Storage Equipment for Ethnographic and Fine Arts Collections

FAIN: PG-51282-11

Plains Art Museum (Fargo, ND 58102-4904)
Mark Ryan (Project Director: May 2010 to November 2012)

The purchase of three metal conservation cabinets to rehouse 124 of the museum's most fragile small to medium-sized objects, including fine art (glass and ceramics), African masks and wooden sculptures, and Inuit soapstone sculptures.

The NEH Preservation Assistance Grant will provide for the proper storage of a large percentage of Plains Art Museum's expanding three-dimensional object collection that consists of both ethnographic and fine arts (sculpture, both in-the-round and wall-mounted). The Museum intends to store the most valuable, fragile and/or uniquely shaped three-dimensional objects in three powdered-coated, Viking Metal Cabinet Company, Model 348 cabinets. These specialized cabinets will accommodate 124 small to medium-sized objects. Per the specific recommendation made in the 2005 general preservation assessment conducted by the Midwest Art Conservation Center to properly re-house its three-dimensional objects, this grant will enable the Museum to dramatically improve the quality of storage currently afforded to the Museum's most fragile and valuable three-dimensional collections. The Museum intends to follow through with the recommendation of the assessment and purchase three Viking Metal Cabinet Company cabinets.