Page 30 - Life In Naples Magazine - November 2015

599 NINTH STREET NORTH SUITE 309 | NAPLES, FL 34102 | 239.261.2637

ASK THE ARTSPERTS MUSEUM LOANS www.harmonmeek.com
by Juliana Meek and Kristine Meek

Dear Artspert:

Traveling this summer I visited my daughter and son-in-law in
Pennsylvania and saw the Eliot O’Hara watercolor exhibition “The
Ring of Fire” at the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art in Loretto,
Pennsylvania. We were surprised to see that the exhibition was on loan
from Naples, Florida. How do museums arrange for exhibitions from your
gallery?

Signed,

Night at the Museum

Dear Night at the Museum,
Museum personnel have a few options when planning their museum

exhibitions.They can mount shows from their own permanent collections, visit with museum personnel outside the state with thoughts of

invite single artists to provide exhibitions from his/her studio and/or loaning exhibitions of the gallery’s numerous American masters

collectors who own that artist’s works, book in traveling exhibitions such to those museums.

as the Smithsonian’s variety of offerings, create their own exhibitions So far, we have loaned more than 225 exhibitions at more

of a certain theme by borrowing extensively from collectors and other than 90 museums in 27 states from coast to coast. Aside from

museums; or loan exhibitions from sales galleries/art dealers. the exhibition of Eliot O’Hara in Pennsylvania, this past summer

From the standpoint of our own gallery, Harmon-Meek, we have we loaned exhibitions of Bob Kane, Byron Browne, John Baeder,

viewed the loaning of exhibitions as a win-win-win. It serves the greater Richard Haas, Tobi Kahn, and Hunt Slonem to museums in

public, promotes our artists and the gallery, as well as a service to our Ohio, Florida, and South Carolina.

clients and artists. In 1980 Federal grants to museums were slashed by At this time the Melvin & Burks Galleries at Florida

50% and while this affected all museums, it hurt the regional and smaller Southern College in Lakeland is hosting a Robert Vickrey

museums the most significantly as the federal grants amounted to a memorial retrospective with 55 paintings dating from 1958 to

larger percentage of their annual budgets. At the same time our father 2011 curated by William Meek from the estate of the artist,

decided that the summer off-season in Naples was also a great time to various collectors, and the Golisano Children’s Museum of

Naples. The works needed to be assembled, photographed,

inventoried, wrapped in plastic, micro foam, and cardboard, and

then shipped using Murray Art Move of Naples to Lakeland

where the museum staff installed the exhibition. Our gallery

also provided wall descriptions about the artist’s various subjects,

mediums, and techniques. Juliana led a “walking docent tour” of

the exhibition on September 11th as well.

To better promote our loan program, our father held a booth

featuring all the museum exhibitions he can curate for museums

of gallery artists at the national American Alliance of Museums

convention in Atlanta and at the Southeastern Museums

Conference in Jacksonville.

Sincerely,

The Artsperts

PHOTO(S): ROBERT VICKREY PAINTINGS WRAPPED AND
READY FOR SHIPMENT FOR MUSEUM LOAN EXHIBITION

30 Life in Naples | November 2015