Volume 16, No. 8
May 2010 ISSUE • 11
A Career in Art Administration
BASQUIN AT HOME AMONG METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART DRAWINGS, PRINT COLLECTION KIT BASQUIN SPARKLES WITH excitement as with gloved hands she gingerly manipulates the position of a priceless print so a visitor can get a better view. Handling major works of art is never mundane for Basquin as with twinkling eyes she urges visitors to feel at home among the historical drawings. Her exuberant joy gives one the impression that she is showing a piece for the first time. This kind of enthusiasm is unexpected in such scholarly surroundings and her love of art is contagious. Kit Smyth Basquin is associate for administration in drawings and prints at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where she has worked ten years. The Met has a million-and-a-half prints and fifteen thousand drawings on file. The Print Study Room is visited by scholars, curators, artists, art teachers, college classes, researchers working on books, graduate students, collectors, as well as dealers. Basquin oversees the Met’s collection, which features drawings by Leonardo and Michelangelo, and original prints by Dürer, Rembrandt, Goya, and Ed Ruscha, to name just a few. “Works on paper must have a limited exposure to the light,” Basquin said. “Light turns the paper yellow and fades the ink or drawing if the exposure is for too long. Usually works on paper are only exhibited for three months. At another venue of an exhibition that may include paintings and sculpture as well as prints and drawings, other drawings and prints are often borrowed to replace the ones in the first show.” Usually collections at the Met stay forever, Basquin said. “Sometimes, some items are de-accessioned for better works of art. Traveling exhibitions are different. These are called Special Exhibitions and they are not part of the museum’s collection. Traveling shows usually last three months. Sometimes they go on to another museum or come from another museum.” Basquin’s love of art began in high school at The Spence School in NYC, taught by the wife of the director of The Museum of Modern Art at that time, Margaret Scolari. “When I was going to college, no one talked about careers for women,” Basquin said. “We just got jobs and then got married. “I gradually evolved a career in art history. My first big push was to teach five classes of art history, from cave paintings to the present, at the art school in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, because I needed a job there. I had never taught before and had not majored in art history, but I was going to Ethiopia to marry Peter Basquin, who was in the Peace Corps. I had met him through his sister the year before while he was in business school at Dartmouth University. “My first job was writing PR brochures for the Ethiopian Tourist Organization. I heard about the opening at the art school. I applied and got it.
Story by D. Harris Johnson
Kit Smyth Basquin in her office at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Because I had taught art history in Ethiopia, I got into the graduate program in art history at Indiana University on my return to the States. Once I had an MA in art history, I got a part-time job at the Indianapolis Museum of Art writing press releases. “By that time I had one child. Getting daytime sitters was difficult, so I opened an art gallery in my home in Frankfort, Indiana. After a few years, I moved the gallery to Indianapolis, where the local art market was. By that time, I knew I liked art history and art, but was not so thrilled about running an art gallery, which is a business. When we moved to Milwaukee, I first wrote art reviews for The New Art Examiner, a Chicago art newspaper. That was my favorite job. But for whatever reason, my husband wanted me to open an art gallery in Milwaukee. I resisted but finally gave in. Peter had some artistic talent and I think he wanted the gallery to satisfy his love of art and also to keep financial control over me, although he never said this.” Basquin ran the gallery from 1981–1983 before an economic recession caused them to close. “Running a small gallery in Milwaukee with regional paintings and sculpture as well as original prints bought from Pace Gallery in NYC by artists including Motherwell, Stella and Dine was hopeless,” she said. Basquin’s mother was from Houston, and her family moved to Huntsville when she was in college. “At that time, my grandfather, Dr. J.P. Gibbs, gave up his medical practice in Houston and became
a businessman in Huntsville where he opened Gibbs Brothers store which is still in operation,” she said. Basquin has a tender spot for Texas since she still has relatives in the area. People should not pursue a career in the arts if they want to make a lot of money, she said. “For the most part, careers in the arts do not pay well,” she said. “If you want to be rich, go into something else. If you really must work in the arts, then start at the entry level and work up. Nowadays, a PhD in art history is essential for being a curator. When I started, an MA was sufficient. But there are many lower level jobs in museums and galleries.” Basquin suggests that budding curators volunteer at a museum to see if they like that kind of work. “Sometimes volunteer jobs can work into permanent jobs,” she said. “I first volunteered at the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University in Milwaukee. When a full-time job opened up, I got it. I started out coordinating public programs and teaching the docents. This job led to my becoming curator of education at the Haggerty Museum of Art. “A foot in the door is worth everything. A lot of hiring is done from within. A person familiar with an institution has an advantage over an outsider. The learning curve is much faster. Also, recommendations from within the field are important. Sometimes volunteer work can earn the person a good recom-
See BASQUIN on page 15
