Pomona, a strapping, nude, 70-year-old female of variegated bronze-green complexion, was spied this morning exercising in the sunlit arcade of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Perelman annex.
The sculpture by Frenchman Aristide Maillol, shown in a photo here by Tom Gralish, was the first art to move into the Perelman (with some qualifications), which the museum is preparing to open around Labor Day. Staffers were moving the bronze about to see how real art works in the new spaces, to determine how high sculptures should sit, to watch how hard shadows and diffuse sunlight change the way sculpture looks.
What pieces of art will eventually will go in the spacious glass-covered walkway between the old Reliance insurance building and Gluckman Maynor’s bright, contemporary addition (price tag for the entire project $90 million) has yet to be decided.
“She was just something to bring over on a Monday morning. She’s going to be a stand-in for all her friends,” said museum director Anne d’Harnoncourt of Pomona. “It’s a very exciting moment when the first work of art enters the building. And there she is. I think it looks amazing. She looks like she’s always been here.”
What d’Harnoncourt could see going there are tall Japanese porcelain vases, or Indian sculpture, a David Smith, or…
“We’re going to have all kinds of interesting times. We’re going to be learning and making the most of it,” she said.
“The light changes very dramatically during the course of the day and with weather. The sun this time of year is at its highest, but most of the time light will come in at an angle, which will make interesting shadows and shapes.”
D’Harnouncourt says the Maillol was the first art to enter the door at the Perelman, but we respectfully beg to differ. The building inside and out is decorated with more iconography as art than a lot of museums have on display – much of it naturalistic, such as squirrels and owls. And then there are the Paul Manship panels already installed in the library: four bronze reliefs from 1914 symbolizing earth, wind, fire and water. They were originally designed for an American Telephone & Telegraph building in New York.
Also yesterday staffers from the museum were trying out a sculpture in the roomiest room in the Perelman, a 40 x 100 space that rivals the largest exhibition space in the museum’s main building. Actually, the large work is a fake. It looks like Anselm Kiefer’s Palette with Wings, made of lead, tin and steel, but it was a clever paper proxy on wheels made by the museum’s staff. It, too, will be moved around to see how art looks in place. There's no need to take chances moving around the delicate real thing, which is in storage.
Said d’Harnoncourt as staffers set it up:
“I think it’s a little beefier than the original, but it’s great.”
