Collection

When I found out that Mike Sittenfeld, Director of Publications at The Jewish Museum, received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in English, I felt that sense of camaraderie I like to imagine all English majors feel amongst each other. Mike understands just how delicate the editing process is. He acknowledges that his job requires much sensitivity. Writers often become tied to their words and are resistant to outside editing. However, Mike’s favorite part of the editing process is clarifying a text so that the author’s intentions can be fully realized. With his help, The JM publishes two to three books a year. Click to continue »

Collections Manager Katherine Danalakis gave me an impromptu tour of one of the Museum’s onsite art storage rooms and, like a kid in a candy store, I was wide eyed and thrilled to be there. The room is narrow and long, with rows of large paintings stored vertically and smaller objects and works on paper in flat drawers. To give a sense of how large the room is, think about this: Like most other museums, only about 2% of The Jewish Museum’s collection is ever on view at a time.

Katherine says the most challenging part of her job is keeping up with the process of the Museum’s many new acquisitions. A recent example is Melissa Meyer’s Lilith, a large scale painting from 1992, that will be shown in the upcoming exhibition Shifting the Gaze: Painting and Feminism. That process, which consists of photographing, numbering, cataloguing, and storing new works, is one of Katherine’s major responsibilities. Click to continue »