C.N. Gorman Museum: General Preservation Assessment and Collection-Specific Survey

FAIN: PG-51894-13

Regents of the University of California, Davis (Davis, CA 95618-6153)
Hulleah June Tsinhnahjinnie (Project Director: May 2012 to September 2014)

A general preservation assessment of the museum's entire collection of 562 pieces, an assessment of works on paper, and the purchase of environmental monitoring equipment for use at the C.N. Gorman Museum. The museum features award-winning contemporary American Indian artists such as Cherokee painter Kay WalkingStick, Pacific Northwest sculptor and mixed media artist Lillian Pitt, and Northern Tlingit photographer Larry McNeil. The collection documents aspects of the Native American experience including governance, self-definition and identity, and the relationship to the environment. These works are accessible to the public through permanent exhibitions, loans, traveling exhibitions, and an online database.

Funding is requested for a general preservation assessment and a collection-specific survey of works on paper at the C.N. Gorman Museum at University of California, Davis. Developed over the last 40 years the collections align with the museum's mission of exhibiting and representing contemporary Native American and Indigenous artists and reflect the range of media in which Indigenous fine artists are working today. Collections include contemporary (post-1970) photographs, prints, drawings, textiles, clothing, paintings, mixed media works, sculpture and historical baskets and ceramics. Recommendations resulting from the general preservation assessment and collection-specific survey for works on paper will inform the development of plans, procedures, and policies for the long-term care and preservation of collections, as well as to guide the purchase of preservation and storage supplies.