Williamstown – The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) proudly presents, Jackson Pollock at Williams College, a unique opportunity to see three of Pollock’s famous “drip†paintings in the Berkshires. These works are extremely fragile, due to the materials with which they were painted, and rarely travel. One of Pollock’s paintings will be coming to the Williamstown Art Conservation Center because it is in need of conservation treatment; the other pieces will be used for purposes of comparison. After the conservation process, the works will hang at WCMA, beginning April 14, 2006.
Jackson Pollock at Williams College will feature Number 2, 1949, from the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute Museum of Art; Number 13A, 1948: Arabesque, from the Yale University Art Gallery; and Number 7, 1950, from New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The exhibition will demonstrate that conservation can shed light on Pollock’s complex “drip-painting†method, choice of unconventional materials, and his stylistic evolution. It also examines the best methods of preserving, authenticating, and experiencing Pollock’s work. The exhibition will also consider Pollock’s use of the “frieze format†for the first time in Pollock scholarship, and how it affects the composition, style, and ultimately, the meaning of those works.
This exhibition is a curatorial collaboration between WCMA’s new director, Lisa Corrin, and Tom Branchick, director of the Williamstown Art Conservation Center. They will be assisted by Jason Vrooman, a Williams graduate student and the Judith M. Lenett Fellow. The Lenett Fellowship is awarded to a graduate art history student to combine a “hands on†conservation treatment and art history research.
Pollock used the same commercially dyed red fabric as a background for both Number. 2, 1949 and Number 13A , 1948: Arabesque. In March, Branchick will remove a consolidant varnish coating that was applied in 1959 by conservators, “with the best of intentions,†from the background of Number. 2, 1949. This coating altered both tone and reflectance of the intended presentation surface. The Yale Pollock, Number 13A , 1948: Arabesque, was never varnished and will serve as the “control†picture from which Branchick and Vrooman can compare and contrast the surfaces of these two works. The two paintings were not made sequentially, so Vrooman will analyze why Pollock decided to again use the red oxide dyed fabric. Number 7, 1950, from the MoMA, was created in a similar style, and will serve as further comparison of Pollock’s unique painting style.
The analysis at the Williamstown Art Conservation Center and the exhibition at WCMA will add to the scholarship of Kirk Varnedoe and Pepe Karmel, who, in 1998, published a pivotal study of Pollock’s work for a major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.
“This is an exceptional opportunity for Williams and for the Berkshires,†stated Lisa Corrin, who came to WCMA this past October to assume the directorship. “We are enormously appreciative of our colleagues at the Williamstown Art Conservation Center, the Munson-Williams Proctor Arts Institute Museum of Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, and MoMA for their help in making this important project a reality and so quickly. How fortunate for our community to have these masterpieces of modern art on display again at WCMA for the first time in over fifty years.â€
In December 1952, critic Clement Greenberg organized A Retrospective Show of the Paintings of Jackson Pollock, a landmark early survey of Pollock’s work dating from 1943-1951, which opened at Bennington College and then traveled to Williams. That exhibition included Autumn Rhythm: Number 30. 1950, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and No. 2, 1949 from the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute Museum of Art, now widely accepted as some of Pollock’s greatest achievements.
Jackson Pollock at Williams College is being organized as a special tribute to Kirk Varnedoe, Williams Class of 1967. Varnedoe was the Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). In addition to organizing MoMA’s groundbreaking Pollock retrospective, he also curated retrospectives of American painters Cy Twombly and Jasper Johns. He taught at the New York Institute of Fine Arts and was awarded a MacArthur “genius†Fellowship in 1984.
"Kirk Varnedoe was an extraordinarily bold and visionary curator of modern art," Williams President Morton Owen Schapiro said. "How appropriate it is, then, to honor him here at the college he loved so dearly with this imaginative and striking exhibition." Friends of Kirk Varnedoe hope to establish a professorship at Williams in his honor. He died of cancer in 2003 at age 57.
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Lanesborough Town Meeting to Vote Budget, Bylaws & Vehicle Purchases
By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — Tuesday's annual town meeting includes a $14 million operating budget, new short-term rentals, accessory dwelling units and sign bylaws, and free cash article appropriations.
Voters will gather at Lanesborough Elementary School on June 9 at 6 p.m. to decide on 20 warrant articles.
The fiscal 2027 budget is up a little over 10 percent. Some of the main increases are the Mount Greylock Regional School District and McCann Technical School: the McCann assessment is up more than 30 percent based on factors including enrollment and the school renovation project, and Mount Greylock's is up 11 percent.
Article 11 is for the town to vote to approve from free cash the sum of $16,298.48 for the McCann Technical School roof and window replacement project so as not to impact the budget. Article 3 is appropriate $7,586,284 for Mount Greylock Regional School assessment.
Another notable increase was in life and health insurance, showing an increase of about 26 percent.
Ambulance Director Jen Weber is planning 24-hour coverage, which means more staff and a hike in her budget. One of the articles asks the town to appropriate $234,100 to operate the Ambulance Enterprise Fund for salaries and expenses.
Many town departments are looking for new vehicles. The Fire Department is looking to replace its outdated 1996 fire engine. There are two articles related to the truck at a total of $813,366. Article 12 would transfer $225,000 from free cash into the Fire Truck Stabilization Fund; Article 13 would transfer $605,000 from the fund and authorize the borrowing of $208,366.08.
The total includes a $100,000 contingency cost to cover any additional costs if a 2026 model-year chassis cannot be secured before new emissions standards go into effect in 2027.
The board at its last meeting moved the $225,000 transfer to come before the borrowing article, changing the stabilization number. If the $225,000 is not voted on, then they will amend the next article's number on the floor, subtracting the $225,000. This shows the borrowing number significantly lower.
Article 17 asks for the transfer of $80,000 from free cash to replace a police cruiser.
Police Chief Rob Derksen's aim is to replace one vehicle every other year, meaning the oldest vehicle gets replaced about every 10 years.
He stressed that if delayed this year, the town may have to double up in a future year to get back on schedule, and that paying later usually costs more. The article will ask for $80,000 from free cash, the vehicles used to be funded by the BHRD.
Lastly, the Highway Department is looking to replace a 2014 International dump truck that will be a total of $330,000 and will take two to three years to receive.
Money will be used from last year's approval of $250,000 from free cash for the replacement of a 2012 highway front-end loader that was underspent $49,261. Town meeting is being asked to approve a transfer of $53,274.85 from free cash and the use of $227,464 from funds from the Sale of Town Real Estate to fund the balance.
Other free cash proposals include $1,200 to purchase software to support tracking and ongoing maintenance schedules of town-owned vehicles; $42,000 for the replacement of the Highway Department's storage shed roof, $200,000 to reduce the tax levy.
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