THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 12, 1997 TAG: 9702120008
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A19 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: Glenn Allen Scott
LENGTH: 77 lines
William J. Hennessey, who has directed the University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor since New Year's Day 1990, first saw the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk in 1989.
That was shortly after the size of the museum, which contains the most important collection of art objects in the Southeastern United States, had been doubled. About 85 percent of the art in the museum's collection was was donated or bequeathed by Walter P. Chrysler Jr.
Architectural Record magazine had praised the expanded and renovated Chrysler, fashioned by the Washington, D.C.-based Hartman-Cox firm of architects, as ``a stately assemblage of Florentine Renaissance-inspired elements organized around a covered central courtyard.''
Hennessey had come to Williamsburg for a meeting of American museum directors. The directors - about 150 - spent an afternoon and evening at the Chrysler. Museum Director David Steadman, who had overseen the Chrysler's expansion, and the museum's trustees hosted a dinner for the visitors in Huber Court.
How had the directors reacted to the new and improved Chrysler?
``They were bowled over,'' said Hennessey, speaking from his Michigan office last week. ``They were saying (of the building and its collection), `This is an incredibly well-kept secret.' They commented on the quality of the works of art themselves, the range and depth of the collection and the logic and elegance with which the collection was displayed.''
Hennessey was as amazed and enchanted as his peers. In mid-March he arrives in Norfolk as the Chrysler's new director. While settling into his post, he will be hunting for a house for himself and his family - his wife Leslie, who is an art historian, and the Hennesseys' 12-year-old daughter, Claire.
Selected by the Chrysler board of trustees after an intensive 14-month search process, the 48-year-old Hennessey will transfer from a university-affiliated art museum with an annual operating budget of $2.5 million to a municipal art museum with a 1996-97 budget of $4.1 million; from an admission-free institution containing 14,000 art objects to an admission-charging institution with 30,000; from a place that counted 60,000 visitors last year to one that counted 205,000 in the 1995-96 fiscal year.
Hennessey is eager to take up the Norfolk challenge, which, if I understand him correctly, he sees largely as creating exhibitions and related events that will draw more and more people and money to the museum.
He says, ``The collection is extraordinary.'' He welcomes ``the opportunity to work with (the Chrysler's art) to make it better known and more fully used by the community.'' He praises the Chrysler board, whose members ``are so enthusiastic and energized by their association with the museum.''
In devising exhibitions at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, he exploited the institution's strengths, which he says are its American and European paintings, works on paper and sculpture and its Asian art, particularly Chinese painting and ceramics.
For example, a big 17th-century painting by Italian artist Guercino, ``Queen Esther,'' from the museum's collection inspired a program of discussions about the significance of the Old Testament heroine. A contemporary poet read his epic poem about the queen. And a concert by University of Michigan music-faculty members as soloists and local high-school choruses presented selections from Handel's oratorio ``Esther.''
For another show, Hennessey brought to the museum a sampling of the life-size terra cotta legion of soldiers and horses buried with China's first emperor at Xian. In exchange for the loan, the museum trained Chinese curators and scientists in modern Western techniques and technology used to impart information about art works to viewers.
Hennessey credits the museum's ``wonderful'' curator of Asian art with arranging the swap of American expertise for the Chinese figures when the Tiananmen Square massacre had halted U.S.-China cultural exchanges.
The 48-year-old director grew up in Summit, N.J., graduating from the public schools, obtained his undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., and his Ph.D. from Columbia University.
Says Hennessey: ``I believe that if an institution does good things and engages the community and gets people excited with what's going on, people will want to support that. So I'm very much looking forward to working with the trustees and the Chrysler's great staff to connect people with the museum.''