Digital Treasure Trove: Photographing in the Sculpture Study Center

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Contributed by IMLS Grant Project Team

Summer in Philadelphia may be winding down, but things at PAFA are just starting to ramp up as we begin the early fall season. There is a lot to catch up on from just the last several weeks: the moving of the outdoor sculpture Grumman Greenhouse by Jordan Griska after 11 years on Lenfest Plaza, installation and prep of our upcoming shows Evade or Ensnare and Making American Artists, as well as fall classes at the school starting back up this month. And things with the IMLS Project Team is just as busy. We’ve continued working all summer on the most challenging phase of the IMLS grant project, photographing the permanent art collection.  

We’ve changed course from photographing 2D works to taking photographs of the 3D works specifically in the Museum’s Sculpture Study Center (SSC). In this gallery, there is a wide array of objects in various mediums, each with their own set of challenges for documentation. Additionally, since the SSC is open to the public during Museum hours, we only have a limited number of days per week when things are closed to setup a temporary photography environment, work through as many objects as possible, and then break down again to make way for visitors.  

We soon realized photographing sculptures presented other challenges in our workflow. First, art handling works on paper compared to 3D sculpture was dramatically different. Some works were fragile, while others were solid and sturdy. Art handling for sculptures made from bronze, stone, plaster, terracotta, or wood all proved challenging and required us to be really careful as some works were hundreds of years old or some were very heavy. The material/color of each sculpture also required different backdrops and lighting. We ended up planning our days around dark and light colored sculptures so we didn’t need to change the backdrop often. And finally, since a single 2D image cannot fully represent all viewing angles of a 3D space, each sculpture is being photographed at least ten times: four side views, four quarter angle views, and two 1/8th angle views. The effect of this will be a very useful (approximate) 360-degree global view of each artwork.  

This workflow requires staff to move a—potentially very heavy—object, refocusing the camera by hand, adjusting the lighting, and finally, taking the image. Overall, it has been a slow but rewarding process, and we feel the finished images will provide a much more comprehensive set of digital assets—for future researchers and the general public—to view online.  

In fact, the usefulness of a more comprehensive set of viewing angles has been immediately clear as we have spent time with each object. A good example might be any of the several Abraham Lincoln life masks currently on view in SSC. Aside from being interesting objects by themselves, they—like many of the objects in PAFA’s collections—have a variety of notes, marking, and surprising armatures on their reverse sides, that might not always be visible to the public, but all contribute to the unique character and story of each work. 

We will soon be turning our attention to back to Works on Paper (WOP) and different aspects of the IMLS grant but we have enjoyed our time with the objects in SSC this summer and hope you will too the next time you are visiting the musem or browsing the new and forthcoming online collection.  

This blog post is part of an ongoing series about Digital Collections that we are able to undertake thanks to a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

About the Institute of Museum and Library Services 

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s libraries and museums. We advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development. Our vision is a nation where museums and libraries work together to transform the lives of individuals and communities. To learn more, visit https://www.imls.gov/and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. 

Alumni Spotlight: Susan H. Bradley

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Contributed by Hoang Tran, Director of Archives & Collections

As George Orwell wrote in 1984, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” For this reason, archivists play an essential role in preserving the memory and legacy of people, places, and things. Archivists are only one part of the equation. We need the help of scholars, historians, genealogists, and curators to guide our decisions on what materials should be preserved for posterity.

But what happens when records are not preserved? Moreover, who gets to be remembered and who is forgotten?

Using PAFA’s archives, I have been assisting the descendant of Susan H. Bradley (1851-1929) conduct genealogical research. Together, our work attempts to raise awareness of Bradley’s influence on the Philadelphia and Boston art scene during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Please read more about Bradley on the National Museum of Women in the Arts blog: Susan H. Bradley: A Rediscovered Powerhouse

Browse images of Bradley’s work in PAFA’s Digital Archives.

Digital Treasure Trove: Project Update

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Contributed by Hoang Tran, Director of Archives & Collections

How time flies! It has been a year since we were awarded the IMLS grant. It seems fitting that I take this chance to provide an overview of all the changes and activities that have been completed so far.

The first major update is in regards to staffing changes. HoJun who served as the Project Museum Collections Assistant decided to leave the project early. In his place, we were fortunate to hire an amazing candidate, L Gnadinger. L is an artist, writer, and educator originally from Louisville, KT who has experience with art handling, writing, and arts administration. We’re happy to have L join the IMLS project team!

We’ve completed the first round of cataloging for all permanent works in PAFA’s collection. The main emphasis for this round of cataloging was to obtain accurate biographical information—life dates, place of birth, nationality, gender, race, etc. This round also included ensuring all objects had at least one subject access point, standardized date, copyright information, and of course, no spelling errors.

Photographing the collection has been challenging due to the staff change, technology problems, and institutional commitments. However, we managed to bounce back rather quickly when we switched to photographing 3D works (sculpture) in the second half of the summer. To date, we have photographed 82 small/medium sized sculptures (21%). In the past, we took 1-3 photos of a sculpture in a frontal view only. This time, we decided to photograph the sculpture 10 times to create a full 360 degree view of the work. We believe this added work would not only help PAFA document the work better, but also help curators and researchers view other markings such as a signature or date that is typically on the back of a sculpture.

PAFA’s legacy files are stored in a complex web of folders with tiff and jpg files intermixed with unconventional file naming standards. L has taken on the immense task of digital file management. Fortunately, L has Python programming skills that proved to be invaluable for this task. After a few weeks of brainstorming, testing, and team meetings, L was able to get a grasp of what the best approach would be.

I’ve been working closely with PAFA’s Registrar, Danielle McAdams, who is assisting with the CMS implementation phase of the project. The data migration and implementation of a new CMS is largely done by the vendors. We are currently reviewing the vendor’s feedback for crosswalks that aren’t compatible with the new CMS and determining if we require anything more customized for our needs. So far, there hasn’t been any major issues.

Digital Treasure Trove: Copyright

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Contributed by HoJun Yu, Project Museum Collections Assistant, and Hoang Tran, Director of Archives

As America’s first museum and art school, it is important for PAFA to remain relevant particularly in the digital age. Broadening online access to the works of art is one step in the right direction, but also providing greater accessibility for users to engage and use the resources is another important aspect of the institution’s mission.

The work being done for this grant project provides the essential framework for PAFA’s long-term goal of migrating the museum’s collection into the public domain. PAFA aspires to join the growing global initiative of more than 200 institutions worldwide that have moved towards digitizing and providing unrestricted use of their collections.

We are in the process of figuring out the best way to display rights statements and/or licenses for works in PAFA’s collection. Part of HoJun’s work is conducting a survey of peer institutions that have successfully implemented Open Access (OA) initiatives such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and Cleveland Museum of Art. We also reviewed MoMA and the Whitney to see how they are publicizing rights statements–the two museums directly state the names of parties in control of reproduction rights; on the other hand, places like the Smithsonian simply state use Creative Commons license, particularly Creative Commons Zero (CC0–no rights reserved).

It must be said that as museum collections staff, we are not experts in copyright law. In fact, copyright is highly complex and it is important that everyone working with copyright protected materials adhere to current US copyright laws. We as collections staff have been studying and examining best practices on handling digital resources and respecting artists rights.

For this phase of the project, there are two essential data points that we are currently focusing on which his required to properly interpret/assess copyright 1: the date of creation; 2: date of creator’s death. HoJun is focused on reviewing all works with questionable or missing dates and updating life dates for artists. Our ultimate goal with this information is to help us make a more informed decision as to which works are still protected by copyright and which works are no longer protected by copyright. Of course, nothing ever comes easy! PAFA’s collection includes many works by “unidentified artists” and works with “unknown dates”. For these outliers, we’ll need to be extra vigilant in assessing their copyright status.

About the Institute of Museum and Library Services

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s libraries and museums. We advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development. Our vision is a nation where museums and libraries work together to transform the lives of individuals and communities. To learn more, visit https://www.imls.gov/and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Digital Treasure Trove: Photographing works of art

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Contributed by HoJun Yu, Project Museum Collections Assistant

My first glimpse of museum collection photography began when I was employed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At the Met, I worked on a similar grant funded project that gave me the opportunity to see how works of art were photographed by collection staff. I was thrilled about the possibility of doing such work myself when I was hired by PAFA.

As PAFA’s collection photographer, Adrian Cubillas has provided me guidance, supervision, and support in learning the intricate processes for photographing works of art. The first phase of the project would focus on photographing works on paper. During the first few photographing sessions we photographed unframed and unmatted prints.

It was great working with another photographer who brought his perspective and experience in collection photograph. He walked me through all the basics of photographing an artwork and once I learned the essentials, we were able to speed through the work as he and I are both photographers. Even though I have been a photographer for quite some time now, I have been learning about new techniques as most of my photographic work involves people, rather than objects.

Using studio lights to photograph works of art can take much meticulousness, as we need to accurately capture the brightness and colors. The most challenging part has been troubleshooting the glares we come across every now and then, especially with prints that have more reflective surfaces. Once again, as Adrian and I are both photographers, combining our knowledge and efforts has been helping significantly. To troubleshoot such problems regarding the glare, we adjusted the angles of the strobe lights. Rather than lighting up the artwork directly, we decided to turn the strobes around to bounce them off the walls. By doing so, we were able to reduce the glares that kept appearing especially on photographic prints.

Another obstacle that we encountered was the condition of some of the prints themselves. While most of the prints we have been photographing have been relatively flat, the rest have seemed to retain a slight curl from being previously rolled up. The curl posed a minor problem as certain parts of the print will not be not be completely sharp. To solve this, we simply went with a slightly deeper, wider depth of field to make sure all parts of the print were in focus. While convenient, changing the depth of field requires subtlety and care. If the depth of field is too deep, the ISO will have to be increased, which will consequently produce a photograph with more noise. The changes in the depth of field need to be conservative and as small as possible.

For the first month of photographing, we managed to photograph 85 works on paper.

About the Institute of Museum and Library Services

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s libraries and museums. We advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development. Our vision is a nation where museums and libraries work together to transform the lives of individuals and communities. To learn more, visit https://www.imls.gov/and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Digital Treasure Trove: Data Cleanup

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Contributed by HoJun Yu, Project Museum Collections Assistant

An interesting part of my work at PAFA is my ability to apply my scientific research background to support the grant project. Under Hoang’s (Project Director and PAFA’s Director of Archives) supervision and guidance, I have been cleaning up the museum’s collection data. The museum currently uses Mimsy XG, but the project will also see the migration and implementation of a brand new content management system (CSM). The work i’m doing will directly support the data migration to Axiell Collections. Despite the modest nature of data cleanup, the work is crucial for the museum’s operations and overall deeper understanding of its collection.

Through this process, I have been learning how to use Mimsy, which I had not used before. During my time at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I mainly used FileMaker Pro to maintain and edit data for Oddy test results within the Department of Scientific Research. My experience with Mimsy so far has shown me that it is more customizable and flexible than FileMaker Pro.

The reason the data portion of my work is so crucial is that collections staff rely heavily on the information that is stored in Mimsy. Whether curating exhibitions or analyzing collecting trends, collections staff need to have the ability to access various bits of information on the art and the artist. In recent weeks, I have been researching and updating different aspects of the artists’ lives, such as their gender, life dates, and nationality. This type of information should be easily accessed because then for example, when a curator needs to prepare for an exhibition of art by female artists, they can just filter the search in the database by gender. Besides adding new information, I have also been cleaning up existing data. Because Mimsy can be sensitive down to every letter or space in the search bar, I need to make sure all the formatting is consistent and uses standard vocabulary.

One of the biggest challenges in this work has been researching artists who are or were not necessarily well known enough to have easily accessible information online. Sometimes, even well-established institutions had inconsistent information regarding these artists on their websites. For such situations, less conventional methods were employed, such as digging through birth records, obituaries, and even blogs written by hobbyists who have already done the meticulous research on these artists. Whenever I was able to succeed with these methods, I would save the documentation so we have it on file for future use. The purpose of this process is not only to obtain accurate information for the sake of data, but also to make the information as accessible as possible for anyone who wants to learn.

About the Institute of Museum and Library Services

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s libraries and museums. We advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development. Our vision is a nation where museums and libraries work together to transform the lives of individuals and communities. To learn more, visit https://www.imls.gov/and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

New Digital Collections

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Contributed by Hoang Tran, Director of Archives

The Archives is happy to announce that staff have recently completed organizing and uploading two new digital collections.

The first digital collection of 627 photographs are part of the Alumni Gallery photographs. The photographs document the exhibition openings for 10 alumni gallery exhibitions from 2011-2014. The Alumni Gallery exhibits works by alumni from all of PAFA’s matriculating programs. Located within the Historic Landmark Building, the Alumni Gallery offers a contemporary view of PAFA’s longstanding traditions in art-making and is always free and open to the public.

Inaugural exhibition opening reception for PAFA’s Alumni Gallery, 2011.

The second digital collection is the Annual Student Exhibition and Graduation photographs which consists of 9498 photographs. The collection documents various year end events for students, specifically the Annual Student Exhibition; Preview Party; public opening; award and prize ceremony; luncheon; graduation and commencement ceremony; as well as alumni reunion party.

Graduating class of 2016
Family and friends attending 104th Annual Student Exhibition after graduation ceremony, 2005.

More information about PAFA’s Alumni Gallery and Annual Student Exhibition can be found in the online resources section (School History).

Digital Treasure Trove: Project Update

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Contributed by Hoang Tran, Director of Archives

We are excited to announce the official launch of the IMLS grant funded project to photograph all works in PAFA’s permanent collection up to 2018. In addition, there will be a large scale data cleanup of the collection catalog records.

PAFA is happy to introduce HoJun Yu who will serve as the Project Museum Collections Assistant. HoJun is not your traditional museum professional. His educational background was actually in chemistry which may seem odd but there are definitely overlapping skills, particularly when it comes to critical thinking and analytical skills. For instance, these skills will be invaluable for his work reviewing, updating, and creating better catalog records for PAFA’s entire permanent art collection data.

The other portion of his duties is supporting PAFA’s efforts to photograph its permanent collection. HoJun has a passion for photography which is demonstrated by his work as a photographer during his undergraduate studies as well as freelance work (https://www.hojunyu.com/).

HoJun with camera

Please check back here regularly for updates on the project. 

About the Institute of Museum and Library Services

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s libraries and museums. We advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development. Our vision is a nation where museums and libraries work together to transform the lives of individuals and communities. To learn more, visit https://www.imls.gov/and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Archives News

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The archives has resumed its operating hours as of November 17, 2021. The archives is now open 9am-5pm Monday to Friday. Please note that the archives is still operating in a hybrid work schedule which specifically means staff are working remotely Monday to Wednesday and onsite Thursday to Friday. The best way to contact the archives is via email: archives@pafa.org.

If you wish to visit the archives for in-person research, please schedule your visits for Thursdays and Fridays. Don’t forget that PAFA’s Digital Archives has many digital resources online as well: https://pafaarchives.org/.

As the holidays quickly approach, we also want to take a moment to outline closures.

The archives will closed the follow days:

  • Thursday-Friday November 25 & 26, 2021
  • Thursday-Friday December 9 & 10, 2021 (private event)
  • December 24, 2021
  • December 27, 2021
  • December 31, 2021

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Recipient of $95,000 Institute of Museum and Library Services Museums for America Grant

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The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is honored to announce it was awarded a $95,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services’ (IMLS) Museums for America program. Funds will support the Museum’s efforts to complete photography for 971 works in the permanent art collection, update and standardize catalog records for the collection, and upgrade the museum’s outdated collections management system and online web portal. 

For the past decade, PAFA has successfully implemented a digital imaging program and online collections portal that provided free access to over 90% of its art collection. PAFA’s ongoing work has had a significant impact on the way the museum serves its community in the digital age and is an important educational tool used to support various levels of research interests. 

The two-year project represents PAFA’s continued efforts in leveraging digital technologies to expand access to its renowned collection of American Art. The award will not only fund much needed upgrades to its technology infrastructure, but also hire and train one project employee in museum collection photography, cataloging, and collections management. 

 “We are so grateful to receive this generous grant from IMLS,” said Hoang Tran, Director of Archives at PAFA and will serve as the Project Director for the grant. “Not only will the grant help PAFA promote the preservation of and access to its collection, but it also ensures we continue to fulfill our mission as responsible collection stewards.”

The new and updated high-resolution photography of PAFA’s permanent art collection will dramatically enhance PAFA’s ability to serve its community, particularly during the pandemic when access to digital resources becomes essential. 

About the Institute of Museum and Library Services

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s libraries and museums. We advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development. Our vision is a nation where museums and libraries work together to transform the lives of individuals and communities. To learn more, visit https://www.imls.gov/and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.