San Diego Museum Of Art Brings Little-Known Masterpieces Out Of Storage

Art museums are places that collect greater but behind the scenes of everyday Museum are many works of art that big to be displayed but in storage. The San Diego Museum of Art has decided to bring some of these treasures out into the public dry with their new exhibition, "Visible Vaults" procured to tell us what you think just a glimpse is the curator of The San Diego Museum of Art, Michael Brown. Why did the Museum decide to make these works accessible to the public now? At we have about 18,000 objects in our permanent collection ranging from ancient Egypt all the way up to contemporary arts. Many of these works of art are light-sensitive, fragile and cannot be put on view for an extended period of time so we wanted to find a way to increase the number of objects that we could offer to our visitors and one of the ways that we could do that was to re-create our secure storage and our storage vaults which are in the basement of the Museum. Do people actually go into the vaults or is it a re-created vault? We have re-created the vaults in a more aesthetically pleasing manner. Also more visitor friendly but it is -- it has allowed us to get 300 objects out of the storage vaults that normally would stay in dark storage. At some of these items have not been on public display before. How do they get acquired? Is a part of a collection, where they donated? In "Visible Vaults" we are able to highlight a couple of very important to gives that have come into the Museum starting with the beanie collection which came to the museum in 1990 and feature over 1400 paintings from India. We also have a chance to so some works on paper, European engravings from a gift of Norman Lightman and top out there which came to the Museum midnight -- 2005. It can you describe a little bit about the ending paintings? This is a world renowned collection of one of the highlights of the The San Diego Museum of Art. We can only come usually in our galleries only display about one dozen of these paintings at a time and then they have to rotate out. They can only stay on view for about six months. With "Visible Vaults" we had the chance to maintain their light sensitivity and their safety by keeping them in drawers that the public can come in and open themselves so we can meet them on view for much longer. They are a real treasure for San Diego. At this is called an interactive exhibit. How is it interactive? It is interactive in a number of ways. The two galleries that are devoted to "Visible Vaults" feature small-scale sculpture and drawers full of works on paper and photography. There is a sense of discovery and there is also the chance to draw from, for children and adults to draw from works of art at a drawing station where we provide pencils and other materials so they can interact with the works of art. There also some quite well-known artists you of God Andy Warhol, Henry Moore, you've got a lot of good artist. We do. These works of art are really the best that the collection has to offer. We have some wonderful works by Alexander Calder, Henry Moore. We have a new gift from -- a very rare Henry Moore from 1939 and it was a recent gift. It is recently received conservation treatment in England and has just returned and is on view for the very first time. What is the process of taking these from the basement, how are you protecting them while they are on display? One of the things living here in California is everything needs to be earthquake safe so we have mounts makers on staff that build custom mounts for everything when they are installed. We have made the selection as curators but we work as a collaborative team and everything that you see is safely installed in the galleries. How many more pieces of art do have that did not make it into the "Visible Vaults"? Thousands to be honest. I think it is very exciting to be able to open drawers and have the sense of discovery the works of art invisible arts as I said there are 300 of them and they are culturally diverse so there are surprises you might find if you open up a drawer of Japanese woodblock print next to a painting from India or Dutch engravings, connections can be made that might be unexpected. You never know what you will find when you open the drawer. I understand the broad Museum Minelli has opened the actual vaults to visitors. With the Museum in San Diego considering that? This is a growing trend that museums around the world to pull back the curtain and allow visitors to see what happens behind the scenes. On a slightly different subject the Museum of Art has recently acquired a Spanish masterpiece. Tell us about this. This is a world-class painting and it really exciting acquisition that we've been able to make. It was a painting that I was first alerted to by our director minute travel to London to look at the painting for the first time before we asked to the gallery in London to lend us the painting to put in our gallery here in San Diego for a period of a few months so we could do the necessary technical analysis and research to basically do our due diligence on the painting. It is a very exciting acquisition and certainly a world-class painting. Eight as part of a school of paintings at the Museum is particularly interested in right? That is correct. Spanish painting especially the 16th century, 17 century 19th century has been a focus of the Museum since its inception in 1925. If you look at the 1926 façade of the building, there are five Spanish artist that are portrayed, three in full-length standing sculptures and two in bust format. The Three in the middle are Alaska's, Maria Lindsay Lebron. On either side are El Greco and -- Saint. James the lesser is the earliest of the great Spanish painters and he left Spain to seek fame and fortune in Naples which was a Spanish royalty at the time and became a very famous artist. Before we ladies and gentlemen what is on the horizon for next year? We have a really exciting series of programs. We also will see the completion of the renovation of all of the galleries in the museum so we have started with the European galleries and we continue through modern and 20th century and we will complete reinstallation and renovation next year. The Museum will look like a brand-new place. It is exciting. Thank you Michael for coming up. That is Michael Brown who is the curator at The San Diego Museum of Art.