"Small Wonders from the American Collections" Exhibition

Brooklyn Museum

This event has ended.

This special exhibition celebrates a major new installation in the Luce Center for American Art: Visible Storage ▪ Study Center that gives the public access to more than 350 additional objects from the Museum’s collections. Since its opening in January 2005, the Luce Visible Storage ▪ Study Center has housed approximately 2,100 objects in two types of storage units: vitrined cases and paintings screens. The facility also contains forty-two drawers for storage. Beginning in mid-October and in stages over subsequent months, they will be filled with works from the Museum’s renowned American holdings and opened to the public. Once the drawers are full, the number of objects on view in visible storage will rise to 2,500—an increase of almost 20 percent.

The drawers’ contents will encompass a variety of objects from the Americas—including art of the United States as well as of the indigenous and colonial peoples of North and South America—and dating from the pre-Columbian period to the present day. Although the works range widely in terms of medium, date, function, and geographical origin, they do share a diminutive scale and suitability for flat storage. Among the objects that will be installed in the drawers are: American and Hopi ceramic tiles; Mexican pottery stamps; jewelry and other ornaments from Native and South American cultures; Modernist jewelry; silverplated flatware and serving pieces; Spanish Colonial devotional objects; American portrait and mourning miniatures; commemorative medals; and embroidery. As in other sections of the Luce Visible Storage ▪ Study Center, objects in the drawers are densely installed to maximize the available space and are grouped by type, medium, or culture. Visitors can learn more about the works by using one of the nearby computer kiosks in the facility, or by accessing the Luce database online. To obtain a list of a drawer’s entire contents, use the Map feature and select numbers 41 through 47.

[image: Unknown Artist, "Fan"(1822–31) Ivory sticks and painted paper mount, Cortesy of Brooklyn Museum; Gift of Millicent V. Hearst]

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Schedule

from October 15, 2008 to June 28, 2009

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