Nov 21st Session 8A

Presentation 1: The Museum of Modern Art’s Department of Film: How Educational Film Programs Responded to Social and Cultural Changes in The United States, Rebecca Dearlove

The Museum of Modern Art’s Department of Film strived to promote and expand its public programming and educational resources since its induction into the museum in 1935. Its initial purpose was to collect and preserve film for educational purposes. However, since the early development years the Department, once known simply as the Film Library, had also introduced numerous film series and film programs that correlated with cultural and societal changes in America. From its vivacious energies in supplying government agencies with film during WWII to inviting young filmmakers to screen and discuss their social problem documentaries in the late ‘60s and ‘70s, the Department of Film continued to reevaluate its didactic mission. Based on the needs of its audience, it shifted its focus of film preservation to the screening of innovative and socially important film. The purpose of this paper is to offer insight into these various departmental changes as observed in its public programming from the early 1940s up until the 1970s as well as to examine the Film Library’s early developmental years and how it educational foundation was continuously strengthened. 

Presentation 2: The Lost Galleries: Victor D’Amico’s Overlooked Legacy at the Museum of Modern Art, Jean Graves

Victor D’Amico (1904-1987) was a museum educator of unmatched influence as head of the Museum of Modern Art’s Department of Education from 1937 to 1969. The Department’s Art Center provided studio classes and educational exhibits to the public, and served as a testing ground for pedagogical techniques that were disseminated around the world. Despite these achievements, MoMA eliminated the Department of Education when D’Amico retired, shuttering the Art Center. MoMA’s administration claimed the Department of Education had completed its task: because other New York institutions were providing art instruction, MoMA no longer needed to do so. The museum would henceforth focus its educational efforts on future museum professionals, via the new International Study Center.

Clearly, there were complicating factors both inside and outside MoMA at the time. The museum had four directors between 1968 and 1972, each with his own priorities. In the larger world, social and financial upheavals had their impact as well.

This presentation highlights a less apparent factor, the segregation and demotion of Education in the museum’s hierarchy. Building on Globensky’s (2014) research on museum education history, it traces internal dynamics at MoMA that marginalized the Department of Education, making it vulnerable to competition when resources became scarce. The erasure of D’Amico’s legacy not only obscured important innovations in art museum education, but forecast the rise of institutional practices and attitudes that hinder the profession to this day.

Presentation 3: Museum as Métier: Victor D’Amico and the Museum of Modern Art, Briley Rasmussen

This paper will explore the pioneering career of Victor D’Amico in the context the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). During the previous History of Art Education Conference at The Pennsylvania State University in 1995 papers were presented that examined D’Amico’s work in the context of progressive education (Sahasrabudhe 1997) and modern art practices (Sherman & Efland, 1997). Yet, scant scholarship has been presented which interrogates D’Amico’s work as a museum-based art educator. This paper will explore the relationship between the art museum and art education vis-à-vis D’Amico’s career at MoMA.

This paper will begin by tracing D’Amico’s early work with the Progressive Education Association (PEA) in the 1930s, conducting the ‘Survey of Art in American Schools’ and later participating in the study ‘The Art Museum and The Secondary School.’ These two reports articulated the PEA’s stance on the role of arts in school curriculum and how art museums could work with secondary schools to support the integration of art curriculum. This paper will demonstrate how this early work with the PEA was formative to how D’Amico shaped the education programs at MoMA.

D’Amico embraced the role of the museum as a laboratory for new teaching methods. He explained the relationship between the museum and the school, arguing

As budgets are reduced and art is curtailed in the schools, the need for experimentation which is the very life of growth in education becomes greater. The museum, therefore, is the last remaining source of such experimentation and through the service alone can offer the schools a valuable aid. (MoMA Bulletin, 1951, p. 20.)

This paper will go on to discuss two case studies from D’Amico’s career at MoMA, which illustrate how he developed the museum as an experimental space to develop new teaching methods for art education.  The first of these case studies will explore the development of rotating and multiple exhibitions that began as part of MoMA’s Education Project, the five-year pilot program D’Amico began in 1937. D’Amico would go on to develop these projects for a general audience. Through these exhibitions D’Amico experimented with the exhibition and visual instruction as a method for teaching art. The case study will focus on the exhibition, Elements of Design, produced in 1945 and distributed throughout the world.    

The second case study will focus on D’Amico’s use of television as an experimental medium for art education. It will focus on the television series Through the Enchanted Gate, produced by D’Amico in 1952-53. The series will be contextualized within the larger Television Project undertaken by MoMA in this period and its goal to develop new techniques for presenting art via the burgeoning medium of television.

Through these case studies and D’Amico’s career this paper will explore the museum as an experimental space for teaching as a critical partner in art education. In conclusion, this paper will pose questions about the continued role of museums in art education.