Director's Letter
I have worked at Pomona now for more than three years, but in several ways this past year feels like my first. I expect that many of the students, parents, friends, and colleagues in our community have similarly experienced the dislocating expansion and contraction of time since 2020. But I鈥檓 happy to report that in the fiscal year now closing, we have officially seen our first full year of museum operation鈥攖he retirement of our COVID reservation system, the lifting of masking requirements for indoor activities, the diminishing sense that any plan made could be canceled or postponed.
With lighter hearts and less anxious minds, our museum team threw itself into a year that was brimming with exhibitions, programs, and academic activities. We presented a record ten exhibitions, bringing us from twentieth鈥慶entury United States to sixteenth鈥慶entury Germany to eighteenth鈥慶entury South America, all firmly anchored in our engagement with contemporary issues and the art of our own time. We developed a campus鈥慴ased public art installation that emerged from a first-year interdisciplinary seminar on public art, monuments, and monumentality. We organized events for both our campus community and general public featuring student art markets, live performances, artist talks, and scholarly colloquia. We instituted a weekly gallery talk series, and we developed our summer film screening program. Our number of class visits to exhibitions and collections grew to more than one hundred distinct engagements, with new academic departments and new local partners exploring our resources for the first time. We鈥檝e been busy! While it has been great fun, we also discovered some limits in terms of the number of things we want to do in a given year.
Last year we published our strategic directives in these pages, and this year we have fleshed out our strategic plan. As the new location and design of our beautiful building indicate, we are becoming a more public鈥慺acing, transparent, and year鈥憆ound operation, though we still have considerable work ahead to fully elevate and activate the visitor experience we offer while reinforcing the culture of openness, empathy, and belonging that we want to foster.
An area of our strategic growth that gives me special joy is how our collections and exhibitions continue to inform one another. The spaces of our new building鈥攕pecifically the classrooms and their adjacent vaults鈥攈ave transformed our ability to utilize the collections in our care. As associate director/registrar Steve Comba has been pleased to observe this spring, each of our galleries includes work from our permanent collections, whether exclusively or alongside loans from other institutions and private collections.
Also related to our collections is the fact that we are arriving at the end of a two鈥憏ear federal grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), which has allowed us to dramatically expand the quality and quantity of collections鈥憆elated information in our database. With two months still left of the grant period, we have added 2,568 object records and 13,338 new photographs, and even performed and entered 7,848 new object measurements鈥攁long with other equally astounding metrics. We have also incorporated the expertise of several specialists across a variety of fields to enhance our understanding of the strength of specific areas of the collections. These efforts have been led by our collection manager, Karen Hudson, whose full鈥憈ime work has been made possible by this grant.
In the next year, we鈥檒l be moving forward with our efforts to enact our strategic plan; you can see on the following pages the great strides we have already made in Phase 1 to become the institution we鈥檇 like to be: welcoming, provocative, engaging and engaged, service鈥憃riented, and continuously informed by contemporary experience.
Strategic Directives
Our strategic planning process began in September 2021 and was led by Paul Ingram, the Kravis Professor of Business at the Columbia Business School. Over that academic year, Benton staff and stakeholders鈥攊ncluding Trustee Janet Benton 鈥79, Pomona president G. Gabrielle Starr, and student interns鈥 met regularly to determine our individual and institutional values, our collective vision for the future, and the strategic directives that would lead us forward. We completed our strategic plan in June 2022 and then worked together to determine the steps and milestones necessary to achieve the goals set out in that plan. Here鈥檚 our progress report for the period of July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023.
Elevate and activate visitor experience
Conducted visitor assessment. Who are our visitors?
Determined staffing and operational needs for Visitor Services
Experimented with weekly and monthly community programming (Gallery Talks, Salon Series)
Consider a broad set of faculty and students in all museum activities
Created print鈥憃n鈥慸emand publication authored by students and faculty
Brought visiting specialists and artists to internship program
Assessed and targeted the range of disciplines that intersect with scheduled and prospective exhibitions
Established regular communication with faculty about upcoming exhibitions and programs
Participated in ID1 faculty training
Taught interdisciplinary classes and provided interdisciplinary programming
Maximize student voice
Gave students the opportunity to feature in and lead gallery talk series
Trained students to serve as 鈥渁mbassadors鈥
Piloted student advisory council
Assessed presence of student voice in communication channels (i.e., bi鈥憌eekly newsletter, social media, and other communication streams)
Continued with student鈥慶urated/co鈥慶urated exhibitions
Piloted additional vertical K鈥12 programs led and developed by students
Inspire a Benton culture of openness, empathy, and belonging
Brought staff together in casual gatherings in a way that the pandemic did not allow
Completed staff handbook through collaborative process
Planned and executed a multi鈥慸ay offsite retreat for staff
Align collections and exhibitions with needs of community and contemporary issues
Launched IMLS project to improve collection data
Developed regular engagement with Native communities
Continued pursuing exhibitions that are deeply informed by contemporary issues
Provided diversity in terms of exhibitions type (range of subject matter and material type)
Created new innovative collection publication
Exhibitions
Christina Fernandez: Under the Sun
August 24鈥揇ecember 18, 2022
Fernandez鈥檚 practice, rooted in research and archival material, uses a documentary aesthetic to combine the personal with the historical. Here she presented several of her photography-based installations in conversation with works she selected from the Benton鈥檚 collection. Through this dialogue, Fernandez explored concepts of borders, boycotts, climate justice, landscapes, Mexican identity, and the personal costs of modern comforts. Christina Fernandez was one of a series of exhibitions in which contemporary artists engage the Benton鈥檚 holdings.
Christina Fernandez with Rebecca McGrew, senior curator, and Nicolas Orozco鈥慥aldivia, curatorial assistant
Support for this exhibition was provided by the Pasadena Art Alliance.
Kameelah Janan Rasheed: Worshipping at the Altar of Certainty: 1985
August 24鈥揇ecember 18, 2022
Rasheed 鈥06 is a learner who uses a wide range of artistic practices and materials, including sprawling Xerox鈥慴ased installations, large鈥憇cale diagrammatic prints, public art, publications, video, and the vagaries of chance. This site鈥憇pecific installation drew on the work of scholars Ashon Crawley and Saidiya Hartman to challenge the ideals of comprehensiveness and familiarity characteristic of academic institutions. The exhibition consisted of fragmented texts, wall drawings, framed prints, and the new video work Keeping Count, all of which disrupted conventional models of learning and instead invited unexpected connections and resonances.
Rebecca McGrew, senior curator, and Nicolas Orozco鈥慥aldivia, curatorial assistant, with Sam Yin Ying Chan 鈥22 and Madeleine Mount鈥慍ors 鈥23. Originally organized by Mallory Cohen, Nidhi Gandhi, Elyse Mack, and Sinclair Spratley for the Williams College Museum of Art.
This exhibition was supported by the Eva Cole and Clyde Matson Memorial Fund and by the Art Acquisitions and Programs Fund.
Wardell Milan: Recent Work
October 8, 2022鈥揓une 25, 2023
The Benton featured new work by Wardell Milan in five monumental billboards across Pomona鈥檚 campus and four large works on paper in the museum鈥檚 entrance. The billboards鈥5 Indices on a Tortured Body, the artist鈥檚 first outdoor campus鈥慴ased project鈥攐ffered a sustained meditation on the marginalized body, with one billboard each for the quarantine body, the Black male body, the migrant body, the female body, and the trans body. The works on view in the entrance employed multiple techniques of image鈥憁aking to disassemble and reassemble the human form.
Victoria Sancho Lobis, Sarah Rempel and Herbert S. Rempel 鈥23 Director
The billboard installation was made possible by the Fund for Art in Public Places and by the Art Acquisitions and Programs Fund.
Captured Vision: Optics in Early Modern European Art
November 12, 2022鈥揗arch 26, 2023
The result of the seminar Physics 16: The Art and Science of Optics, this exhibition showcased an array of inventions that grew out of the lively interchange between art and science from 1500 to 1800 in Europe: perspectival treatises, anamorphic prints, peep or perspective boxes, paintings, puzzles, instructional manuals, and even a camera obscura specially constructed at the Benton. The exhibition was augmented by presentations of contemporary artists Sheila Pinkel and Abelardo Morell, both of whom continue such explorations of vision and perspective.
Victoria Sancho Lobis, Sarah Rempel and Herbert S. Rempel 鈥23 Director; Frances Sutton 鈥22; Noor Tamari 鈥22; and Dwight L. Whitaker, professor of physics; with contributions from members of Physics 16: The Art and Science of Optics
Support for this exhibition was provided by a grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation; additional support was provided by the Eva Cole and Clyde Matson Memorial Fund.
Gilded, Carved, and Embossed: Latin American Art, 1500鈥1800 / Dorado, Tallado y Embellecido: El Arte Latinoamericano de 1500鈥1800
February 22鈥揓uly 23, 2023
The centuries of European rule in Latin America saw the emergence of new artistic styles in which Indigenous visual cultures met Catholic iconography and representational practices. Through more than 20 paintings and sculptures, many graciously lent to the Benton by the Carl and Marilynn Thoma Foundation, this bilingual exhibition emphasized the inventive flair and dazzling materiality of the work of Latin American artists who depicted complex social and political dynamics in a broad range of techniques.
Victoria Sancho Lobis, Sarah Rempel and Herbert S. Rempel 鈥23 Director, with contributions by Sabina Eastman PZ 鈥23, Elisabeth Lootus 鈥25, Alexa Ramirez 鈥23, and Claire Nettleton, academic curator.
Support for this exhibition was provided by the Eva Cole and Clyde Matson Memorial Fund and by The Rembrandt Club of 色中色 and Claremont.
Transmissions, or these histories we lest not forget
February 8鈥揓uly 23, 2023
Transmissions was organized to celebrate the Benton鈥檚 acquisition of contemporary artist Cauleen Smith鈥檚 film Sojourner (2018) and her works on paper Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route (2019) and In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (2019). The exhibition offered a selection of works by Black women artists that combine the deeply personal and spiritual with collective liberation work; together with Smith, Madeleine Hunt鈥慐hrlich and Sophia Nahli Allison render history and potential futures that, if heeded, can prove instructive as we chart paths forward.
Jheanelle Brown, guest curator
Night Contains Multitudes
February 8鈥揓uly 23, 2023
The night鈥攙elvety, fraught, imperceptible, inevitable鈥攈as been a subject for artists across all times and places. This exhibition drew deeply on the Benton鈥檚 collection to bring together works by more than 50 artists who explored the vast territory of the night. Installed to move the viewer from the hours after sunset to the moments just before dawn, Night Contains Multitudes reveled in the many interpretations of the night: a time of fear and energy, contemplation and abandon, the natural and the supernatural.
Solomon Salim Moore, assistant curator of collections
Michael Menchaca: La Raza C贸smica 20XX
April 13鈥揓uly 23, 2023
A new acquisition by the Benton, the sixteen prints that make up La Raza C贸smica 20XX reinterpret the racial hierarchies codified by the infamous casta paintings created in colonial鈥慹ra Mexico. But instead of painting, Menchaca screenprinted each composition with a strict palette that alludes to primary and secondary class status in the caste system, and they included evocations of modern鈥慸ay tech corporations that call out new forms of colonization and the exploitation of individual autonomy.
Interpretive text by Alexa Ramirez 鈥23
Stanton Macdonald鈥慦right: Creation in Three Lines
April 19鈥揓uly 23, 2023
Late in his career, Macdonald鈥慦right created a portfolio of twenty illustrations to accompany his selection of haiku by six Japanese master practitioners of the haikai no renga form. This exhibition featured this Haiga Portfolio, abstract woodblock prints of landscapes both violent and serene, animals large and small, and people in the heights and depths of their emotions. Traversing the boundaries between abstraction and representation, Macdonald鈥慦right鈥檚 portfolio was a gift to the Benton from the Stanton and Jean Sutton Macdonald鈥慦right Estate.
Max Uehara 鈥25
Unsettled Landscapes
April 19鈥揓uly 23, 2023
For the second year, the Benton organized and hosted the AllPaper Seminar, a program to encourage a diverse cohort of emerging professionals to study works on paper. One project that emerged from last year鈥檚 seminar was Unsettled Landscapes, which challenged the romanticized notion of landscapes as harmonious and serene, and instead asked viewers to consider the tensions that simmer particularly in representations of the American West. These lithographs and linocuts selected from the Benton鈥檚 collection communicate themes of uneasiness, restlessness, and isolation, and explore such opposing motifs as motion and stagnation, desert and sea, and the natural and the manmade.
Max Otake PZ 鈥22
Publications
In April 2023, the Benton published its first collection catalogue in more than 40 years. In Here: Conversations on Solitude was a collaborative effort that paired works of art from the college鈥檚 collection with more than 60 members of the Pomona community, including administrators, staff, faculty, alumni, and current students. In Here was made possible in large part by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services that allowed us to add thousands of new object records and photographs to our collections database鈥攚hich in turn made our collections more discoverable and more readily accessible for such projects.
A meditation on what we learned and experienced during the COVID鈥19 pandemic, In Here is structured as an encyclopedia, with selections from the collection accompanied by entries for every letter of the alphabet. These entries range from thoughtful essays to original works of art, poetry, and even a recipe or two. Designed to showcase the talents of the Pomona community, In Here is lavishly produced, provocative, and a creative reflection on the allure and hazards of solitude, as fundamental to the self as social networks and companionship.
Contributors
Konrad Aguilar, Ellie Anderson, Catherine Arias, Lisa Anne Auerbach, Janet Inskeep Benton, Sarah Burch, Steve Comba, Kevin Dettmar, Caroline Eastburn, J Finley, Judy Fiskin, Nidhi Gandhi, Heidi C. Gearhart, Glenn Gillespie, Ananya Goel, Lucy Onderwyzer Gold, Jo Hardin, Marjorie L. Harth, Erin Hogan, Kathleen Stewart Howe, Amaud Jamaul Johnson, Gizem Karaali, Nina J. Karnovsky, Mustafa Khayam, Arash Khazeni, Jonathan Lethem, Tom Lin, Victoria Sancho Lobis, Rebecca McGrew, Elena Izcalli Medina, Miriam Merrill, Char Miller, Solomon Salim Moore, Jorge Moreno, Sandeep Mukherjee, Nilofar Naraghi, Joanne Randa Nucho, Steven Osorio, Coco Percival, Haakon Pihlaja, Carolyn Ratteray, Caress Reeves, Meranda Roberts, Rosal铆a Romero, Hector L. Sambolin Jr., Tom谩s F. Summers Sandoval Jr., Gibb Schreffler, Michelle Schultz, Sydney Seymour, Prageeta Sharma, Cherene Sherrard鈥慗ohnson, Natalie Slater, Adam Starr, G. Gabrielle Starr, Noor Tamari, Max Uehara, Dwight L. Whitaker, Kara Wittman, Ken Wolf, Yuqing Melanie Wu, Becky Zhang
Project Team
Editor: Erin Hogan
Manager: Stephanie Emerson
Coordinator: Noor Tamari
Copy editing: Stephanie Emerson and Erin Hogan
Collection data coordinators: Steve Comba and Karen Hudson
Photo editor: Caroline Eastburn
Design: Amy McFarland, Clean(Slate)Design, Los Angeles
Color separations and printing: Cantz, Raff & Wurzel Druck GmbH, Germany
Acquisitions
851 total objects acquired in 2022
1 Decorative Arts Object, 1 Book, 2 Films, 6 Sculptures, 9 Tools/Instruments, 11 Paintings, 45 Prints and Drawings, 776 Photographs
Featured Acquisitions
Rose B. Simpson
Sip, 2022 Mixed media 49 脳 13 脳 11 in. (124.46 脳 33.02 脳 27.94 cm) Restricted gift of Janet Inskeep Benton 鈥79 P2023.8.1
In 2016, the Benton presented Rose B. Simpson: Ground, an exhibition that integrated the artist鈥檚 monumental clay sculptures with Pomona鈥檚 collection of Native American art. Now this restricted gift from Janet Benton extends the legacy of that exhibition and adds another work by a contemporary Native artist to the collection.
Protest Photography
Unknown photographer, An enraged University of Wisconsin student yells at police after they used clubs and tear gas to break up an anti鈥憌ar protest, Madison, October 18, 1969 Vintage ferrotyped gelatin silver print on paper 10 鈪 脳 8 in. (25.7 脳 20.3 cm) Restricted gift of Michael Mattis and Judy Hochberg P2022.18.9
This year longtime Benton supporters Michael Mattis and Judy Hochberg gifted the museum with a trove of 527 press photographs that document protest movements in the United States in the tumultuous period of the 1960s and 1970s, including the Kent State protests, the Chicago 7, and a range of actions in Cuba.
Diane Arbus
Woman in a negligee with ducks, N.Y.C., 1966, printed 1966鈥1967Gelatin silver print on paper 6 11鈦16 脳 6 7鈦16 in. (16.99 脳 16.35 cm)Gift of Jeffrey Fraenkel & Frish BrandtP2022.29.7
One of the most important twentieth鈥慶entury photographers, Diane Arbus is known for her depictions of the uncanny and unsettling. The Benton can now include Arbus as part of its already strong holdings in photography thanks to this generous gift of several lifetime and estate prints from the Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco.
Manuel L贸pez
Twenty Twenty Still Life, 2020 Graphite, color pencil, and watercolor on Bristol board 23 戮 脳 19 in. (60.33 脳 48.26 cm) Art Acquisitions and Programs Fund P2022.22.1
We are very pleased to be developing a collaboration with L贸pez, which is now marked by our first acquisition of his work. He shared his passion for and knowledge of drawing with us as a participant in the first two years of the AllPaper Seminar.
Lucas Cranach the Elder
A Lady and Gentleman Riding to the Hunt, 1506 Woodcut on paper16 15鈦16 脳 4 13鈦16 in. (43.02 脳 12.22 cm) Art Acquisitions and Programs FundP2022.12.1
Lucas Cranach the Elder was one of the most intriguing image makers of the early modern period. This courtly scene is an unusual example of a secular subject that opens discussions of leisure, gender, and landscape, while also shaping a historical context for the Benton鈥檚 deep collection ofmodern German woodblock prints.
Engagement
Academic Engagement by Claire Nettleton
The Benton hosted a landmark 103 class visits this year: 100 college鈥憀evel class visits from Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Pomona, Pitzer, Scripps, and Claremont Graduate University (for a total of 98 visits from the 7Cs); the University of La Verne (1); and Mount San Antonio College (1). We even hosted high鈥憇chool students from The Webb Schools (2 class visits) and Claremont High School (1 visit).
Over the year we worked with faculty from 25 distinct fields, including Japanese, Africana studies, economics, psychology, literature, and religion. Artists Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Wardell Milan, and Christina Fernandez participated in a black鈥慳nd鈥憌hite photography seminar; the Captured Vision exhibition served as a laboratory for math students analyzing perspective; and American studies and gender studies classes considered questions of representation posed by Transmissions. In addition to our work in specific exhibitions, we also integrated objects from our collection into curricula across the college鈥攆rom wire photography in history courses to Sue Coe prints in ID1 Science: The Public鈥檚 Health.
This year we were also able to launch a weekly in鈥憄erson gallery talk series (20鈥憁inute informal talks by staff, students, and faculty) and the monthly Salon Series, a discussion of works from the permanent collection 鈥渧aults鈥 selected by Benton interns and assistant curator of collections Solomon Salim Moore.
Student-Centered Programming by Justine Bae Bias
What differentiates an initiative as student鈥慶entered when students are at the heart of everything we do at the Benton? As a teaching museum, we strive to extend the process of learning beyond academics and provide students opportunities for leadership, networking, creating, and service through the visual arts during a very memorable and formative time in their lives.
This year, inspired by artworks in exhibitions and collections, students led the charge in welcoming master altaristas Ofelia Esparza and Rosanna Esparza Ahrens for an altar鈥慴uilding workshop, planting a Native Demonstration Garden in our courtyard, coordinating several 5C student art markets and a Latinx student creatives showcase at The Claremont Colleges, planning a workshop on sexual communication鈥攁nd more. Another noteworthy initiative was the creation of a Student Advisory Council that met regularly to consider how the Benton can further engage students across the consortium. With growing interest from students and 5C student groups, we will be starting a 5C Museum of Art club to maximize student voice and deepen student engagement both at the Benton and at arts venues nearby.
Partners:
The Claremont Colleges: 5C Art for Liberation, 5C Korean Student Association, Catalyst Collective, Chicano Latino Student Affairs, Health Education Outreach, The Hive, Queer Resource Center, Shogo Taiko, 色中色, Academic Affairs Office, Art History Department, Asian American Resource Center, Career Development Office, Division of Student Affairs, KSPC 88.7 FM, LatinX Alliance, Music Department, Office of Alumni & Family Engagement, Oldenborg Center for Global Engagement, Pacific Basin Institute, Physics & Astronomy Department, Politics Department, Studio Art Department, Title IX & Campus Advocacy, Resources, Education and Support (CARES), West African Music Ensemble, Scripps College, Caf茅 con Leche, EmPOWER Center
Other: Folk Music Center Museum and Store, Latinx Student Union, Pitzer College, Mi Gente, Claremont McKenna College, Visual AIDS
Community Programs by Justine Bae Bias and Rich Deely
Building on the success of last year鈥檚 initial efforts, we launched a Community Arts Engagement (CAE) initiative for the academic year. Supported by interns Maelvi Nunez 鈥22 and Nina Owen 鈥25, we envisioned the CAE as a way to introduce the Benton to groups who might not regularly have access to an art museum. We first identified possible community partners and then hosted members of Gente Organizada and the School of Arts and Enterprise of Pomona onsite, along with members of the Claremont鈥慴ased nonprofits Claremont Canopy and Uncommon Good.
We moved forward with creating a school鈥憌ide intern presentation and family handout for the School of Arts and Enterprise鈥檚 鈥淪chool as a Whole鈥 event at the middle school campus in Pomona (February); planting a demonstration garden in the museum鈥檚 courtyard for the upcoming Cahuilla basketry exhibition Continuity with members of 色中色鈥檚 Organic Farm, the Draper Center鈥檚 Eco Mentors, Uncommon Good鈥檚 Team Green youth program, and Pomona鈥檚 Sustainability Office鈥檚 EcoReps (March); and organizing a mentor/mentee event in the Benton galleries featuring art activities and a scavenger hunt鈥搒tyle 鈥檢ine to serve college students who sponsor Uncommon Good youth (March). Later in the spring, the CAE team, working with the Muslim Student Association, hosted the Benton鈥檚 second annual 鈥淚ftar in a Jar鈥 event, which brings together students of all backgrounds to create art and care packages for observant Claremont Canopy refugee families breaking their Ramadan fast (April). To conclude the year, in May the Benton staff hosted all Claremont Canopy鈥搒ponsored families for a special evening to view our spring exhibitions, make art, and enjoy homemade desserts and one another鈥檚 company. 鈥淭he May event has to be my favorite event with Canopy ever. I received messages from our families from seven different countries, saying how thrilled they were,鈥 said Christy Anderson, the director of Claremont Canopy.
In reflecting on her work for the year, intern Nina said that she was proud to be part of the CAE, which 鈥渙ffered a unique opportunity to gain hands鈥憃n experience in arts鈥慴ased community engagement.鈥
Partners:
The Arts Area, Claremont Canopy, Draper Center for Community Partnerships, 色中色, McAlister Center for Religious Activities, Claremont McKenna College, Muslim Student Association of The Claremont Colleges, 色中色 Organic Farm, Print Pomona Art Book Fair, The School of Arts and Enterprise, Sustainability Office鈥檚 EcoReps, 色中色, Uncommon Good
Impact
Visitors by Nilofar Naraghi and Caroline Eastburn
"It is so important to me to have a free resource to educate and expose my children to. I have an 8 year old and he thoroughly enjoys walking through this museum sometimes on a whim after school." 鈥擟omment from visitor survey
For the first time since the completion of our new building, we were able to fully open the museum to visitors: no reservations, no pandemic restrictions, and as always free to all. Now that we are able to welcome visitors in a steady stream, we鈥檙e also able to start collecting information to help us better serve them. We began tracking visitation patterns to better schedule events, programs, and staffing, and we also trained Museum Ambassadors to conduct brief surveys with our visitors so we can gain a better understanding of our audiences. Those surveys, which began in the spring semester, are providing insights into who comes to the Benton, why they visit the museum, and how we can improve the visitor experience.
As the new museum building was being completed in 2020, we overhauled and enhanced the Benton鈥檚 website, including shoring up the back鈥慹nd architecture to better measure our website traffic and visitation patterns. We also increased our social media presence, which has continued to grow over the past year. Analyzing our digital visitors helps us determine what our audiences already know, what information they鈥檙e looking for, and where there鈥檚 an opportunity to educate them.
Total Visitation: 12,812 (Public hours only, excludes class visits and special events)
Digital Visitors: Website Visitors: 51,936 (up 269% from last year), Web Pageviews: 117,866 (up 220%), Instagram Reach: 33,514 (up 181.8%), Instagram Followers: 3,389 (up 12.8%)
Education Outreach by Rich Deely
This year, we increased the number of our Education Outreach interns to better accommodate a new program. To complement our existing elementary program built around our Native American Collection Study Center (NACSC), we launched a Pilot Education Program (PEP) to increase access to other collections and for additional grade levels. Given the level of intern interest in both programs, associate director/registrar Steve Comba and I created a 鈥渟uper鈥慻roup鈥 of five interns to assist us in implementing NACSC/PEP.
The combined team of interns met regularly and spent the fall learning and improving the existing NACSC lessons. They also created proposals for projects based on curriculum requests from teachers at our pilot partner school, Oakmont, and then taught pilot lessons to 180 students during the spring semester, covering such topics as the changing California landscape, questions of identity using portraiture, and the representation of animals. And teachers took note. Oakmont teacher Emilia Marquez exclaimed: 鈥淪hout out to the wonderful interns for making lessons student鈥慺riendly, engaging, and meaningful.鈥
"These educational initiatives are an important part of what we do: bringing our collections to life through activities led or co鈥憈aught by college students, who are this institution鈥檚 future and who breathe their enthusiasm and fresh perspective into all we have to offer.
It has truly been one of the highlights of my sophomore year of college. The larger group setting played a crucial role in building comfort and confidence in teaching and lesson plan development." 鈥 Jasmine Holt 鈥25, intern
"I learned that there is a gem called turquoise, people weave baskets out of grass, and that babies were carried by cradleboards." 鈥 Samantha Orr, third grader Sycamore School Upland
9 Schools served with multi鈥憊isit lessons, 180 Students served with new Pilot Education Program, 2,331 Total K鈥12 students served
Intern Programs by Claire Nettleton
The Benton Intern Program continues to thrive this year as 42 paid students studied and helped strengthen nearly all facets of our operations. Our museum team generously served as mentors to these students, who also participated in the Benton鈥檚 biweekly professional development program initiated in 2020. This objectives鈥慴ased program seeks to sharpen reading, writing, research, and communication skills while exposing students to multiple areas of museum work through presentations by professionals.
This year, students met with such speakers as guest curator Jheanelle Brown and Frida Cano, director of residencies at the 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica. Guided by Benton staff, students co鈥慶reated exhibitions, developed programs, hosted and gave gallery talks, researched permanent collection material, presented works for the Salon Series, liaised with community partners, created publications, taught K鈥12 classes, and presented their very impressive projects at the end of the school year. They also helped research emerging artists for upcoming exhibitions and participated in studio visits. Our student ambassadors helped improve the visitor experience by serving as liaisons between the museum and the public as well as conducting our first visitor surveys. Additionally, several student ambassadors met with artist Wardell Milan and gave short public speeches on his billboard series 5 Indices on a Tortured Body.
Internships at the Benton Museum of Art are made possible by the Josephine Bump 鈥76 Curatorial Intern Fund; the Getty Marrow Undergraduate Internship Program; the June Harwood Charitable Trust; the Graham 鈥淏ud鈥 鈥55 and Mary Ellen 鈥56 Kilsby Endowment for Student Interns; the Edwin A. and Margaret K. Phillips Fund; and the 色中色 Operating Budget.
We were also able to offer our first 鈥渆xternship鈥 to Max Uehara 鈥25, who was awarded a week in residence at the New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut. This application鈥慴ased program is supported by the Josephine Bump 鈥76 Curatorial Intern Fund.
AllPaper Seminar by Solomon Salim Moore
This year we hosted our second annual AllPaper Seminar. Funded by the Getty Foundation, this professional development program is designed to introduce graduate students and young professionals from all backgrounds to the field of works on paper. We focused this year on drawings, and after a two鈥慸ay introductory session in April, twelve fellows from across the American Southwest arrived on campus for their intensive residency. Their task was to delve deep and study the numerous drawings within our collections. Their research would take them into the special collections at the Honnold/Mudd and Denison libraries (The Claremont Colleges and Scripps, respectively); the vaunted study rooms and laboratories of the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens; and the historic Charles White Archives in the hills of Altadena.
In addition to learning drawing vocabulary like sanguine chalk, frottage, stumping, wash, and iron gall ink, and the differences between laid and wove papers, our cohort participated in a hands鈥憃n workshop to gain a feel for the variety of drawing materials and their applications. Our very own associate director/registrar Steve Comba surprised the cohort with a gift of silverpoint drawing styli for each of our fellows to take home.
Another special surprise was the participation of Jack Shear, a drawings collector and executive director of the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation, invigorated this year鈥檚 AllPaper Seminar by lending some 100 drawings from his personal collection, including those by such legendary artists as Guercino, Philip Guston, and Lee Bontecou, among many others.
These sessions are always a highlight of the year for us. Learning and discovering from such a wide variety of established professionals鈥攁nd getting to see the riches of so many collections鈥攊s energizing and inspiring, leading us to look forward once again to next year鈥檚 鈥渁rt camp.鈥
Highlights of the AllPaper 2023 Itinerary: Drawings of Frederick Hammersley, Materials and Techniques Review, Honnold/Mudd Special Collections, Denison Library Special Collections, Eighteenth鈥慍entury British Drawings at the Huntington, Paper Conservation at the Huntington, American Decorative Arts at the Huntington, Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Jack Shear Collection