QUEST FOR MEANING
by Aubrey Cole Odhner|

  

REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE MUSEUM

        In January 1972 a Museum Committee was formed under the chairmanship of Mrs. Sanfrid Odhner. This committee was able to resurrect a museum which had perforce lain dormant for many years. Mrs. Odhner gave valuable leadership in the direction of making the Academy Museum a tool for distinctive research. At the end of last school year Mrs. Odhner found it necessary to retire from this work and I was asked by the President to become the museum's director. I cannot report on my first year of work without first recording our very deep appreciation for the work previously done by Mrs. Odhner. It was her vision and her enthusiasm which brought the renewal of the museum about, and the Academy is deeply grateful for this.

        This year the museum takes a new step forward with more manpower allocated to it by the administration. I am supposed to give one third of my time to my work as director, Mrs. Odhner and Miss Martha Gyllenhaal give the equivalent of one course and Miss Margaret Wilde also has time alloted to the museum. Professor E. Bruce Glenn has been added to the Museum Committee and has already made a contribution to our thinking. We could all well spend even more time on this task, but we are grateful for moves towards a further recognition of this use, and look to even further development in the
future. Eventually at least one person will be needed who can serve full time.

        The work of the museum has since 1972 been directed essentially by the Museum; Committee, and this policy has not changed. All major decisions are made by the com-mittee which is an harmonious and happy group. Each monthly meeting handles many items of business, but also finds time to listen to a presentation on some aspect of our work -- we are growing together.

        Our objectives may be expressed in many ways, but the simplest is perhaps to say that we seek to support distinctive New Church scholarship (especially in church history) and specific courses in the Academy or other New Church schools. But before we can enter fully into these uses there are certain preparatory steps which have to be taken. We must properly identify, catalog and display our pieces. This is a long job which requires the assistance of experts in many fields, but without it we cannot properly use what we have and enter into our scholarly work.

        We are making progress. Mrs. Odhner, who is now designated Director of Research, fa developing files of material which will be relevant to our studies. She searches for earlier work done in the church to be found in periodicals and collateral literature; she watches also for contemporary secular material which may be of value to us. Mr. Prescott Rogers who has an especial interest in the history, language and culture of the Middle East is quietly working on our behalf. The museum is, of course, deeply interested in, and supportive of, the proposed archeological 'dig' in the Holly Land which the Academy plans to par-ticipate in, with support from the Carpenter Fellowship.

        In the matter of supporting Academy courses we have been less active and less successful. We hope to do more to involve [the faculty in our work and to make our-selves available to the faculty in their various courses. This must come.

        We have made significant progress in the [matter of identifying, cataloging and displaying our collections.  These have to be handled a section at a time and as expert help becomes available to us. We have made a real beginning with the medieval collection as a result of an enquiry from Professor Walter Cahn of Yale University. He has now publishedtwenty-five of our Romanesque pieces in Gesta, the organ of the International Center of Medieval Art. This means that these pieces have been identified and described for us and we are in the process of numbering and cataloging them. Professor Cahn has helped us identify about another twenty-five pieces and we hope that shortly Mr. William H. Forsythe, recently of the Metropolitan Museum of New York and
now retired at Princeton, will serve us in a similar way for our gothic pieces. We may then be able to complete the catalog of the whole medieval section by the end of the summer -- a real achievement.

        We have a post-graduate student from the University of Pennsylvania who is willing, indeed anxious, to work on our collection of North American artifacts -- arrowheads, etc. Mrs. Feodor Pitcairn is very interested in this section and has offered to help. This will lead to proper cataloging and storage, as well as the design of a display which we hope will be of real interest to our schools.

        This summer we plan to catalog the whole New Church section which includes vestments, art objects, and historical memorabilia. Miss Elaine Cooper has kindly agreed to help us with the jewelry and would be interested to hear from anybody who has class rings, pins or other insignia.

        Periodically we find ourselves acting as detectives in trying to track down the origin, provenance and history of a particular piece which has perhaps caught the eye of one of us or of some expert visiting our museum -- this with most interesting results.

        The Museum Association with about 125 members has again been active, and serves as a powerful supportive influence to those of us who are in daily contact with the museum's work. This year its activities have included: a visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, for a conducted tour of the Johnson Collection of XVII century paintings; a very successful dinner at which we reported to the association and at which a few short presentations were made by members of the Museum Committee; a very enjoyable trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, to have a conducted tour of the outstanding exhibit of early Christian art; a visit to the Barnes Museum, Merion; a lecture by Mr. Kent Junge on the representation of the Lord in art, which brought an excellent Attendance and a most stimulating discussion; and finally, the opening of the newly arranged medieval collection when Professor Cahn spoke to us in a charming and instructive way about a number of our Romanesque pieces. We urge all to come and see this new display. We are greatly indebted to Miss Martha Gyllenhaal who spent a great deal of time and trouble to make this collection attractive and easy to enjoy. You will not recognize it.

        We continue to issue three numbers a year of the Academy Museum Notes to members of the association. This always contains informative, stimulating and varied material -- a publication of which we are very proud. You should not be missing it.

        We are sometimes asked if we are taking steps to add to our collections. We do, of course, periodically receive important ad-ditions by way of gifts. Further we have now] established an Acquisitions Fund, supported in part by contributions made by members of the association. We are prepared to use this fund as opportunity arises, but we are mindful of the fact that we need to know ours collections well so as to be aware of areas of weakness. We must use our slim resources where there is the most need.

Martin Pryke, Director