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Glass City Treasure— Toledo Museum of Art
Glass City Treasure
TOLEDO MUSEUM OF ART BY CURTIS SCHIEBER
It had been nearly 40 years since I had visited my old friends at the Toledo Museum of Art. On a fall afternoon when the sun and clouds created a landscape around the highway not unlike an Impressionist painting, I headed to our reunion.
The old friends in question were paintings that I adored during regular trips to Toledo in my youth in northwestern Ohio. They waited for me still. Among many others, there was the mysterious little Self Portrait, created by surrealist Giorgio de Chirico around 1922, in which a naturalist image of the artist faces a stylized marble bust of himself. A cold, empty city street is visible outside the window of the cramped scene. In one of several Classical- and Neoclassical-era galleries, Jacques-Louis David’s 1786 Oath of the Horatii hung proudly. (When the image flashed onscreen during one of my art history classes at Kent State, I beamed with Self-Portrait by Giorgio pride … until I learned that the one in “my museum” de Chirico, oil on was a commissioned variation, nonetheless canvas, about 1922 created by David and an assistant.) It led me to realize, though, just how special “my museum” was and still is, with its huge collections of Classical and Impressionist art, objects from antiquity and a world-famous collection of glass. Add to that the imposing, classically designed building, the stunning Peristyle concert hall and nationally renowned shows such as Tutankhamun Treasures in 1963, El Greco of Toledo in 1982 and The Age of Rubens in 1994 among many others, and you have a world-class museum that is about to celebrate its 120th year. Central to its survival is its place in the community, a component built into its mission when Libbey Glass Company’s Edward Drummond Libbey; his wife Florence Scott Libbey; and other incorporators founded the museum. Community support has been key in the institution surviving two World Wars, the Great Depression, the 1918 Spanish Flu and now, the COVID-19 pandemic. COMMITMENT TO ARTS INSTRUCTION
Much of that commitment came from the Libbeys, especially Florence, who was worldly and had considerable education as well as art world connections. Through a friend of hers, the Libbeys met the collector Frank Wakeley Gunsaulus, who inspired the couple and later donated art. When Edward died in 1925, Florence donated her interest in their fortune to fund the 1926 expansion. “When George Stevens became director in 1903,” echoes Archivist Julie McMaster, “the only resources he had were a painting of sheep, a mummified cat and about $300 in the bank. It was the community support that he was able to generate through exhibitions, lectures and classes that brought people to love the museum.”
Classes and special programs for all ages, especially for young people, were central in this success. Toledo Museum of Art was the first arts institution in North America to allow children to attend without adults.
The museum’s relationship with the city was crucial to their mutual survival during the century’s upheavals. The Red Cross operated out of the William A. Scott house on the museum grounds to coordinate efforts for both World War I and the flu pandemic. From 1919 to 1925, the home housed the museum’s School of Design. The museum remained open during World War II, providing a place of solace and continuing classes and exhibitions. Service members received free admission.
EXPONENTIAL GROWTH
Over its first 32 years, the institution opened an impressive new home in the classical Greek Ionic style in 1912, more than doubled it in 1926 and essentially tripled that structure in 1933. In 1987, the museum, in tandem with the University of Toledo, built a spectacular new building for the Center for Visual Arts designed by renowned modern architect Frank Gehry. In 2006, the glass collection got its own home, a breathtaking, highly praised modern building across the street from the neoclassical home base. Designed by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, the Glass Pavilion is a groundbreaking structure built nearly entirely of glass that creates visual illusions as it keeps the visitor grounded in its garden surroundings. The Libbeys’ initial donation of a grand home on Madison Avenue was matched in value by contributions from Toledoans for the first building (10,000 children contributed pennies), and that cooperation has continued to the present. “People are often surprised to learn that the Toledo Museum of Art is a private, nonprofit art museum,” says Levine, “that receives no tax levy funding.” He adds, “For the past year, the staff at the Toledo Museum of Art, with input from key stakeholders throughout the community, have been developing a strategic plan. Coincidentally, this five-year plan will begin in the museum’s 120th year.” Since Stevens’s tenure near the beginning, the museum has matched its physical growth with programs, educational opportunities and, especially, its collection. One of the highlights of the permanent collection is glasswork, in part the result of Edward Drummond Libbey’s fortune made in the glass industry. “The glass collection at the Toledo Museum of Art is one of three encyclopedic collections of glass in the United States and one of two that are set in an art museum,” says Interim Director of Curatorial Affairs and Senior Curator of Glass and Decorative Objects Diane C. Wright. Wright praises Toledo Museum of Art’s deep catalogue, which goes beyond what the museum can exhibit at any one time. “The artwork that is resting in storage,” she says, “really is a well that curators can draw from for reinstalling galleries and creating new exhibitions from the collection.”
During my visit, a show of stained-glass works from contemporary artist Judith Schaechter was not only eye-opening but added depth to my casual familiarity with her work. “Because her stained-glass panel Nature was part of our permanent collection,” Wright explains, “the museum had a unique opportunity to work with other institutions to bring The Path to Paradise, the first retrospective of her 37-year career, to the Toledo Museum of Art.”
ART IN THE DIGITAL AGE
Surely the digital age poses a unique challenge for the museum today. From curator to director, marketing to ticketing staff, the institution will need to adjust. Still, Toledo Museum of Art’s leaders are confident in the future.
“The digital era has allowed for people to access artwork in the Toledo Museum of Art collection from all over the world … however, there is an intensely visceral experience when someone sees a work of art in person and nothing can really take the place of this,” says Wright. Levine concurs. “I do not see those platforms replacing the onsite museum experience. Repeat visitation to the museum is our key metric of success. Whether it is captivating content shared on social media or in-
The Oath of the Horatii, Jacques-Louis David, oil on canvas, 1786
Exhibit El Greco of Toledo, 1982 Libbey Glass
Teapot by Wilhelm Wagenfeld, glass, about 1930–34.
Sheep in Pasture by Willem Steelink, oil on canvas, 1899
Toledo Museum of Art's Glass Pavilion, opened in 2006
gallery technology, those touch points can welcome visitors to the museum for the first time or the 20th.”
The Toledo Museum of Art has weathered nearly 120 years of calamities. It is faring well through the current pandemic. Though the facility closed for 99 days in the spring, none of its programming was canceled, though some of it was rescheduled. Levine puts it into a larger perspective: “Museums are often places of refuge, respite and reflection. The COVID pandemic hasn’t altered the vision for the Toledo Museum of Art but rather reinforced it: that museums like the Toledo Museum of Art have a very important role to play in their communities as places for escape, to find solace and to enjoy art when things feel uncertain.”
Curtis Schieber is a freelance writer in Columbus. For several years, he wrote stories for the midwestern art magazine, Dialogue.
LEARN MORE LEARN MORE
Collection Companion: Toledo Museum of Art by former museum director Brian P. Kennedy and Halona Norton-Westbrook is “the most up-to-date book available on one of the most important museums in the United States.” In addition to explorations of individual works of art, it also features “thematic entries of three to four works using the Toledo Museum of Art’s visual literacy strategies, The Art of Seeing Art.”
All photographs courtesy of the Toledo Museum of Art
