1996-1999 Exhibitions, 1994-2000, undated

This subseries documents exhibitions the museum organized or participated in between 1997 and 1999. As these records reveal, the added responsibility of Chief Executive Officer, which d'Harnoncourt assumed in 1997, did not seem to curb her involvement with the museum's exhibitions.

Although the records for "The Peale Family: Creation of a Legacy, 1770-1870" exhibition (Nov. 3, 1996-Jan. 5, 1997)are not extensive, they provide sufficient documentation of nearly every aspect of the show's planning, execution and media coverage. The museum served as the show's first venue--an appropriate start since the Peales were centered in Philadelphia. (The exhibition then traveled to San Francisco and Washington, D.C.). The Trust for Museum Exhibitions (TME), a now-defunct, non-profit firm based in Washington DC, developed the exhibition intended to celebrate one of early America's foremost families of artists. Art historian and editor of the Peale Family Papers Lillian Miller curated the exhibition. Much of the correspondence is with TME's president, Ann Van Devanter Townsend. Other correspondence and documents pertain to funders and lenders, some of whom made loans only to the Philadelphia venue. There is also some documentation, primarily correspondence, pertaining to a related exhibition the museum organized and displayed concurrently--"The Cadwalader Family: Art and Style in Early Philadelphia." That show focused on the patronage and philanthropy of the Cadwalader family, one of Philadelphia's first families during the 18th and early 19th centuries, including General John Cadwalader, who commissioned five family portraits from the Peale family patriarch, Charles Wilson Peale. Based on these files, responsibility for organizing the exhibition and securing loans was divided almost equally between d'Harnoncourt and the American Art curator Darrel Sewell. Funding, on the other hand, was the director's responsibility as made evident in d'Harnoncourt's extensive correspondence with prospective foundations, corporate and federal sponsors. While the art critic for a local newspaper gave the Peale exhibition a tepid review, a very enthusiastic response came from Andrew Wyeth, the patriarch of yet another family of important artists in America A photocopy of his handwritten note to Anne d'Harnoncourt and her response are part of these records. Further documentation of the Cadwalader exhibition (one folder) comprises the sub-subseries following the Peale records.

More extensively documented is "Delacroix: The Late Work" (Sept. 15, 1998-Jan. 3, 1999), which opened during the fall of 1998 to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of the French artist, Eugène Delacroix. The museum partnered with the Réunion des Musées Nationaux (RMN) to organize the show. A national organization under the French Ministry of Culture and Communication (Direction des Musées de France), the RMN works with 32 museums and 2 exhibition venues. Originally established to assist in the purchase of art for national collections, RMN (as of 1991) also helps national museums, including the Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, Musée Picasso, and the château de Versailles, to organize temporary exhibitions that will enhance visitor experience and cultural promotion. Before coming to Philadelphia, "Delacroix" opened at the Grand Palais in Paris, which is part of the RMN network. It was on display in Philadelphia from Sept. 15, 1998 to Jan. 3, 1999. The collaboration brought d'Harnoncourt back in touch with Irène Bizot, RMN's Managing Director. The two women previously collaborated on the 1992 exhibition of Picasso still lifes. As evidenced by the tone of some of d'Harnoncourt's correspondence to Bizot from the earlier exhibition, the women, along with Joe Rishel, were close friends as well as colleagues, and they remained in contact throughout d'Harnoncourt's life. (Most of their correspondence is in the "Names and subjects" series, filed as "Bizot" or "IEOC," an annual international exhibition conference stemming from an organization Bizot later established.) In addition to documentation of the exhibition planning, opening and related symposium, a visitor survey report offers a post-show assessment. The report offers demographic profiles of visitors, generalizes their motivations to visit and measures their economic impact on the museum and in the city. The report also includes visitor comparisons between the Delacroix exhibition and the extremely successful Cezanne exhibition of 1996. Perhaps the most unusual aspect of the report is that d'Harnoncourt made no annotations to the copy in these files.

Other exhibitions well-documented are "Mad for Modernism: Earl Horter and His Collection" (Mar. 7-May 16, 1999) and "Goya: Another Look" (Apr. 11-July 11, 1999). Assembled by the Department of Prints, Drawings and Photographs, the Horter exhibition reassembled the influential collection of European and American modern art, African sculpture and native American artifacts that the Philadelphia artist Earl Horter (1880-1940) was forced to sell off during the years of the Depression. The Goya exhibition was yet another collaboration with RMN, this time working on behalf of the Palais des Beaux Arts in Lille. The exhibition featured Goya's unique rendering of daily life in 35 paintings and a group of works on paper.

No doubt near and dear to d'Harnoncourt was "Joseph Cornell/Marcel Duchamp...in Resonance" (Oct. 8, 1998-Jan. 3, 1999). The exhibition not only allowed the opportunity to examine another aspect of Duchamp's work--primarily his collaboration with and influence on Cornell, but for d'Harnoncourt to reunite with other "Duchampians," namely, Ecke Bonk and Walter Hopps as well as the modern art scholar and curator Susan Davidson. As made evident by the somewhat small amount of documentation in d'Harnoncourt's files, Ann Temkin, then PMA's curator of modern art, rather than d'Harnoncourt, took the lead in organizing the show, which then travelled to the Menil Collection in Houston. (In addition to Bonk, Hopps, Davidson and Temkin, Lynda Roscoe Hartigan was yet another exhibition curator.) D'Harnoncourt, however, did participate in a January 1997 planning meeting--taking fairly detailed notes, and no doubt served as the contact person with Duchamp's stepdaughter, Jackie Matisse. There are copies of a couple of letters from Matisse to d'Harnoncourt, who was also a close friend.