PreservationNation

Written by Terri Anderson

Among the 29 National Trust Historic Sites, few are more beautiful in the summer than Chesterwood, the summer home and studio of the American sculptor Daniel Chester French. The long and hearty Berkshire winters, however, necessitate closing the site from November through May every year—forcing visitors to stay away from the site in wintertime, just as French and his family did.

Now, thanks to the generous support of the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), online visitors can take simulated virtual tours at Chesterwood, learning about both the collections and buildings on display at the site. The online exhibits provide Chesterwood an opportunity to be “open” throughout the year, share highlights from the collection with visitors around the world, and share a wealth of information about French, a seminal figure in American art history. The exhibits can be accessed from Chesterwood’s website.

The online exhibits mirror the three areas that visitors to Chesterwood can experience: Daniel Chester French’s 1898 studio, the 1901 French family residence, and Chesterwood’s Barn Gallery. Three National Trust for Historic Preservation interns worked throughout the summer of 2009 to build the exhibits through PastPerfect, the museum collections management software system used by National Trust Historic Sites to track and manage our collections.

Visitors to the Virtual Online Exhibit of the studio can learn about French’s artistic and creative processes. The exhibit leads the online visitor through all areas of the studio, as if you were stopping in for a visit while French was hard at work on one of his sculptures. Visitors start with the reception room (a space that was considered to be “’de rigeur’ for fashionable artists’ studios of this time”, as the exhibit informs us), to the casting room, and finishing in the main studio, where French’s seminal artworks are on virtual display. One of the highlights is the stunning marble Andromeda, which was the last sculpture on which French worked before he died in 1931, and which has been at Chesterwood since.

The Virtual Online Exhibit of the Barn Gallery introduces the visitor to some of Daniel Chester French’s major artworks and projects. The Barn Gallery online exhibit is based on interpretive themes and label text previously developed for Chesterwood through an NEH Planning Grant. This exhibition provides a comprehensive introduction to French’s major outdoor sculptures, including the Seated Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC; The Minute Man in Concord, Massachusetts; the Continents at the United States Custom House in Manhattan; and the Dupont Circle fountain in Washington, DC. In a charming contrast, the fifth section of the Barn Gallery exhibit provides details about one of French’s early endeavors, working on a series of tiny Parian ware porcelain figurines—in sharp contrast to the large-scale public works for which he was later, and much more famously, known.

Touring the Virtual Online Exhibit of the residence provides the most intimate glimpse of the French family’s private life. The exhibit provides wonderful detail about the 1901 structure, described as “an ideal example of the American Renaissance…a hybrid of both the English Georgian and American Colonial Revival styles.” The online exhibit’s true strength, however, is in the wealth of details about the interior of the French family home, from a description of architectural elements, to introducing the turn-of-the-century domestic artifacts on display, and a description of the areas of the home that are not public accessible. The residence exhibit also includes some whimsical family photographs of Margaret French Cresson, the only child of Daniel Chester French and his wife Mary Adams French. Flipping through the family photos in the exhibit, you can imagine what a charming and magical place Chesterwood would have been for a child growing up.

In addition to being a National Trust Historic Site, Chesterwood also serves as the administrative home of the National Trust’s Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios program. These special sites are a unique consortium of sites that, by showing behind-the-scenes glimpses of where artists lived and worked, are homes to collections of incredible depth and uniqueness.

We are thrilled that Chesterwood can represent both the National Trust Historic Sites and Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios through this series of exhibits that celebrate the artistic process. Congratulations to Chesterwood for this achievement!

Terri Anderson is the John & Neville Bryan Director of Museum Collections, Stewardship of Historic Sites at the
National Trust for Historic Preservation.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 at 3:12 pm and is filed under chesterwood, national trust historic sites. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.