AIC's 53rd Annual Meeting

In recent years, the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) at Newfields has reimagined the way it tells stories of the objects in its collection through the production of several open-access, online publications.  

The first of these publications catalogs the 86 paintings in the Clowes Collection, which comprises of a large portion of the Old Master paintings at the IMA. The Clowes Collection was assembled by Dr. G.H. A. Clowes and Edith Clowes in the second half of the 20th century and includes paintings ranging from Rembrandt van Rijn, Juseppe Ribera, Agnolo Gaddi, and Peter Paul Rubens to countless workshop copies and reproductions. A brief catalog was published in 1973 but interest in better understanding this eclectic collection prompted the creation of a large-scale digital catalogue in 2016 that incorporated not only the art historical perspective, but also the technical analysis and conservation histories behind these works.  

The open access, online format of the catalog was designed with the intention of making research more interactive and widely accessible. Art historical entries were largely written by Allen Whitehill Clowes Fellows, early career art historians who had researched works in the collection. When it came to the technical portion of the catalog, conservators worked with software developers in the Newfields Lab to create fully interactive technical entries that paralleled the art historical entries. For many of the works this would mark the first time they were technically imaged and analyzed, developing their rich (and at times known) histories and revealing new information. A radically transparent ethos was adopted sharing fully downloadable technical images of all paintings, during treatment images, scientific analysis, and technical examinations.   

The success of the Clowes catalog prompted the creation of a second catalog of seven paintings by Camille Pissarro and his son Lucien and George as part of a Samuel H. Kress Fellowship in paintings conservation in 2021. This catalog is equally transparent in the dissemination of technical and scientific information. A third digital catalog, featuring the tapestries in the Clowes Collection, is currently underway.  

These projects highlight the importance of collaboration between the conservators, editors, art historians, data architects, and software developers who remain dedicated to creating open access, interactive platforms. While these projects have not been without some challenges and risks, the decision to use an online format to openly share and educate marks a shift away from previous approaches that hoard data under the guise of protecting against misinformation.