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hi um i'm delighted to be here today to tell you a little about the history of the north carolina museum of art and particular about this critical period between 1947 and 1960 when the museum came together and in a physical way um and institutionally speaking so just have to okay there we go um before i uh tell you about the specific events i want to say that um really to help understand the context in which many of the museums um in the south of the united states were founded and and the major ones virginia uh museum of fine arts the mint museum in charlotte the high museum uh these museums were all founded in the early 20th century also the ringling museum and the museum in greenville south carolina the the bob jones university art museum and north carolina as we most of us know was largely an agricultural state until the 20th century and the there was not a museum in the state in the 1920s and this was really getting um making the citizens of the state feel that they they needed to to be able to have a fine arts a museum dedicated to the appreciation of art and they were somewhat inspired by the critic h.l menken who famously wrote a an essay titled the sahara of the bozart in 1917 and he pretty much dismissed all cultural achievement below the potomac his letter is he was a uh very um acerbic and also quite um witty uh assaist and satirists and he commented on the social scene literature music politicians contemporary movements and he did not mince words so he says um in one um uh paragraph not a single picture gallery worth going into or a single orchestra capable of playing the nine symphonies of beethoven or a single opera house or a single theater devoted to decent plays you will not find a single southern prose writer who can actually write it harsh indeed this was i know that this was uh always in the minds of the founders of the art museum and also in gener in the minds of the um press because throughout the 1950s when the museum after the museum had opened in april 1956 which i'll get to in a moment um all many editorials reference menkin and um they are trying to um they really want to show look what we've done uh this is no longer a desert and he you know he'd be who would be laughing now so i this is around the same time this shows a downtown raleigh uh you see the capitol at the center and i'd love to look at this photograph because the early history of the north carolina museum of art revolves around capitol square and i'm going to be taking you to um this is where the first a brick and mortar location of the north carolina museum of art was located it is uh 107 east morgan street so you've got morgan street right here fayetteville street and salisbury over here and edenton over here so in 1924 12 members of north carolina state literary and historical association formed a sister organization whose purpose was to foster an appreciation for art and design throughout the states the founders were some members of the north carolina historical association and they styled themselves the north carolina state arts society and they articulated two chief objectives the first was to establish an art museum for the people of north carolina and integrate art into the state schools and then the second was to found an art museum the chief the two i showed this photograph which was taken in 1920 and um the woman who really carried this project is catherine pendleton arrington of warrenton north carolina a great strong woman who led the whole uh mission for 30 years uh and this unfolded in uh the first location of this project which was just a series they initially um annual exhibitions and lectures this took place in the sir walter hotel down which is still um standing on fayetteville street and it's about to be turned into condominiums but um you all might know that it is also was during uh the 20s 30s 40s um and 50s was considered uh like a uh unofficial um house of government because so many uh meetings took place there and um and of course conversations behind the scenes and uh the group received a um they attracted their first benefactor in 1927 robert f pfeiffer of concord who bequeathed a collection of paintings and prints along with funds and trust this gift sparked further donations and the creation of a temporary state art museum in 1929 which was housed in the agriculture building that had just um been built in 1921 to 23. uh also it's a great building that is still um standing fortunately um but they needed a permanent space they considered creating uh or establishing the museum in the duncan cameron home on hillsborough street this was a beautiful antebellum mansion that was demolished in 1938 so uh unfortunately that plan um did not come to fruition but a few years later in 1939 they were allotted this group of the north carolina state our society was allotted two rooms in the uh old supreme court building this is on morgan and fayetteville and salisbury uh and uh this was also known as the library building and so this was a place where they would hold exhibitions and also display some of the art that they had received um and uh then uh depression uh well this is right um in the middle of the depression 1939 uh fortunately right around the time they move into the building on the old in the old supreme court building they receive a lifeline from the works progress administration uh the new deal arm of roosevelt's administration and this the works progress administration decided to establish art galleries and community centers across the united states and they decided to make raleigh their first one and so between 1939 and 1943 the the state art gallery as it was known and the um organizers worked hand-in-hand and they developed a partnership and they would receive exhibitions from washington d.e.c and then um had funding to hold host uh lectures and bring school children in so it was a very important period and um a particularly progressive uh chapter in the north carolina museum of arts history because they were reaching out to especially to children in segregated schools in raleigh so in uh southeast raleigh and uh 19 the war um comes and goes uh north carolina was um deeply involved in terms of sending troops to that war and money um was during that uh period no the government the treasury was not spending money on the kinds of projects that the government would be spending money on typically all the building projects came to a halt and so money built up in the in the uh treasury coffers and in around 1945 the legislators decided they needed to spend this money figure out how they were going to spend the surplus uh this is uh a night we're talking about a million dollar surplus and numerous groups were vying for it but the the north carolina state arts society made a plea through and they had a new uh leader come in uh a man who had moved from to north carolina in 1940 joined the north carolina state arts society and in 1947 he and the group decide to to write a bill uh that would that would make an appropriation to the art society that would enable them to purchase an art collection and this man is robert l humber he was a legislator beginning i think in 1958 he was on the state legislature but before this he was just a a very vocal a funny man gregarious charismatic and he lobbied the legislature to write this fill so the um the group was ambitious they decided they would ask for a million dollars and that was equivalent to about 12 million dollars in today so the humber and um approaches some lawmakers including a man named kerr and um in 1947 the bill comes up at the very end of the session um the legislative session and it actually passes by a margin of 50 to 43. it was big news and it was very controversial but the idea is uh um first of all the the the the state art society and its fledgling museum was did not have a uh it's a space of its own it did not have any real estate um and there was nowhere to store art or and um also they needed a fireproof building that was a veritable museum museum type of building that would adhere to various requirements for art so they were still uh working out of two rooms in the old supreme court building they needed a building and they needed a collection they had received a few donations that were very important but they wanted uh uh to create a collection ex novo they wanted to just um come come out with a bang and so this million dollar appropriation would provide them with the funds to acquire art the legislators when they debated this bill um the the the reason that the idea took hold was that robert l humber told that the group um that or he approached some potential outside donors before the legislation came up for discussion and he approached a man named samuel h kress who was the five and dime store magnet who made his fortune in the early 19th century from the highly profitable s h press and company variety stores and i really wish i could see my audience because i i um i know i have to to explain what the crest stores were to certain audiences but many of you may also be familiar with them so i apologize if i'm telling you things you know but the uh this idea was samuel h press was the biggest along with melon um and he was the the biggest art philanthropist in the country at the time he had given a huge gift in 1941 to the national gallery of art and um right when it opened and so robert l humber he met craig he went to his call on press in new york and the in the 1940s mid 1940s and the two of them apparently worked on an agreement and press he said why don't you donate a million dollars to the the north carolina uh planned art museum did not have a name at that point but apparently uh he was led to believe that that crests this uh major very very wealthy man living in new york who had no heirs he was led to believe that cress would would donate a million dollars cash okay so um the the bill is passed with the idea that there's going to be a million dollars coming from a private donor and the the the deal that that humber had worked out with with samuel crest was that he was not to reveal the name of the donor so um it's funny because the newspaper accounts um reading the story of the passage of the bill uh apparently uh the the legislators were and under the understanding that a rich man from the north would be donating a million dollars to this project and so with that um idea they passed this bill and then uh the the group the state arts society had to figure out how they would actually make this this gift come to fruition uh humber went back to cress and uh asked him to um if he would be making this gift and when and press said press was actually ill at that point cress's foundation the samuel h press foundation did not have any record of this disc's promise and they ended up saying we don't know what you're talking about um it was a quite a shock to the people um who were hoping that they would be have have a million dollars in hand at the end of 1949 but within um a few it took about three years but humber convinced the samuel h cress foundation to donate uh a million dollars in art and so the the crest foundation was in the process of giving out um the remainder of cress's collection that had not been given to the national gallery so they agreed that they would they would give a collection of mostly italian renaissance paintings to the north carolina museum of art assuming that it could get um if assuming that it could obtain a building that was safe a safe and fireproof building in which to house uh the collection uh i like to to give a sense of this million dollars um because it's meaningless unless we know the um value today i mentioned it's about 12 million dollars today but um the incomes in 1947 the average income for all industries was 2 600 uh dollars a um 2600 a year which is about 31 000 today uh government workers um that was the average salary for government workers uh it was rare to have a um a significantly higher salary but joe dimaggio made ninety thousand dollars in uh 1947 but the the director of the north carolina museum who was appointed in 1955 he earned 10 000 a year so um it was a large sum that they received now in 1951 they still it was still just plans were being made to acquire a collection but um they did this group received new accommodations in the education building in at the um in the fall of 1951. this building was begun in 1938 and finished in a year we know this building of course because it's on edenton street it's a beautiful art deco building uh inside and out but um but the art society established a state art gallery in that building in 1951. so i i i it's always good i need to be reminded that the museum didn't just come out of um out of thin air and when it opened in 1956 that there were it was a very long effort to um to establish this institution so 1947 um to 1951 there's this push to or really quite frenzied effort to get the crest people to make good on the donation and once crest decides that he this press foundation uh offers to give a million dollars an art the art society has to bring this uh this proposal back to the general assembly um because the bill that was written in 1947 specified that it must be a cash gift so um the lawmakers write another law and um the the law gives the state arts society the founders the authority to accept the million dollars in art this was a very very smart move on the part of the state and you'll see why um in in a moment and if you're familiar with our collection you will know um that we have a really fantastic collection of um early uh italian and baroque and um other european um from the early modern period part the governor appoints a state art commission uh once this this idea is um now um a reality of acquiring collection and so the governor appoints a five-member commission drawn from the membership of the state arts society that will be in charge of spending the million dollars um i show on the right a photograph that was taken in 1949 of the board of directors of the north carolina state arts society and um the this man right here is robert l humber whom i mentioned earlier also another important founder was clarence poe the editor of progressive farmer magazine who was played such an important role in early cultural history of our state and um and as well as catherine pendleton arrington this woman here so um many important people that were dedicated um and dedicated all of their time to um making it making it possible for the state to have an art collection and um a museum that would be open to all north carolinians the uh commission that was formed was um it it had four members from the state arts society and then one art historian um also on the art society um but he was a professor at unc chapel hill and um he was a a critical member of this group who was going to go up to new york and look at art because he was the only art historian um so the group also decides to hire a consultant and they hired an art dealer named carl hamilton he's a new york art dealer who was very experienced extremely shrewd he was actually um [Music] a dealer in the 1950s quoted was quoted saying that he was smart as a warehouse rat and uh so he was not particularly liked but he knew the um he knew the market very well and these uh members of the art society needed help they were going up to new york at a time when there was numerous dealers and um just a wealth of paintings and sculptures for sale um in the wake of the second world war so the other um specification that the legislators made was that um dominant emphasis shall be placed upon the acquisition of masterpieces of the american british french spanish flemish and dutch schools and um the the group the art society had already obtained a large collection of mostly american paintings from robert f pfeiffer in 1928 and so they decided they needed to um acquire mostly european art and um and actually all european well except for um they did reserve funds for american um and they went up to new york um they started looking at art and um they were also told that they needed to have the collection vetted by the director or chief curator of the national gallery of art in washington dc and and that's what the lawmakers specified they didn't want these um these really um lay people to go and um acquire works that that would not be you know considered that wouldn't hold their value and so um the the uh in 1951 um throughout the year the art commission the state art commission spent um a lot of time looking at um art in the various galleries in new york and they selected 200 paintings and actually almost 200 paintings maybe a handful of sculptures but they felt that painting they needed to have a picture gallery um much like these um estates the the great collections um in england that were formed in the 19th century they envisioned having rooms full of paintings on the wall and um by the way they were they knew that they needed to be acquiring works by modern and contemporary artists but they decided to seize upon the favorable market for old masters so that was um another motivating factor for going the selections that they ended up making but um when they had this list picked out they approached the national gallery and the director said i we're not going to do that for you um that is really um a conflict of interest for us and um i we just don't think that we can appraise the the collection that you picked out for the state of north carolina so um the um carl hamilton the dealer who was um advising the art commission he took two notebooks full of ectochromes um large slides and um he went out to california and he called upon a man who was a the one of the most distinguished art professionals in the united states um and in the world he had been director of the detroit institute of arts from 1924-44 when he retired he moved to los angeles and he um started advising the los angeles county museum and eventually became its director and then um in the early 1950s jay paul getty approached valentino and wanted help putting together um a museum in malibu so he was uh also a very accomplished art historian and scholar um he was a rembrandt scholar and also a a specialist in 14th century italian sculpture but his his interests were incredibly broad and um he had a really uh exceptionally good eye so um hamilton shows up on his doorstep the day after christmas in 1951 and asked this man would you please approve a collection of art for the planned art museum for the state of north carolina valentino had never met this man uh he was very surprised and um but he agreed to do this and so he approved 157 of 174 paintings that had been picked out um and uh then the hamilton and the state art commission um come back to the legislature and and uh and show what they picked out um they have assembled a very uh panoramic collection but the legislature does not um feel comfortable um going against the the uh requirement of the law that was written in 1951 requiring the national uh gallery of art to vet their purchases so um they um had to actually um raise a um they had to settle this this dispute over um whether valentine's approval could comply and that was worked out in the courts um and the uh robert l um macmillan uh he was involved his father was involved in that court case by the way um he's an honorarian in raleigh and many of you probably know him uh and and um it was uh really the fate of the institution was hanging in the balance in 1951. and um but but in the end the treasury and the state auditor released the money and um the purchases were made and then uh as um luck would have it in 1953 the pfeiffer trust um which had been the group had received uh an interest in back in 1928 um that fund um ends up distributing 300 000 to the north carolina state arts society and so they go and purchase um another um group of artworks they purchase an additional 31 paintings for a total of 201 paintings and the assemble collection provides a survey of european and american painting from 1420 to 1900. there is as i mentioned they did not collect modern art and um the the the state auditor was apparently uh very opposed to modern art and um so they uh were not only did they feel that they needed to take advantage of the the great um prices for old masters but they also um really were persuaded to issue modern art so um however they did purchase one lone modern painting and um it is a painting that is um a really great painting that we have hanging in the galleries today [Music] and the collection um the the way that they distributed the funds is they ended up spending over half of the funds on dutch and flemish art and um this was the most expensive art that they bought um because they bought a number of rubens's i'll return to that in a minute but um once they had acquired this collection of 200 paintings and um two sculptures they didn't have a building yet so they had to place all of this um art in storage and they did this they placed the art in storage in warehouses in new york um and by the way these the haze this is something i always really liked finding out was that they placed this art in storage with circa hayes which is a company that is still excellent and um and another company dame and meyer murray and young and these are art storage in facilities in new york that are still used today um 1952 they have a collection they don't have a building but um they just they they are um at last able to to claim uh the rights to name this museum and they decide to to name it the north carolina museum of art uh this is a meeting of the north carolina state arts society in december 1952 and this took place in this is the uh the virginia dare ballroom of the sir walter hotel and also um they around this time were finally given some real estate by the buildings and grounds administration of the state government and the the they are given in the old state highway commission building and um it's this building here that i showed you earlier um this is what it looked like when it was built in 1927 and then a few years later it was renovated into a four-story structure a very ordinary building but it was made possible because the original state highway commission uh the the state highway commission built a new headquarters for um the expanded department and that's the building that is um that you are familiar with on um wilmington street and um morgan so um this decommissioned building is going to have to be converted into an art museum uh the construction uh company is hired and the state appropriates another 200 000 to transform this building um you can see they had a lot of work to do and the uh project ends up taking uh much longer than anticipated so construction begins in august 1954. um they run into delays and um of course cost overruns and it ends up costing um over it's 350 000 approximately uh while this is being readied for the display of the collection the founders need to hire a director so they write to wilhelm valentino the man that had vetted their collection back in 1951 and valentino had at this point retired to italy but robert l humber and carl hamilton decided he was the person for this job uh he had moved to this valentine was living in rome and he was working on a revised book on leonardo da vinci and also working on italian sculpture and really enjoying his life there but um he receives a letter and is very tempted to take this position so he ex he accepts it and it is um really really the most fortunate thing that happened to this institution um because he had so many contacts and um around the world and uh was uh because he had great distinction um he put the museum on the map so he moves from rome to raleigh north carolina and um while this construction is still going on in late 1955 he assumes the post and um in early january the collection is sent um they decide that the building really um is almost ready not quite but almost ready so the collection is sent from new york and here you see it being installed in the morgan street building and um it was very exciting for the um everyone in raleigh all of this of course was covered minute by minute by the press which is where all of these photographs come from it's the news and observer photographers and i need to shout out to the state archives for letting me use these um but in this photograph here um this is uh luther hodges this is edwin gill he was a state treasurer and also uh one of the um he was on the state art commission and other [Music] officials as well so they're taking a look at the collection um it's it's installed in this four-story building and um people uh start coming to take a look but it's not ready yet and and throughout the spring there was um great anticipation and um eventually on april 6 the museum opens and it was um very exciting day for the state and for the citizens um living in raleigh here you see the building after it had been renovated and luther hodges is cutting the ribbons it was um a huge huge news throughout the state and it was uh called it was called uh by the newspaper columnist um nell battle harris a miracle on morgan street and um it really did seem like a miracle because there had been uh significant um obstacles to getting this institution off the ground and uh including the various legis legislative acts that were passed but also there were quite a number of lawsuits and um when the collection opened it was um very very impressive it made um art news and was um also made the um a life magazine in 1956 a big story was dedicated to this opening so back to the collection um what they ended up acquiring was um american dutch flemish italian spanish british french and german and here you see the distribution of funds uh and i i mentioned that the the most expensive works were dutch flemish and or german and so the the bulk of funds were spent in those areas um so it um doesn't mean that they bought more um art uh from dutch um flemish and german cultures but they but they uh thought that they were buying um a number of rubens's and they were very expensive then as they are now here are some highlights from that collection um and the most expensive work was a painting by an artist um from cologne uh working um in the 1440s stefan lochner and this is a painting whose attribution has been been um been debated but um the the expert the latest scholarship suggested is by lochner but it's a beautiful um very small panel it looks like a medieval illuminated manuscript illumination um this was sixty four thousand three hundred and fifty dollars and um therefore it was it was foreign about the most expensive work uh that was acquired here you see some other prices and um here are the seven rubens's that the commission bought now today um most of these are considered to be um products of reuben's workshop um but uh that still um i mean women's was of course ran a very large workshop in antwerp and so it was common to have um assistance and in any case we ended up with really some great paintings in that group and uh which you will be familiar with if you are familiar with the collection um the other flemish paintings um some highlights uh 435 dollars on these great works including the um sagers denial of saint peter a snyder's market stall uh this is an exquisite painting by jan reugel the elder um it's a harbor scene showing um st paul um in um the preaching and um uh just some some highly refined paintings um the dutch the dutch highlights um are this painting um here by it's by uh uh john levens it was thought to be by rembrandt at the time um and is no longer um considered uh an authentic work by rembrandt you can see how different the palette is but um a really really great painting by levin's um one of his his um followers and um a painting by jan stain that is exceptionally important uh the the copley is the great standout in the american collection um and here's the lone modern um painting right there the the um dance of the elements so uh spanish italian you can see how um pretty how panoramic the collection was it it enabled the museum to be able to present a survey of european and american painting and then uh the lead the director of the museum um has a very um a large agenda over the next three years uh first of all the crest gift had not come in yet uh and so um he had to work with the crest foundation to make that happen but during this period a number of gifts came in from north carolinians and um collectors and philanthropists uh in new york and um and this was due to the um the really great energy of the north carolina state arts society leaders but also to valentine's close um and and deep um contacts with scholars dealers collectors all over the world here's the um what the first floor looked like when the museum opened over here on the right um these are two in ancient sculptures bacchus is back there um they were and this is hercules um broman sculptures that were donated um and this sculpture of hercules was uh did not have a fig leaf and apparently offended some people and the day after the museum opened it was um taken down put it into storage until a fig leaf could be prepared and um the replica of uh antonio canova's sculpture of george washington that belonged to the history museum um that the original sculpture had burned in the original state house of north carolina in the early 19th century but the replica um this plaster replica um which belongs to the history museum was lent to the museum and so this um was the replacement for hercules for a while um i love this photograph uh some of the gifts the important gifts that came in were a couple from connecticut the fred and florence olsen they um he was the head of a chemical company that had um uh over they um ran a paper um uh production company in or a paper um company in that had a base in brevard i met the uh director and um decided that he and that they would together give a number of objects from their collection they were the first owners of jackson pollock's blue poles um now in the national gallery of australia one of the most famous um uh modern works um a really exceptional painting and so they were they had a very um uh broad collection but they ended up giving um antiquities and um uh some african um and oceanic art and the when that gift came in the museum opened five new galleries dedicated to sculpture and here are some of their gifts and um at the same time valentino decided that he needed to initiate a collection of um of and then contemporary art and so he gave a number of works by artists um contemporary artists from um he acquired them and then and handed them over to the museum and this led to some gifts by other collectors of modern art including the um this great painting by feininger the green bridge that was given by the um wife of the art dealer ferdinand mohler um peggy guggenheim gave this painting by jean elion and then um this great franz klein that was given by um the collectors from st louis whom valentino knew from his days in the midwest he organized his um in the first year a major rembrandt exhibition and um this is when the docents came on board at this museum um for the rembrandt exhibition and this by the way made international headlines and um the next year he organized a a large exhibition of works by ernst kirchner and this was a um like outstanding exhibition of works that we could we could not even dream of we could not even borrow many of the works that were in this exhibition and it's just extraordinarily um interesting that this exhibition um and the rembrandt all of this really um gave great um really put a celebratory light on the state of north carolina and um valentino establishes a scholarly journal in 1957 and um more gifts come in and this is all leading up to this period this is all during this period when um the crest foundation was deciding what it would end up giving to north carolina and they eventually i'm going to fast forward to the crest collection um and then close with that um and by the way please send your questions in the chat if you haven't already and i will answer them in a few minutes the crest collection is um finally announced in 1960 and um it ends up being a really um much larger collection than had initially been promised and um this is thanks largely to valentina who um with um edwin gill and the the leader the art society leadership including robert l humber um convinced the crest foundation to make a much more significant gift and um the collection is unveiled an i'm gonna actually close this um segment by showing you a video that did um that gives an overview of that collection um but but the the what ends up coming to north carolina and being unveiled in november of 1906 is 61 italian paintings um actually um 61 um italian works of art there were two um sculptures in that and then um 10 uh northern european paintings all some of these um highlights of the museum's collection and finally um when the collection um um is appraised at that uh point it was appraised at two and a half this is the crest collection alone the crest collection alone in 1960 was appraised at 2.5 million dollars and um so um instead of getting a million dollars cash in 19 um in the late 1940s early 1950s um the north carolina museum of art receives a collection that is worth millions and millions and really is its value is incalculable because um uh especially because uh within this collection was um a painting of complete altarpiece by jotto uh the great florentine artists um uh of the early 14th century and um a work that is uh the only complete jotto altarpiece outside of europe and um a very important early um altarpiece by jotto so i'm gonna play this and um it's going to run for a couple of minutes and then i invite your questions okay and there's no music by the way the this is the bodice heli tondo that was part of the crest gift painted around 1500 very nice painting um i think i just got myself out of that video this was the crest store on um down in downtown raleigh by the way there was not a major crest store in raleigh during the period when so many were founded in north carolina including greensboro and asheville and durham and salisbury um those were were your kind of classic um cress art deco buildings um raleigh was a latecomer and the store was actually founded when um probably because that gift had been promised um this is the cress's apartment and um in new york city which was covered from um uh ceiling the floor with um italian art and also he designed this this apartment um to look like a venetian palazzo on the interior and um i i've highlighted some of the works that ended up being presented to north carolina that's the painting by veronese um this is a follower of jotto um a really phenomenal altarpiece vitamin kino um the the highlight of the european what is this painting by um turpreufen uh and um this is the backside of the museum on on the day that the collection arrived the collection was installed on the first floor of the museum they had to rearrange everything when the gift came in because all of the crest paintings were um monument or many of them were monumental baroque paintings um so there's the bettony being installed by cress preparators and um north carolina preparators and on this by the way is one of the great paint one of the greatest paintings um in italian paintings in america that um ultra feast by dominique kino this is humber here and this is um the head of the crest um foundation um or the the chief administrator and there's humber with the jotto which ended up really um surprising the world when that came to north carolina and this is docent margaret steed who very kindly allowed us to use her a photograph that was taken in the fall and that is the end of that story um so i look forward to being able to at some point um i hope to tell the next chapter of this history does anyone have any questions yes so uh we have quite a few and i've assembled them okay so we'll go ahead and get started with the first one uh joel dixon asked from where did mr humber move uh to north carolina oh um thank you i'm glad you asked uh he moved from paris actually he's he's a lawyer from greenville but he had been living in paris uh i think since the 20s so he and his wife decided to move back to the united states um no accident that it was 1940. and um and that's where he um so he had he had been been visiting museums during his years in europe and um really was inspired by uh the louvre and uh institutions like that so he decided um when he moved actually to he ended up moving um back to north carolina and joined the art society he needed to we needed to have something um that could inspire this this pride in our state next question okay um and then listen or liz says uh does any documentation reference the fire destroying the canova george washington in terms of the insistence on a fireproof facility you mean um uh was is there any connection between the loss of the canova and the capital and the fact that they were um so insistent on the firework building you know and and is there documentation of that you know i haven't read um uh that explicitly stated but i am certain that that there was a connection and it's funny because it's it's in all every time they talk about a museum they talk about a firefight building in the um in the 1940s well actually the 20s 30s and 40s okay um yes and we have a question from tiara paris where people of color are allowed to be part of the state arts society um oh god hi tara it's so nice to um to have you here um i do not know the answer to that i have not read that that um that there was um a prescription um against that but um i know you know this is the jim crow era so um but i haven't read any um i haven't read any thing suggesting that there was um a explicit ban um so that's that's all i can say um i really um doubt that there was uh uh african american um members um on that in that group at that time given the um the social and um legal and economic climate and and um situation and she also asks uh how did the founding collecting principles an example focusing on old masters shaped the collecting practices of the museum throughout the remainder of the 20th century um okay wait i need to go back to your the other question first um because sarah i just thought of something which is that um one thing that i that i learned um when i so i was doing research i'm trying to to identify the people in the photographs who are handling art and i learned that um and i ended up talking to an art handler who was he started working for the ncma in 1961 or two um and tom vinton our long standing art handler put me in touch with him and so he told me that there were no african-americans on the staff except for the um the elevator operator who was a woman who i've um i've seen her photograph in the newspaper and i don't um know her name yet but but um there were not amer african-americans on the um staff except for that position until the it might have been the 1970s so um uh that that tells you a lot um okay and so the second part of your question is how did can you tell me i'm rephrasing yes it's how did the founding collecting principles an example focusing on old masters shape the the collecting practices of the museum through the remainder of the 20th century um i i it uh well actually the the the it really shaped the collecting practices in that um because there were lacunae uh the the leadership um began addressing or redressing that immediately and so um all of these um really efforts were made to acquire works in other areas in the 1960s 1970s and 1980s so you end up seeing um in the 1960s our second director used to spear um who was another german-born um art historian um he um ended up he he made some significant purchases and including sculpture because we hadn't acquired any sculpture also valentino um at the after the museum opened in 1956 um the two weeks after the museum opened in april he sent a letter to humber who was the head of the state um that you know the head of the state or commission at that point and um and gil and all the members of the um the board of directors and said you have made um you have a great collection and i think it's something to be proud of that you need to acquire sculpture this is you cannot have an art museum without sculpture it's really um um the primary media and um some of the greatest achievements were in sculpture he says um it's there's so many things that he said that ended up really um kind of forecasting what would happen but one thing he said in that letter is um that um the greatest impressionists for example so they hadn't bought any impressionist paintings um he said but um you need some impressionist paintings but um rodan is the greatest impressionist artist so um i you need to to buy some sculpture um um by um baroda and then he had a list of artists that they needed to um acquire and um so he listed these american um modernists and there's a list of names and he he mentions um edith halpern's gallery in new york um as a place those could be acquired and then the other thing is that i want to say um which is that in this letter he says um that he envisions having a sculpture a museum of sculpture to go alongside the museum of paintings and um you know that that collection was crammed into this old um state highway building on morgan street but they um he drew up along with his deputy director burns he drew up um a design for moving the front of the that building which is it faces morgan street to newburn place on the other side um and um designing a modernist facade um with glass bricks very cool and then um a sculpture garden and at that you know the museum modern art garden of sculpture was only established in 1953 so he said this would be this you know really um uh novel idea and then you know we ended up with this really um huge sculpture park in the end you know many many years later so um i think that that um answers some of your your question and more okay next uh lynn coonan wants to know does the art society still exist oh great question um a form of the art society does exist but um what ended up happening is in 1961 the state decided well the state arts society actually held all of the assets and this is something that i didn't realize until i began working on this so even though the collection is part of the north carolina museum of art the state art society which was a private um um entity although it was under had um was under control of state government and its funds were placed in a treasury um fund but anyway they held the assets so in 1961 um it was valentino and others were not comfortable without arrangement um so all of those most of the assets were transferred to the state in 1961 um but and the state our society was very unhappy about that it was um made a lot of people very unhappy and um but the but um it became um a um eventually was subsumed or turned in into the north carolina um museum of art foundation which is our um our private foundation um kind of co-institution that is still um essential really critical um part of this museum structure um so i the but there is a group that is um that is still um exists and i i cannot remember the name um but um it is there are no members that are that are um of that original um group of founders um obviously still still alive but there are people um um who's uh who were some who were um familiar with and knew um the runnings of that of that group and um so it was um uh it ended up being kind of turning into the board of director or the uh the board of trustees is what the arts society once those assets were transferred in 61 the board of directors really um was trans the board the our society was transformed into the uh board of trustees okay um that was a concluded answer but thank you and we also got a question from carolyn cooper who is commenting that uh you provided fascinating information and is wondering if you've considered writing a book um thank you i appreciate your um saying that i and asking that um i have actually and i i i gave a lecture last year in the galleries and some members of the china historical association um ascended and they um were encouraging me to um to talk to um unc press about a book now um i don't i don't know uh you know it it could be it's a really great story um and i would would do this and and um if i um at some point i once i don't have a lot of um institutional priorities uh that are that need addressing now but um you know i it's it says it is a story that um has been told in um and i have to to cite um a um woman who wrote a really great history of arts in north carolina um her name is ola mae fouche and this is um a great it's an interesting book but she she does um tell some of this story and um but she didn't get to tell all of it so i don't know and we have uh megan west asking when did the ncme acquire the building they have today okay so that was it um the the the building we now have a campus with two buildings um the one building i was 1980 it was built in 81 and 82 and um opened in 83 and then the second building was built in um and opened in 2010 and um that the the reason for the um moving out of downtown um in the early 1980s well they ran out of space uh valentino talks about it in his correspondence um they were already out of space um at the end of the 19 um in the in the late 50s so they began um trying to build interest and um support for moving to getting a larger building and um that was a whole another um controversy that that um that uh kind of um unfolded in the 1960s and 70s they hired edward derrell stone um the architect who built the house of the legislature in night that opened in 1962 um on jones street that building that looks like kennedy center because he designed kennedy center as well so they hired um stone to design the museum um they acquired this land out in blue ridge and um and they didn't have enough money to build what he designed so they ended up um reducing it a great um deal and that's what ended up being built by the way so it's not the original design but um but you can see the the very um it's it's of a period and it's um this really um modernist brutalist style and you see features in it um that that um were common in the the 60s and and 70s okay thank you for that question and we have a great question from ken snyder is the hercules uh fig leaf still in place or are we more enlightened about what art is today okay so this is i'm glad you asked about that because um they put hercules in a closet on the third floor and the um defeated director james burns um he who came with valentinor he had been valentine's um a colleague in los angeles um he was also an artist so he made the fig leaf and um and they added it and and hercules went back up uh in 1958 so it took two years but um the i i i don't think the fig leaf um still exists and um but it was of course um removed again but um when valentino who had been he had been um he started out at the um the kaiser friedrich museum in berlin in the early 20th century then he was the first curator of basically medieval art at the metropolitan museum of art um in 1908-14 and then he went back to europe um fought in the first world war and then moved to detroit so he was i mean he was and he was on really the kind of cutting edge of art um uh museum development and collecting but anyway um he wrote a he wrote memoirs and kept diaries and um and some some of those were published in a biography of valentine and he writes so it's published that he says he comments um when i came to the metropolitan um museum of art um um it took a while to remove ashtrays um and um and i i ended up um you know it seemed like um a really backwards at the time but then i moved to raleigh in 1956 and um and oh and they were removing beliefs at the metropolitan museum of art um when he was there well in 1950s in raleigh they're putting them back on so he was really um disappointed but uh the the it was so i felt that the the the public was not ready for that kind of nudity and we have just three more questions left uh lynn coonan also wants to know when the rodans came to the museum oh thank you that was in um 2009 and um the david steele organized an exhibition of rhoda sculpture and so they borrowed um these bronze casts from the rodin foundation and um and it was so very successful and larry larry wheeler the director um up until 2018 so he um developed a friendship with with iris cantor and um the um dwyane of the um that family um and she and and uh ended up deciding that she would make a large gift to the north carolina museum of art um but we had to get a building um a new building in order to just to house that collection and so that's wha led to the creation of the building the 2010 building um that um is the the building um that is now where our collection is housed um so that was that was how that building ended up really getting built was through the receipt of that gift and actually we just have one question left uh was the lower number of italian paintings acquired with funds due to the anticipated crisis gift yes yes it was um thank you and and you know what was surprising about that is they even though they knew that they were going to be getting um a collection of mostly italian art they still bought um some they still bought italian paintings and and um ended up getting two of the the really um most important italian paintings in the collection are these views of dresden by uh bernardino bellotto the 18th century venetian painter um the um really really magnificent um two views of dressed and taken on either side of the elf and those were um were among their um original purchases and um they bought them i think for ten thousand dollars each and now they're um i think we just one of them is probably worth about um 16 million dollars alone so um thank you so much for those questions