Finding the Balance

Acknowledgments
The Princeton University Art Museum thanks the High Meadows Foundation Sustainability Fund for their enthusiasm and generous support of this work. The project was brought to fruition by Lucy Partman with contributions by Kimia Shahi—both doctoral candidates in the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton. Katie Pratt-Thompson ’18, Janice Sung ’17, Lucas Ramos ’19, and the students in Alan C. Braddock’s 2016 Princeton course “The Ecocritical Exhibition: Pursuing Sustainability at the Princeton University Art Museum” provided considerable data and research. Ecology of an Exhibition would not have been possible without the expertise of Emile Askey, Anna Brouwer, Sarah Brown, Aric Davala, Juliana Ochs Dweck, Jeffrey Evans, Daniel Frank, Cathryn Goodwin, Christopher Gorzelnik, Michael Jacobs, Karl Kusserow, Sarah Noreika, Irma Ramirez, Carol Rossi, Curtis Scott, Clayton Vogel, and the staff at CrowdCG.

Among the chief concerns of museums with collections is the preservation and care of the objects in their possession. Maintaining a collection, sometimes numbering in the hundreds of thousands of works in various mediums, is a massive undertaking that is expensive, labor intensive, and environmentally impactful. However, the labor and resources invested in collecting and preserving material culture allow the works to continue “living,” whether while on display in their home institution or on loan to other venues, in ways that make them accessible to a broad array of people.

The act of caring for our shared cultural heritage—and thus assuring that it is available to and can be experienced and enjoyed by future generations—is itself a powerful act of sustainability that is at the heart of the museum enterprise.

Students studying a painting in the galleries of the Princeton University Art Museum.

Image credits
Menu page: Albert Bierstadt, Mount Adams, Washington (detail), 1875. Oil on canvas 138 x 213 cm. Princeton University Art Museum. Gift of Mrs. Jacob N. Beam (y940-430)1

People Power: Raphaelle Peale, Still Life with Steak, 1816–17. Oil on wood, 34 x 49.5 cm. Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, New York / Charles Willson Peale, American, 1741–1827. George Washington at the Battle of Princeton, 1783–84. Oil on canvas. 237 x 145 cm. Princeton University, commissioned by the Trustees (PP222)