Getting started in art

By Temple Ligon

 

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“I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.”

~ John Adams
2nd U. S. President (1735 – 1826)

 

A friend called this week to ask about starting an education in art history because she is considering a career shift in fund raising. She is staying with the same university in Florida where she has been successful chasing medical research money and endowment enhancement, but her new responsibilities include raising funds for the school’s art museum.

So, where to start?

She had been with me on art tours for the three years she worked for me beginning in 2001. Since she grew up in the greater New York area, she was lucky in her childhood to have the world’s art capital a short commute away. New York City gained world’s art capital status immediately following WWII, leaving Paris behind. It seems all native New Yorkers come out of childhood with a natural appreciation for art. It’s all around them.

Still, raising money for an art museum needs a whole lot more in art education than childhood absorption.

Since she is in the Miami area, I suggested a tour of Art Basel Miami, part of the three-venue art fair, the world’s largest. Keeping its home base in Basel, Switzerland, where this past year the art fair had more than 300 galleries participate, Art Basel Miami has evolved into 250 world-class galleries and something like 73,000 people. Problem is, we’re too late. Art Basel Miami was two weeks ago.

Coming up in 2015 is Art Basel Hong Kong, March 15-17, not as big as Miami or home-base Basel, Art Basel Hong Kong is the biggest art fair in Asia. And it may be the most educational. To kick-start a life in art collecting, Art Basil Hong King holds a three-month course:

 

“The executive program on Collecting Contemporary Art”

In January 2015, Art Basel, HKU SPACE Centre for Degree Programmes (CDP) and Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design (CSM) are launching the first-of-its-kind executive program ‘Collecting Contemporary Art’ in Hong Kong, tailor-made for novice art collectors and business professionals in related fields. The three-month programme contains six modules, with the last one taking place at Art Basel’s show in Hong Kong. For more information visit HKU SPACE Centre for Degree Programmes.

 

If my friend wants to spend the money to follow Art Basel across the globe, fine. But practically speaking, let’s put 2015 Art Basel Miami on the calendar for next December and get on with what else is available nearby for the upstart’s art historian’s homework.

The American master in art museum management and fund raising was J. Carter Brown. Brown was responsible for getting Washington’s National Gallery in gear, to include the East Building designed by American architect I. M. Pei.

Brown was educated. That helped. He had taken his pursuit of a doctorate in art history up to – but never – finishing his dissertation, and he dropped it to become director of the National Gallery. He already had his MBA, and the combination of the two academic paths was just about a perfect fit for running the National Gallery.

Well, good for Brown, but my friend can’t find the time or the money for a formal education like Brown’s, but she can climb aboard the art appreciation wagon and stay there for the rest of her life, just like the children of John Adams. After all, she got a good start while working for me.

She helped me put together a road trip for the middle school art students at Cyril Busbee in Cayce. We took a busload to the Greenville County Museum of Art several years ago to see the work of Andrew Wyeth and also Jasper Johns. We split the kids into two groups, one toured Johns with a docent, me, while the other saw the Wyeths with their docent, and after lunch, they switched. Former Governor Dick Riley greeted the kids upon their arrival, and lunch at the Hyatt was on Riley’s law firm, Nelson Mullins.

No longer an employee, my budding art appreciation friend helped with getting a group of EdVenture children on the bus for Atlanta and the High Museum, where they saw work on loan from the Louvre. While we were there, we went ahead with a really grand lunch for the 40 kids and their supervisors on the 73^rd floor of the Westin. Holder Properties and Wilbur Smith split the tab. The afternoon was set aside for a tour of the world’s largest aquarium.

So she understands how to generate interest in art among young people, but now it’s time to take in the adults, affluent adults.

The fun thing about an arts orientation is the travel. Wherever one goes, one always has the opportunity to walk off the local museums and galleries, and not just when there’s a trip through town. The town, if the art is good enough, becomes its own destination, the top being New York City, of course.

 

So that’s my advice. Want to learn about art? Go to New York.

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