Stabilizing the Storage Environment of the Museum's Art Collection

FAIN: PG-233736-16

Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center (Skokie, IL 60077-1095)
Arielle Weininger (Project Director: May 2015 to October 2017)

The purchase of storage furniture, light-blocking curtains, and materials to rehouse 62 paintings, sculptures, and works of art on paper in the museum’s 240-object fine art collection. Included in this collection are 13 drawings and paintings by Arie Singer narrating his experience in the Belarussian Glebokie ghetto and 10 watercolors painted by Georg Wolff and Ferdinand Bloch documenting the people and buildings of the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The Holocaust Memorial Foundation commemorates the victims of genocide through a collection of over 24,000 artifacts, photographs, scrapbooks, publications and pamphlets, maps, and personal items from before 1945. There are also postwar materials such as documentaries, made-for-TV films, news footage, and oral histories. The collections are used for exhibitions, tours, and educating docents and the public, including family members seeking to connect with their families’ past. This application responds to a 2011 conservation assessment which recommends re-housing 62 of the Foundation’s 240 works of fine art.

This grant will support the purchase of an additional art storage rack, materials to construct a light-protecting curtain, and preservation supplies including microchamber paper, UV film, corrugated board and ethafoam to rehouse and/or protect framed artworks and sculptures that are part of the Museum's Fine Art Collection. These activities are derived from recommendations in a CAP Collection Survey performed in 2011. The Fine Art Collection consists of approx. 240 artworks produced by artists in the 20th century examining the visual interpretation of memory and massive loss of people and cultures following mass murder, war, or genocide. The interpretation of the Holocaust and other genocides serve an important role today where the promotion of peace and understanding is essential in preventing future violence and mass atrocities. This grant will allow the Museum to improve storage conditions and preservation of approx. 62 pieces or 26% of the Fine Art Collection.