The Longmont Museum’s Enduring Impressions exhibition continues until July 18th, and it has proved to be one of the museum’s most popular exhibitions, despite the COVID restrictions that continue to require timed entry and social distancing.
Enduring Impressions highlights the collaboration between three leading French Impressionist artists, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro and the printmaker George William Thornley. The three artists so trusted and appreciated the skill of Thornley’s lithography talents that they included their signatures on his prints — a rare compliment to Thornley. The exhibit includes the lithographed prints and seven original paintings and drawings by the three artists.
The works are on loan from the private collection of Drs. Tobia and Morton Mower of Denver and the exhibit was curated by Simon Zalkind. He is an old colleague of Kim Manajek, the museum’s director, and between them, they decided Longmont would be the perfect venue for this unique and important exhibition.
Longmont Museum’s exhibition curator, Jared Thompson, explained that many art exhibitions are “rented”, meaning that the works to be exhibited are selected, shipped and displayed on behalf of a gallery or museum. Enduring Impressions required the Longmont Museum to choose the works individually at the Mowers’ home and then arrange for shipment and placement.
Thompson led a team from the museum that traveled to the Mowers’ Denver home to carry out the project. Longmont Museum registrar Aileen Jijina was part of the team and while there she cataloged and helped pack all the pieces that would make up the exhibit. She also arranged the insurance and transportation of the artwork.
“Overseeing the shipping and insurance was nerve-racking,” said Jijina, “but I had some great partners”.
Since the museum is a division of the city of Longmont, the insurance was handled through the city. The museum team carried out a Condition Report of all items before removal, with each piece carefully checked and photographed. The same procedure will be done when the exhibition closes.
Jijina described how the museum team “spent a few hours with the Mowers carefully wrapping and packing the 35 framed pieces in the exhibition. It was great fun because they have so much incredible art and knowledge. My favorite part of my job is getting to really look at each piece up close before it is hung on the gallery wall.”
Thompson is proud that the whole process of setting up the exhibition, including transportation by the specialist Ship/Art Denver company, took less than one week.
With just over a month before Enduring Impressions closes, Jared Thompson and Aileen Jijina are urging more people to come and enjoy the exhibition. As Thompson says, “I never thought we would be hanging original works by Monet, Degas, or Pissarro on our gallery walls."
