Member Profile:
Roberto C. Ferrari, Curator of Art Properties
Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University
What drew you to the field of
British art? I’ve
always been an Anglophile. Although my
father is Italian, my mother’s side of the family is of English descent and I
credit Nana (my maternal grandmother) as the source of my interest in all
things British. Her parents were
Victorian immigrants from Lancashire and, despite only an eighth-grade
education, she was surprisingly well-read. We
would partake of tea and biscuits while she told me stories about Elizabeth and
Essex or the King and Mrs. Simpson. From
there I gradually discovered British art, and like many a young Romantic fell
for the art of the Pre-Raphaelites. (Rossetti’s
La Ghirlandata and Burne-Jones’s Beguiling of Merlin are still two of my
favorite paintings.) Once I began
studying the Pre-Raphaelites, I discovered the underappreciated art and life of
Simeon Solomon and began doing work on him. My interest in British art soon expanded to nineteenth-century sculpture
as well. My interest in British art has
been a gratifying experience.
Where did you do your graduate work, and on what topic? I earned my M.A. in Humanities from
the University of South Florida, where I wrote my thesis on the fatal woman
motif in paintings by Rossetti and poetry by Swinburne. I also earned my M.A. in Library and
Information Science from USF. After many
years as a librarian, I went back to school and earned an M.Phil. degree and my
Ph.D. in Art History from the Graduate Center, City University of New York,
graduating in May 2013. My dissertation
was on the Anglo-Roman sculptor John Gibson, best known for reintroducing
polychromy in sculpture with his Tinted
Venus, although I go beyond his interest in polychromy to consider other
aspects of his long, productive career.
What projects are you currently working on? Two essays from my dissertation on
Gibson will be published in book collections over the next few years. I recently gave a presentation at the
Pre-Raphaelite conference in Oxford on Solomon’s 1860 painting The Mother of Moses, discussing issues
of race and religion. I am turning that
into an article, with a related spin-off article focusing just on his
mixed-race model Fanny Eaton. My
colleague Carolyn Conroy (University of York) and I continue to update the Simeon Solomon Research Archive
(http://www.simeonsolomon.com), adding more digital images of his work and
exploring the possibility of publishing his correspondence on the site as well.
Tell us about your current post as
Curator of Art Properties at Columbia University. As
Curator of Art Properties, I oversee the art collections at Columbia. Few people are aware that Columbia even has a
permanent art collection. Unlike other
ivy-league schools, Columbia decided not to establish an art museum, but they
did collect art from the time of its foundation as King’s College in 1754. By the 1950s an administrative body known as
Art Properties was established to oversee the art collections, and the first
curator was hired soon afterward. When
the Wallach Gallery was established in the late 1980s, Art Properties was
merged with it, but with the retirement of my predecessor it was decided that
the two departments would be separated. This has allowed my department to revitalize interest in the art
collections for educational and display purposes. The collection contains nearly 15,000 objects
and ranges from Etruscan pottery and Buddhist sculpture to hundreds of portrait
paintings and nearly 900 photographs. With my two full-time staff members and occasional interns, we are
responsible for the organization and care of the collections, including
inventory, exhibition and loan programs, conservation, photographic services,
and so on. An educator at heart, I am
pleased that we have begun new initiatives bringing art objects into the
classroom, allowing students the rare opportunity to study closely and handle objects
in a way they never could in other settings.
Are there any British works in the Columbia collections that
you'd like to highlight? The art collections at Columbia are
culturally diverse and include a few great examples of British art. Henry Moore’s bronze sculpture Three-Way Piece: Points, 1967, a gift
from the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Foundation (1967.20.1), is a highlight in
our public outdoor sculpture. We have
some wonderful portraits in the grand manner tradition, including Joseph
Highmore’s King George II, ca. 1750 (C00.62),
and Joshua Reynolds’s Sir George
Grenville, ca. 1764 (C00.442). The
Plimpton bequest in 2000 added to the collection about 60 portraits of
noteworthy British men and women by painters such as Thomas Lawrence and Martin
Archer Shee. We also have a number of prints
by William Hogarth and other British artists.
Do you have any advice for student
members who might want to follow a similar career path? The job market for art historians is
very challenging right now. My advice to
any prospective student member is to follow her/his dream in studying what s/he
wants in British art, but to be aware of the bigger picture in the art world,
particularly trends and names in modern and contemporary art. Apply for lots of grants and fellowships,
network as much as possible, and keep one’s mind open to alternative career
choices. One never knows how things will
evolve.
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