What Happens to Stored Museum Collections?

It can take hours to make your way through a good art museum, if you take the time to look at each piece appreciatively, reading the labels and other information about each item. For larger museums, spending the time to really go through the museum’s exhibits carefully could take days. Even so, once a visitor has finished looking at all the exhibits that are on display, he or she is likely to have seen only a sliver of the museum’s actual collections. The rest of the museum’s collection -- more than half of the collection, in most cases -- is kept in storage.

A few museums and other institutional art collectors, though, are pulling more of their collections out of storage this month and putting them on display -- giving art lovers an unusual chance to see some lovely items that are normally confined to a small storage unit. Others, though, are closing or moving to smaller quarters, while more of their collections get moved into storage.

Bryn Mawr College, for example, has a fine art collection, comprising about 50,000 objects -- or so curator Emily Croll noted in Sunday’s Philadelphia Inquirer. But most of that collection is used for teaching and research. This weekend, to celebrate its 125th anniversary, Bryn Mawr will bring out 100 representative treasures from its collection -- or fewer than one percent of its holdings -- for visitors to appreciate. The exhibit will take place in the rare book room of Bryn Mawr’s Canaday Library.

“Many of the pieces in the exhibit have not been seen by the public for many years,” comments Bryn Mawr’s president, Jane McAuliffe, at the Canaday Library web page, “so it will be very exciting to reveal these rare and important treasures.”

Like Bryn Mawr, Ursinus College has kept most of its collection (about 4,000 items) in storage. But the college has now built a new wing that has a display window for showing some of the college’s rare art works. About 30 percent of Ursinus’ collection will now be on display, while another 50 percent is accessible upon request.

In Vancouver, B.C., though, the Maritime Museum of B.C. is forced to keep much of its collection in a series of storage lockups at Ogden Point.

“I’ve spent lots of time crawling around in the back rooms over the years,” said Jamie Webb, the museum’s foundation board chairman, in the Sept. 19 Vancouver Sun. “Every time I go back there, I’m flabbergasted by some of the stuff I find.”

Still, at least the Maritime Museum isn’t closing its door entirely -- as Las Vegas’ Liberace Museum is. The Liberace Museum is putting its entire collection, which includes several antique pianos, Liberace’s favorite rhinestone-studded coat, and a 1962 Rolls Royce covered in mirrors, into storage. The Liberace Museum used to get 450,000 visitors every year, but last year its attendance was down to 50,000 -- not enough to keep the museum in business.

The Liberace Museum hopes to find a new space and go back into business, however. “We are not selling the collection,” said Liberace Foundation chairman Jeffrey Koep in the Sept. 17 New York Times. “Part of the reason we are closing down is so we can keep the collection.”

Sources used:

Dedyna, Katherine. “37,000 artifacts, most in storage.” The Vancouver Sun. Sept. 19, 2010.

Sozanski, Edward. “Art: bringing treasures out of hiding.” The Philadelphia Inquirer. Sept. 19, 2010.

The Liberace Foundation and Museum.

Mariam Coffin Canaday Library, Bryn Mawr. “Worlds to discover: 125 years of collections at Bryn Mawr.”

The Maritime Museum of B.C.

Nagourney, Adam. “Mr. Showmanship’s show is closing.” The New York Times. Sept. 17, 2010.

Ursinus College.

“Vegas’ Liberace Museum closing its doors forever.” The News Telegram. Sept. 20, 2010.