From the Field

Columbus Museum of Art Awarded Kress Fellowship

June 14, 2016

The Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) is pleased to announce that the Columbus Museum of Art has been awarded the second Samuel H. Kress Foundation Provenance Research Fellowship (Kress Fellowship). This initiative provides funding for a researcher to investigate a permanent collection, or part of a collection, of a mid-sized AAMD museum. The year-long program includes a nine-month residency in Boston, where the fellow will have two renowned researchers as mentors and access to research facilities in the Boston area, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Harvard Art Museums. The fellowship reflects AAMD’s commitment to fostering ongoing professional development in the art museum field and dedication to best practices in provenance research.

Columbus Museum of Art will focus its research its collection of Old Master paintings, including works in its Frederick W. Schumacher Collection. An extended loan of works from the Frederick W. Schumacher Collection of Old Master paintings was one of the inaugural exhibitions in the CMA’s historic building that opened in 1931, now called the Ross Wing. In 1957, a gift of 167 Schumacher works became part of the Museum's permanent collection. The collection features Dutch, Flemish, French, Italian and English works by masters such as Jacob Jordaens, Jacob Cornelisz Van Oostsanen, and Jean-Baptise Greuze, as well as 19th-century paintings including Impressionist canvases.

Through the years, additional Renaissance and Baroque works have been added to the collection through purchases and gifts. In 2015, the CMA opened the 50,000-square foot Margaret M. Walter Wing providing the museum additional room to exhibit its more than 16,000 works in the permanent collection—including its Old Masters.

“The Kress Fellowship provides an exceptional opportunity for the museum to research the full provenance, ownership, and exhibition histories of Old Master paintings in our collection,” said Nannette Maciejunes, Executive Director of the Columbus Museum of Art.

 

About the Samuel H. Kress Foundation

The mission of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation (est. 1929) is to sustain and carry out the original vision of founder, Samuel H. Kress (1863-1955). The Samuel H. Kress Foundation supports the work of individuals and institutions engaged with appreciation, interpretation, preservation, study and teaching of the history of European art and architecture from antiquity to the dawn of the modern era.

 

Above image: Carstian Luyckx (Dutch), Still Life, c. 1660, oil on canvas. Museum Purchase, Derby Fund, 1961.003