the class to get some ideas. One interesting project was Carlos Acevedo’s DBO: Influence project focused on the influence property in DBpedia’s ontology as relates to contemporary artists. I wasn’t able to access Carlos’ final csv file or the visualizations he created in Gephi, but exploring a relationship property like influence seems interesting. I noticed Wikidata has “student of”, “educated at”, and “notable work” properties for some artists, for instance.
Another Program for Cultural Heritage project I looked at was Analyzing Modernism: Modern and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. This project seems to have strictly used data from the Met’s collection site, but it has some interesting ideas for how to visualize collection data. Tableau and TimelineJS might be tools to explore in more depth at some point.
In order to narrow down some possible entities to focus on from the Whitney’s founding collection, I began browsing in TMS to see where objects in the collection were purchased from. Many objects in the Whitney’s founding collection were purchased directly from their creators, but I did find the names of some dealers and organizations, including:
The Cosmopolitan Club: A private all-women’s social club on the Upper East Side
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmopolitan_Club_(New_York))
Ferargil Galleries: A commercial art gallery, run from 1915-1955 by Fredric Newlin Price. They dealt mostly American art (http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/ferargil-galleries-records-8905)
The Whitney Studio Club: the antecedent to the Whitney Museum (http://cdm16694.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15405coll1)
Roman Bronze Works: A bronze factory in Corona, Queens that was the country’s leading art foundry during the American Renaissance. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Bronze_Works)
Marnie Sterner Fine Arts (http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/marie-sterner-and-marie-sterner-gallery-papers-9479)
Daniel Chester French: An artist with work in the founding collection, known for his Lincoln Memorial statue. I was interested to read in the notes field for one of his pieces in TMS that his studios were located on McDougal Alley, fairly close to the current location of the Whitney.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Chester_French
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/fren/hd_fren.htm
C.W. Kraushaar Art Galleries: Still in existence today, was founded in 1885. Kraushaar Galleries sold many early Whitney collection items, including Charles Demuth’s “My Egypt”
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraushaar_Galleries)
(http://www.kraushaargalleries.com/history/)
(http://gildedage2.omeka.net/)
Valentine Gallery: 1924-1948, founded by F. Valentine Dudensing.
(http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/valentine-gallery-records-7103)
Wildenstein Galleries: Still in operation today.
Frank K.M. Rehn Galleries: 1918-1981. Lots of correspondence between Rehn and Juliana Force, as well as with the Whitney Studio Club, is available online.
(http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/frank-km-rehn-galleries-records-9193)
(http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/container/viewer/Whitney-Studio-Club-Wills–203619)
N.E. Montross: (https://gildedage.omeka.net/exhibits/show/galleriesandclubs/galleries/montross)
Max Kuehne: In addition to Kuehne’s own work, the founding collection also contains work by other artists donated by Kuehne.
The Downtown Gallery: Run by Edith Halpert
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Halpert)
Macbeth Gallery: 1892-1953
(http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/macbeth-gallery-records-9703)
