Interview with art historian and curator Ann Wagner
Ann Prentice Wagner is an art historian, curator, and art consultant working out of Little Rock. Her firm APW Art Curating offers clients scholarly research, writing, and collection development and management. Ann has extensive training in art history and curation. She earned a BA from George Washington University, an MA from Boston University, and a PhD (2006) from University of Maryland, all in art history. Her work experience in research, writing, and curating is quite impressive. She worked for nearly 15 years for the Smithsonian Institution, both at the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In 2012, she moved to Little Rock to become Curator of Drawings at the Arkansas Arts Center, now the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, a position she held until 2021. Now Ann has established herself as an independent curator.
AAS: Ann, tell me about your background. Where did you grow up?
AW: I am a native Marylander. My parents, my brother and I lived in Bethesda, northwest of Washington, DC.. My father was an elementary school teacher who told me about summer school classes like a class on printmaking I took when I was seven. When I was ten, I took an anthropology class that included my first time behind the scenes at a museum, the National Museum of Natural History. I was shocked to see how much space they had behind the scenes. There are millions of items in storage from which the exhibitions are drawn - dinosaur fossils, bird and mammal skins, skeletons, insects, minerals – endless treasures. It was also exciting to see the community of professionals performing research, creating exhibitions, and writing and illustrating books. I decided then and there that I wanted to work at a museum!
When I was in junior college, my mother suggested that I volunteer at the Smithsonian. I spent two summers as a volunteer intern at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Those internships ultimately gave me recommendations that were vital for getting me started professionally.
AAS: How did you develop your specialty in art on paper?
AW: I got interested in prints and drawing in my high school art classes at Walter Johnson High School. We had great art teachers. They taught drawing at a level you don’t normally learn until college. We had an etching press, so I learned intaglio techniques like etching and aquatint, as well as silkscreen and woodcut. In the Discovery Graphics program at the Smithsonian, I learned plate lithography. So, thanks to these great opportunities, before I entered college I already knew the major printmaking techniques.
My painting and drawing teacher wanted me to assemble a portfolio and apply to art schools, but I thought I would starve as a fine artist. So, I explored other art careers at Montgomery College in Rockville, a junior college known for its art programs. I studied drawing, watercolor, printmaking, photography, illustration, and commercial art. At MC I fell in love with art history and realized I was good at it.
After my Associate degree in studio art in 1982, I transferred to George Washington University, where I majored in art history and graduated in 1985. The strength of Washington DC’s American art collections made it natural for me to specialize in American art, as well as works on paper.
I then went to Boston University to earn an MA in art history. There, I took a class on master printmakers at the Museum of Fine Arts taught by Cliff Ackley. That was my start in top level connoisseurship. In a museum studies class, I wrote about the MFA’s prints and drawings department, particularly their work with conservators. Ever since, I have specialized in working closely with art conservators both to preserve and research art.
AAS: Before you came to Arkansas, you spent many years working for two Smithsonian Institution museums in Washington, DC - the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. What are some of your most memorable experiences working there?
AW: There have been many. After getting my MA in 1987, I worked at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. Their great collection got me interested in modern and contemporary art through paintings by people like August Renoir, Paul Klee, and Marc Rothko. But I never could get a permanent job in the curatorial department. So, I moved over to the National Portrait Gallery, where I worked in the Catalog of American Portraits. They keep files on American portraits in collections around the country. I learned a lot and had a marvelous time in CAP, but their files don’t include prints. From my cubicle I could see the door to the Department of Prints and Drawings. I looked longingly at that door. When there was an opening for a curatorial assistant and collections manager – I went for it.
I was there for 10 years and got to work with wonderful people like Wendy Wick Reaves, Curator of Prints and Drawings. I catalogued prints and drawings, researched, and wrote labels, and learned a vast amount. I also answered questions from scholars and the public. I also had the opportunity to listen in while Ann Shumard, Curator of Photographs, talked to visitors about daguerreotypes and other historic photographs. It was a great learning experience!
At NPG I curated two exhibitions, including Andy Warhol’s Flash: November 22, 1968, a portfolio of silkscreens about the John F. Kennedy assassination. That one-room show got a surprising amount of media attention. It was reviewed twice in the Washington Post and the New York Times listed it as a best bet.
I started my PhD in art history at the University of Maryland while I was working at the NPG. I cut back my hours to attend classes and work on papers. When my classes were completed, I left the Portrait Gallery to teach, travel, and take fellowships at the Smithsonian, the National Gallery, and the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. I wrote my dissertation on early drawings by Georgia O’Keeffe and the culture of drawings in the Alfred Stieglitz Circle.
Exhibition book for 1934: A New Deal for Artists
After finishing my PhD in 2006, I took contract positions at the Smithsonian. They didn’t always pay a lot, but the experiences were transformative. I worked with Deputy Director George Gurney on the book and exhibition 1934: A New Deal for Artists. The 1934 exhibition celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Public Works of Art Program, the first of the New Deal art programs. George was busy on another exhibition, so I researched and wrote about the 1934 paintings for the exhibition catalog. Later, I did talks for museums where the exhibition traveled.
Exhibition book for Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg
One assignment especially had a big impact on me. I was research assistant for SAAM Chief Curator Virginia Mecklenburg’s book and exhibition Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. It was a real education to examine the historical settings of Rockwell’s paintings, such as a jury with the lone woman on the jury holding out against all the men. I learned that there were restrictions on women serving on juries until the Supreme Court struck them down in 1975.
AAS: How did you get from the Smithsonian to Arkansas? The very first trip Joe and I took with the Arkansas Art Center (now Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts) was to DC with you and then director Todd Herman. One of the highlights for me was a tour behind the scenes of the conservation department I think at the Portrait Gallery. It was really eye opening.
AW: One day when I was working at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, I got a call from Wendy Wick Reaves, my former boss. She told me about an ideal position at the Arkansas Arts Center. To take charge of a great collection with a strength in drawings was a dream come true. I worked at the Arkansas Arts Center for nine years. I was Curator of Drawings, a position later endowed as the Jackye and Curtis Finch, Jr., Curator of Drawings. I worked with prints, paintings, photographs, and lots of other art besides drawings. I was surprised to encounter the rich art scene here in Arkansas.
I really enjoyed our trips with the Collectors Group to see art collections in museums, galleries, and private homes in cities like Philadelphia and Santa Fe. Todd Herman [then AAC director] and I led the trip you were on to Washington, DC, where the National Gallery was showing French art collected by Arkansan James Dyke. It was gratifying to show my new Arkansas friends around favorite places in my home city. We saw a spectacular array of art, including old master prints and drawings in the NGA’s print room.
Yes, we visited the Lunder Conservation Center that serves both the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. It was fun to introduce my conservator friends to my new Arkansas friends. I remember they explained how they treat and preserve artworks and we got to see them actually working on a couple of pieces. Collectors can learn much more about how to protect their artwork at the web site of the American Institute for Conservation or they can contact me if they have more specific questions or need recommendations.
AAS: What are some of your favorite exhibitions you have curated?
AW: The first exhibition I curated was at the Boston Public Library, based on my MA thesis on the American wood engraver Hiram Merrill. Merrill was one of the last men to be trained as a reproductive wood engraver. Wood engraving was the standard way that art was reproduced in black and white in books, magazines, and newspapers in the nineteenth century, before photographic reproductions became practical. Most people have seen commercial wood engravings, but most people don’t know about the lives of the men and women who did the work.
I also researched Herman Maril and worked with his son, David, to put together an exhibition of the artist’s work. The exhibition and book Herman Maril: The Strong Forms of Our Experience took years of work, but it was well worth it. Maril’s modernism is just wonderful – his art always makes me happy. People in central Arkansas agree with me on that – when the show appeared at the Arkansas Arts Center in 2017, it was very successful.
Exhibition book for Becoming John Marin: Modernist at Work
The largest project I have done, and one of the most important ever at the Arkansas Arts Center, was the exhibition and book Becoming John Marin: Modernist at Work. It appeared at the Arts Center in 2018 to celebrate the acquisition of 290 drawings and watercolors by the great American modernist John Marin. I collaborated with art historian Josephine White Rodgers, who was based in Washington, DC, but visited Arkansas several times to see the art in person. We did a lot of original research on the art.
The team at the Arts Center outdid themselves, designing the show, installing it, putting on events, getting the word out through the news media, and hosting visitors. For the sold-out opening lecture, I talked about my research trips. We did a web site and hosted a live and internet scholars’ day on Marin. You can see all that on my website. One of the greatest joys has been to hear from the gallery that represents Marin’s estate, Schoelkopf Gallery, that they have the Marin book open every day.
AAS: Ann, I know you are a strong advocate for art education. Tell me more about your work on The American Experience in the Classroom sponsored by the Smithsonian.
AW: At the Smithsonian American Art Museum, I was the senior researcher on the American Experience in the Classroom. Three professional researchers and three interns researched well over 100 art works from SAAM’s collection to set them into historical context. Among other things, our findings are used for an online program teaching American culture and American history to the children of American service members stationed around the world. We worked on such a wide range of historical topics that two wound up neck and neck to set the record for the most interlibrary loan books ever requested by a Smithsonian staff member.
AAS: You began your career in art as a studio artist. What kinds of work did you do?
Ann Prentice Wagner, Cozy Cat, 1981, lithograph, 13” x 17”
AW: I have always liked drawing and printmaking, especially depicting animals. When I took my lithography class in college, I made a print based on drawings I had made of our cat, Tiger. I certainly didn’t just do animals – I have done a lot of landscapes, still lifes, and abstracts. I don’t have a printing press, so it’s easier for me to do drawings and watercolors than anything else.
I don’t make as much art as I used to do. But now and then I get back to it. Before Covid, I learned letter press printing from Kate Askew in a class at her Yellow Dog Press in Little Rock. Later, I took a class with Beth Lambert on book binding. My book bindings are far from perfect, but I am proud to have some volumes I bound myself.
AAS: What kinds of art do you collect and what are some of your favorites?
AW: I grew up in a house with as much original art as we could manage. An aquatint made by Taos artist Gene Kloss in 1934, Taos in Winter, used to hang over our record player. It has been in our family since it was new. Taos in Winter helped to inspire my interest in prints.
Most art I collect is by artists I know personally. One of my favorites is Pennsylvania artist Robert Patierno, whom I met at the Washington County Museum. His woodcut of a rooster hangs next to my bed. I got interested in New York artist Peri Schwartz through her prints in Collectors Shows and Sales at the Arts Center. I adore her work, especially images that celebrate art materials.
The Arkansas Arts Center used to hold a Museum School Sale each fall. It was an ideal way for me to collect art by Arkansas artists who teach or take classes at the Museum School. I bought the linocut Half-Caste by Miranda Young, who is Associate Director of Community Engagement at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts. I love how she incorporates animals in her art and uses chine-collé (adding a piece of paper over the background paper) to add color and texture. I also collect ceramics. I have pots by Arkansas artists such as Beth Lambert, Julia Baugh, Fletcher Larkin, and Adrian Quintanar. I love to look at them, but it’s also very special to eat off handmade originals.
AAS: Ann let’s talk about your new business venture, APW Art Curating. First of all, what exactly is a curator and what types of assignments are you doing as a freelance curator?
AW: Well, a curator manages and interprets a collection and creates exhibitions of art works. Curators also work with registrars, art preparators, and conservators to take proper care of the collection. There are important decisions to make about what to acquire, what to show, and what to loan to other museums. Curators must keep up on the scholarly, technical, and political news in the fields of art history and museums. They also research their collection. Their discoveries illuminate exhibitions and events through exhibition labels, wall texts, web sites, books, lectures, etc. Curators do all they can to help people enjoy and learn about art.
As a freelance curator for my new firm, APW Art Curating, I am using my training and experience to help art collectors, dealers, museums, and artists. I have clients in central Arkansas and elsewhere around the country. Earlier this year, I participated in an online discussion about John Marin for the Whitney Museum of American Art, and wrote an article for the Schoelkopf Gallery, both in New York City.
APW Art Curating also offers research and writing for gallerists and there is a lot I can do consulting with collectors like helping them to research and manage their collections and know what they have. And it has been surprising to find out how many artists would like my help in lining up exhibitions, producing catalogs, and other projects to promote their art.
One very exciting project I am working on now is with Arkansas collector Curtis Finch, Jr. He and I are preparing an exhibition of portraits of authors painted by Arkansas artist Ray Allen Parker, which recently were shown at Boswell Mourot Fine Art in Little Rock. We hope Arkansas students can see these monumental paintings that will help them to appreciate the human beings behind the literature they read in school. We want students to consider how they might portray their own favorite authors.
I am also working on some very exciting projects with Garbo Hearne of Hearne Fine Art in Little Rock. And as we have talked about, I love to teach and soon, I’m going to be teaching an online class with RB Fine Art, run by artist Robert Bean. We are combining art history with fine art to teach about Rembrandt’s drawings from the 1600s. I hope to teach more with Robert in the future.
So, APW Art Curating offers a wide range of services for gallerists, collectors, and artist.
AAS: Do you have advice for young people thinking of going into art history?
AW: I am careful about advising young people who aspire to be curators or art history professors or conservators. I don’t want to crush their hopes. But there is no denying the strong competition for those jobs. It is a very hard way to make a living, especially outside of centers like New York or San Francisco. If you can’t get into a major academic program, it is tough to be taken seriously. But recently, there new opportunities especially for people of color and other minority groups who formerly had the hardest time getting positions. Some of the closed doors are starting to open a little. If you are very dedicated, talented and have a fine education, you might make it. My career has featured some serious struggles. But it’s the field I love. My new business is letting me work with good people and fascinating art and I get to be my own boss. It will be exciting to see what happens next.
