Until last week my knowledge of the Berkshire Museum was limited to the controversial 2018 sale of many of the gems in its painting collection. They included Norman Rockwell’s “Shuffleton’s Barbershop,” a gift to the museum from Norman Rockwell himself. Over fifty million dollars worth of art was sold to keep the museum’s doors open, build its endowment and renovate.
So it’s perhaps fitting that my tour of the institution, conducted by Hilary Dunne Ferrone, a friend as well as the museum’s interim co-executive director and chief engagement officer – I realize that’s a mouthful – included the sparkling new wooden floors and lighting, the tasteful paint job, the new freight elevator and a brand new classroom for visiting school groups. There are also mobile museum units – that is self-contained exhibition kiosks -- that travel to local schools and libraries.
I hadn’t followed the sale of the art that closely. It wasn’t until after I’d visited the museum in Pittsfield, MA that I went online to see what the art that sparked protests and lawsuits, from individuals and groups that opposed the sale, actually was. Some lovely stuff by the likes of Alexander Calder and Albert Bierstadt. Now I regret not getting there while it still hung on the walls, even if the paint on those walls happened to be peeling.
But you also have to ask yourself, as disappointing as selling off any works of art is, what the mission of a mid-sized regional museum should be? Is it primarily to provide a repository for painting and sculpture? Or does it serve a larger purpose as a creative center for citizens of all ages? The Berkshires is fortunate to have world-class art at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown. And if you have an uncontrollable urge to see great Rockwells you can’t do better than the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge.
The Berkshire Museum reminded me more of visiting the American Museum of Natural History when I was a child. And not because I have a good memory or imagination, but rather for its wide and idiosyncratic offerings. In fact, among this museum’s attractions is a room filled with miniature dioramas reminiscent of the transporting full-scale ones at the American Museum of Natural History. They depict, among the vistas, an African watering hole and bison grazing the Great Plains. If they look familiar there’s a reason for that. Their creator, Louis Paul Jonas, studied at New York City’s natural history museum at the side of Carl Akeley, helping the famous taxidermist create the popular African Elephant group at the center of what’s now Akeley Hall.
Who says you don’t learn anything hearing these commentaries? Furthermore, Louis Paul Jonas eventually moved to Hudson, NY where his studio created the life-size dinosaurs, sponsored by the Sinclair Oil Company, that was one of the highlights at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.
The Berkshire Museum was founded in 1903 by Zenas Crane, a member of the paper manufacturing family. For those who are familiar with Crane mostly for their stationery, they also provided, and still do, the paper used to make the tens and twenties in your pocket. “He started the museum because he needed a place to store his stuff,” Hilary Ferrone told me. “There are 40,000 pieces in the collection,” she said.
They include full-size plaster reproductions of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the original gracing the monumental central staircase at the Louvre. And conveniently located at the Berkshire Museum, indeed right beside it, is a knock-off of the Venus di Milo. If you want to see the original of that armless beauty at the Louvre it’s a hike from the Winged Victory.
The museum, the Berkshire Museum that is, also has a resident mummy. So what, you say, lots of museums have mummies? Well, back in 2010 this mummy paid a visit to Berkshire Medical Center where they ran him through their CT machine and then created a reconstruction of his head and face based on the information gleaned from the scan. I have trouble visualizing mummies as anything other than looking extremely parched. But this guy, he answers to the name Pahat (apologies in advance, or rather behind, if I’m mispronouncing the bloke’s name, or Zenas Crane’s for that matter), looks well fed based on the reconstruction of his features: someone you wouldn’t mind having a drink with.
Mummies. Calder mobiles, knock-offs of Louvre masterpieces. Did I mention that there’s also an aquarium downstairs? How many museums are there where you can admire a familiar 1952 Norman Rockwell portrait of President Dwight Eisenhower – the museum didn’t forsake all its Rockwells – as well as watch a bunch of piranhas lazing in a landscaped tropical fish tank?
“I know,” Hilary acknowledged. “We’ve got it all.”
She said that attendance was excellent before the pandemic struck and is only starting to return. “We’re building our way back now,” she said hopefully. One of those visitors was a toddler racing around a gallery as her parents tried to keep up with her. “So much fun before the nap,” her father sighed. Exhausting children, so their parents get a breather, can also be part of a museum’s mission.
Ralph Gardner, Jr. is a journalist who divides his time between New York City and Columbia County. More of his work can be found at ralphgardner.com
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