THE WALTERS ART MUSEUM THE YEAR IN REVIEW 2010–2011 1 The Year in review 2010–2011 3 ConTenTs A Letter from the Director 6 Exhibitions 8 Acquisitions 20 Donors 24 Volunteers 40 Staff 46 Board of Trustees 50 Financials 52 a letter from The direCTor A New Look In fall 2010, as we began to shake off the effects of the economic downturn of 2008– 2009, the Walters took on a new graphic identity with a new call to action, through the introduction of an updated word mark with its accompanying tag line: What will you discover? Together, they mark an important step in opening up the museum to an ever wider and more varied public—a process that took a decisive turn a decade earlier, when the Walters’ Board and staff re-crafted the museum’s mission state- ment to place its focus squarely on our audiences and, specifically, on the “enjoy- ment, discovery, and learning” they could derive from our collections. This updated look builds upon the free admission policy instituted in October 2006. Moreover, it will serve as the platform for a multiyear strategic marketing initiative that will be rolled out in the coming months, aimed at raising our visitorship 20% beyond the 40% already achieved by going free. A powerful endorsement for the Walters’ word mark and tag line came in May at the annual meeting of the American Association of Museums in Houston, when our newly designed Members Magazine won second prize in the magazines category as part of the AAM’s museum publications design competition. Reaching the World We will likely look back at 2011 as that year when the Walters turned a defining corner in projecting its identity to the world on the internet. Since 2006, the number of works of art in our collection that we offer on line has increased from just a few hundred to more than 11,000, and in June 2011, we completed an NEH-funded initiative to make cover-to-cover “surrogate copies” of our 126 Islamic manuscripts, which amounts to more than 53,000 individual pages. All are available worldwide for download, free for use, licensed through the creative commons. Over that same five-year period, the number of unique visitors to the Walters website increased almost fourfold, to an annual rate of nearly 1 million. From 2009 to 2010 alone, visits to the “works of art” pages of our website grew by more than 100%. At the same time, we have seen dramatic growth in the number of our social network friends, with now more than 5,000 Walters Facebook Fans and more than 40,000 Walters Twitter Followers. It is probably no coincidence that attendance at each of our last six major exhibitions has significantly exceeded our projected goals. In October 2010, I was privileged to attend the festive inaugural reception at the Onassis Cultural Center in New York City for Heroes: Mortals and Myths in Ancient Greece, an exhibition conceived by the Walters and opened in our own galleries one year earlier. Between its Walters opening and its closing at the Onassis Center in January 2011, Heroes had been enjoyed by more than 180,000 visitors at its four 6 venues: Baltimore, Nashville, San Diego, and New York. Eight months later, in June, I participated in the festivities at the British Museum that launched the showing there of Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe, which was co-organized by a curatorial team from its three venues: Cleveland, Baltimore, and London. The reviews of Treasures, which was enjoyed by more than 150,000 visitors, have been stellar and its catalogue sales brisk, on both sides of the Atlantic. As Heroes was opening in New York City, Turner to Monet: Masterpieces from the Walters Art Museum was opening in Austin, Texas, at the Blanton Museum of Art, after having drawn more than 50,000 visitors earlier in the year at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. The Walters’ mission to bring art and people together is being realized in museums from California to London. Indeed, since we began circulating exhibitions just over a decade ago, our shows have been seen by more than 3 million museumgoers. Finally, toward the end of the fiscal year we welcomed the publication of our sixth collection highlights guide, The Medieval World. Written by Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Medieval Art Martina Bagnoli and Mellon Fellow Kathryn Gerry, it is the third Walters highlights guide in as many years to be underwritten by Washington, dc, philanthropists Clarice and the late Robert H. Smith, whose generous gift will support two more books in the series in the years ahead. Such publica- tions complement our website and touring exhibi- tion program to bring the art and message of the Walters to the world. Gary Vikan, Director 7 eXhiBiTions Walter Wick: Games, Gizmos, and Toys in the Attic September 19, 2010–January 2, 2011 Organized by the New Britain Museum of American Art, this exhibition celebrated the creative mind of internationally renowned illustrator Walter Wick, whose I Spy and Can You See What I See? book series have been read and loved by millions of children and adults around the world. In addition to forty-seven large-format color photographs and two optical illusions, the exhibition included five installation models, which are the actual objects used and photographed for Wick’s books. His book Can You See What I See on a Scary Scary Night? includes llustrations inspired directly by the Walters’ Chamber of Wonders. The exhibition at the Walters Art Museum was made possible through the generosity of The Wieler Family Foun- dation. Additional support was provided by The Women’s Committee of the Walters Art Museum, The CANUSA Corporation Charitable Fund, The David and Barbara B. Hirschhorn Foundation, The Nancy Patz Reading Fund, The Van Dyke Family Foundation, The Linehan Family Foundation / The Ivy Bookstore, Meredith and Adam Borden / The London Foundation, Lynn and Philip Rauch, Mr. and Mrs. Austin George, The Susan Katzenberg Fund , and Kate and David Powell. Yikes! from I Spy Fantasy / 1994 / pigmented inkjet photograph / Yikes! © 1994 Walter Wick 8 9 10 Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics & Devotion in Medieval Europe February 13–May 15, 2011 Medieval Christians venerated saints, and their bodily remains were often displayed in special containers, known as reliquaries. Covered in gold and silver and embellished with gems and semiprecious stones, reliquaries proclaimed the special status of their sacred contents to worshipers and pilgrims. Reliquaries emerged as important objects of artistic innovation, as expressions of civic and religious identity, and as focal points of ritual action. This exhibition of 135 works explored the emergence and transformation of several key types of reliquary, moving from an age in which saintly remains were enshrined within closed containers to an era in which relics were increasingly presented directly to worshipers. The Walters partnered with the Cleveland Museum of Art (where the exhibition was on view from October 17, 2010 to January 16, 2011) and the British Museum (June 23, 2011–October 9, 2011). This project received important early support through planning grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Magnanimous gifts from Paul Ruddock and an anonymous benefactor made the catalogue possible. We acknowledge with gratitude the support of Marilyn and George Pedersen and the Sheridan Foundation which together with additional implementation funds from the Kress Foundation, a Museums for America grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and gifts from other generous individuals made the exhibition possible. Arm Reliquary of the Apostles / German (Lower Saxony) / ca. 1190 / Silver gilt over wood (oak), enamel (champlevé) / 51 × 14 × 9.2 cm / The Cleveland Museum of Art, gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust 11 12 manUsCriPT FOCUs eXhiBiTions Checkmate! Medieval People at Play July 17–October 10, 2010 We are all familiar with praying monks, but playing monks? A book of hours from Flanders finds them deep in a game of blind man’s bluff, while on the opposite page, peasant boys enjoy a rigorous game of hockey. Such delightful images of play are surprisingly ubiquitous in medieval manuscripts. Neither stodgy nor perpetually pious, medieval people found time for amusement in the margins of their lives and their manuscripts. From peasant boys shirking their winter duties in order to lob snowballs at each other to monkeys gleefully dancing to “Ring around the Rosie,” their antics have come down to us in art. This exhibit of twenty-five books and six objects explored a sense of whimsy and fun that is uniquely medieval yet remarkably familiar to us today. Beasts on Parchment: Picturing Animals in Medieval Manuscripts November 6, 2010–February 6, 2011 Animals, both real and fantastic, played an important role in medieval art and thought. In illuminated manuscripts, they appear in many places and many guises—from full-page miniatures of religious imagery to beautifully painted borders of fantasy tales. This exhibition of twenty-seven manuscripts and printed books explored the variety of beasts that swarm, creep, and scramble across the pages of medieval manuscripts and their allegorical significance. Offering visitors an insight into the values and concerns of medieval society and its imagination, the exhibition celebrated the beasts that charmed, delighted, and sometimes frightened medieval viewers. top: Man and Woman Playing Backgammon, from a French Book of Hours / ca. 1460 (detail) bottom: Battling Dragons, from a French Book of Hours / ca. 1480 (detail) 13 19Th-CenTURY FOCUs eXhiBiTions Expanding Horizons: through Germany, stopping at Cologne and Düssel- Recent Additions to the Drawings Collection dorf, where they visited the studios of prominent April 17–July 3, 2010 artists.