A Conversation between Kathy Hart and Amelia Kahl
Katherine W. Hart started at the Hood Museum of Art in 1990 as the first curator of academic programming in the country. She retired in 2020 as the senior curator of collections and Barbara C. and Harvey P. Hood 1918 Curator of Academic Programming.
Amelia Kahl graduated from Dartmouth in 2001 and worked at the museum in 2001–2. She returned in 2010 and worked with Kathy Hart for a decade. She is now the Barbara C. and Harvey P. Hood 1918 Senior Curator of Academic Programming.
Academic programming involves working with Dartmouth faculty and students to integrate Hood Museum objects into the curriculum. At the crux of this effort is student access to objects in the galleries or storage. The works in storage are brought to the Bernstein Center for Object Study for class or individual sessions.
AK: Can you tell me about how academic programming started at the Hood Museum?
KWH: Academic museums usually made objects available for art history students to study in previous decades. However, by 1990, art history classes were very theory oriented, and professors did not privilege knowledge of the materiality of art objects. Angelica Rubenstein was head of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation at the time, and she felt that academic museums needed to address this issue. She began conversations with Jim Cuno, who became director of the Hood Museum in 1989, and a few other academic museum leaders about how Mellon Foundation funds could help change things. Cuno decided to create a museum staff position devoted to integrating museum objects into the curriculum. The position was also created to work with faculty and curators to create exhibitions in the galleries and bring scholars for small seminars about topics of interest. Cuno seized the initiative and did this even before the Mellon Foundation began in 1992–93 to fund academic programming initiatives.
AK: So, you were the first curator of academic programming nationally and at the Hood Museum?
KWH: Yes, I started in 1990. Just prior to this time, the Hood Museum had approached Raph and Jane Bernstein about creating a study space inside a museum storage room. [The Bernsteins funded this initial object-study storage space, which remained the museum's only behind-the-scenes space for classes until the museum expansion opened in 2019.] Initially, the use of the Bernstein Study-Storage Center was slow, but it grew.
AK: Which other staff members helped support your work with classes?
KWH: Cynthia Gilliland [now the Hood Museum's registrar] is an expert in the handling of objects and pulled objects for classes, which is a huge part of the program. Many of the classes initially were taught by the professors themselves, but as we gradually added classes beyond visual and artistic culture, I would do more of the teaching. Over the decades, it was a real evolution toward more interactive and experiential learning. A lot of professors became excited about adding this dimension to their courses.
AK: Yes, and with expansion of the program we've needed more staff support. Currently, we have four preparators who do the majority of the art handling as well as additional support from the exhibitions and registration departments. But in terms of academic programming curators, it was just you before the department doubled in 2011 when I joined the staff. How were you able to grow the practice in the first twenty years?
KWH: A big part of this history is the relationship with the Mellon Foundation. As I mentioned, in 1992–93 they awarded a grant that the Hood Museum used in a number of different ways. One way was the Mellon residencies we offered to faculty to study the collection and connect it with their teaching.
AK: We're still doing those today. In 2024, Professor Tricia Treacy from the Studio Art Department came, and recently we've had faculty from African and African American Studies and Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies. Over the years we've had over forty faculty do Mellon residencies. So how did that Mellon funding lead to a second position in academic programming?
KWH: There were several Mellon grants, including a final grant specifically for your first position—the assistant curator of academic programming. The funding for my position was endowed under Hood Museum Director Timothy Rub from the estate of Barbara Hood, the widow of Harvey P. Hood, for whom the museum is named. Under Rub, the whole area of education, both community and academic, was greatly expanded and soon flourished.
AK: So you had developed great relationships with faculty across the College, but there was still opportunity for growth.
KWH: Which you demonstrated, and our number of classes expanded exponentially over the next few years.
AK: The original Bernstein Study-Storage Center is great, but it had become increasingly crowded with back-to-back classes from a wide variety of departments.
KWH: And at the same time you were hired, the Mellon grant also provided for a half-time preparator, Sue Achenbach, now the lead preparator at the museum, who could help with object handling.
AK: That's also when the museum started talking seriously about expansion.
KWH: There had long been a desire for a new object-study room for classes, but ultimately it was only possible when Brian Kennedy, who was director from 2005 to 2010, advocated for an expansion and decided to put the issue on the table with the college administration.
AK: One of the most exciting and effective parts of the expansion was the increase from one object-study space to a suite of three, all supported with up-to-date classroom technology. [This space is now the Bernstein Center for Object Study, gifted by Claire Foerster and Daniel Bernstein in honor of his parents, Raph and Jane Bernstein, the original funders of the first object-study space.] How did that come about?
KWH: The plan was always for new object-study rooms and also for a holding area for the art. We knew that there was a need for two new study rooms since classes that wanted to use the museum are often held at the same time. We also wanted a seminar room for more intimate classes. Director John Stomberg, who started in 2016, carried on this legacy by expanding the diversity of the curatorial department into new areas like Native American art, photography, and East Asian art, the latter position endowed by Raph and Jane Bernstein.
AK: Yes, and all those curators teach frequently. I think the legacy of academic programming is that teaching with the museum collection is an important part of each curator's work as well as that of the director. Going back to planning for the building expansion, we consulted with faculty, and I was happy that we got much of what they asked for regarding technology and flexibility with the teaching spaces.
KWH: How did the pandemic stretch your use of technology in the classrooms?
AK: First, we had to pivot to video. We trained staff on cameras and would Zoom with students while showing them objects in the Bernstein Center for Object Study. We also taught with PowerPoint and used newer tools like VoiceThread. Then we moved to tiny groups, where we'd teach the same class multiple times to small groups of two or three students each. You had retired by that point and missed all the fun.
KWH: I was very grateful not to be on Zoom 24/7. How are Harrington Gallery teaching exhibitions going?
AK: We continue to have robust faculty-curated exhibitions, although they're not always in the Harrington Gallery anymore. This academic year we're working with faculty in African and African American Studies and the Art History Department.
KWH: Another important aspect of academic programming work is the senior internship program, which includes A Space for Dialogue exhibitions, which were started as a pilot program by Derrick Cartwright [Hood director from 2001 to 2004]. The academic programming curators have always been centrally involved in that program.
AK: The internship program and A Space for Dialogue continues to be one of our most successful initiatives. We have roughly twelve Dartmouth student interns a year, and six of them curate a public exhibition. This program has been going on since 2001, so we've had over 120 exhibitions! Many students say that it's one of the most (if not the most) important parts of their Dartmouth experience.
KWH: Now that you are the senior curator of academic programming, and looking back on your experience over the years, what are some of the most important aspects of what you do at the Hood Museum?
AK: There are so many things. The relationships I've developed with faculty, students—especially interns—and staff are really at the heart of what I do. Creating custom teaching and learning experiences while mentoring students and faculty in curation is incredibly gratifying. It's also satisfying to moderate complex discussions around objects that can be potentially emotionally fraught, such as those relating to race, gender, sexuality, and violence. What about for you?
KWH: For me, what was wonderful was having a colleague like you who always brought dynamic teaching skills and an intimate knowledge of objects to her work and has sustained the legacy of the Hood Museum in this area. I also loved learning from faculty and students over the years—my conversations with them were deeply enriching. People can always have meaningful conversations around objects, often ones that might prove difficult otherwise—it is one of the reasons academic museums should be a core part of a liberal arts education.
AK: That's very kind. I learned so much from you! The tradition continues with our colleague Elizabeth Rice Mattison. Beth's worked at the Hood Museum for three years and is currently the Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and curator of European art. She's brilliant and is continuing the work you started.
KWH: With having academic programming so central to the Hood Museum's mission, which it has been from early days, I think we and our colleagues in the museum education department have demonstrated what the study of objects offers to students and faculty across academic disciplines and why the museum has become such an important part of the campus experience, both academically and socially.