PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBIN HOLLAND
MoMA’s plans include adding roughly 50,000 square feet of gallery space and more rooms for performances, along with other renovations. The museum will remain open during construction, so Reed will have to be even more nimble. Reed’s tenure at MoMA began in 1992, when he was appointed assistant curator in the department of architecture and design. After earning a B.A. in art history at Lake Forest College in 1977, Reed spent time traveling in southeast Asia, and he briefly considered a career in anthropology. Instead, he attended graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied 20th-century architecture and medieval India. “Within the first 10 days at Penn, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I knew this is what I wanted: to be surrounded by art and to help people to understand it, and make it meaningful,” he says. Reed now oversees four departments in the museum, including education, and serves as the liaison between the senior administration and the museum’s six curatorial areas. But Reed still manages to find time for the scholarly research that first led him to a career in the museum world. He has authored exhibition catalogues and contributed to
“
my collegeagues
”
and I are constantly anticipating
the future.
Peter Reed, senior deputy director for curatorial affairs, The Museum of Modern Art
many publications, and he is working on an historic overview of the sculpture garden, his favorite place at MoMA. “It’s really the heart of the museum and an important urban oasis. The garden’s been the setting for different installations, so it’s like another gallery,” he says. The garden also provides a respite from the museum, which can be a sensory overload for visitors. So Reed works with the education department to make modern art more accessible to the public and the busloads of students who visit each day — including Hotchkiss students, who took a field trip to MoMA in April. “Hotchkiss has changed so tremendously since 1970-71, the year I attended Hotchkiss as a lower mid,” says Reed. “The arts just weren’t very present for me at Hotchkiss at that time. I was practically the only kid taking music lessons. But it’s been wonderful watching the School change over the years,’’ says Reed. Since Reed’s time, the School added the Tremaine Art Gallery in 1995, a gift from the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation and Burton G. Tremaine Jr. ’40. In 1981, the student recreational center was renovated into the Edgar and
Louise Cullman Arts Center, a gift from Edgar Cullman ’36 and his wife, Louise. Reed is thrilled about the strength of the arts program at Hotchkiss today. “Art can take you so many places: history, politics, mythology, current events, and literature. It unpacks the humanities, in a sense. And that’s what I love about it. It opens up so many doors and teaches you about the human condition,” he says. One of his favorite pieces in the MoMA is The Migration Series by Jacob Lawrence, a series of 60 panels that tell the story of the African-American migration from the rural South to the urban North between World War I and World War II. The series has been part of the museum’s permanent collection since the 1940s, but it was exhibited again last year. “When I first saw it, I just stopped in my tracks. It had so much to do with what was going on in the country with respect to social justice,” Reed says. “To revisit one of my favorite works of art and see it in a new light was breathtaking.” “But,” he adds, “there’s so much I could see and do at MoMA in a day — sometimes I wish I could retire and enjoy it all.”
ART CREDITS: PAGE 26: ANDY WARHOL. GOLD MARILYN MONROE. 1962. SILKSCREEN INK ON SYNTHETIC POLYMER PAINT ON CANVAS. THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NY. © 2016 ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. • PAGE 28: SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK (1599 - 1641). PORTRAIT OF A GENOESE NOBLEWOMAN, 1622-1627. OIL ON CANVAS • PAGE 29: PABLO PICASSO. SEATED WOMAN. PARIS, 1927. OIL ON WOOD. THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NY. © 2016 ESTATE OF PABLO PICASSO / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK
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