The Wadsworth used to use red, but the higher-keyed colors used now are more easily spotted in dark loading docks. The pressure for elbowroom backstage goes beyond storage and office conditions, and extends to the restoration and preservation rooms. Then there are the archival records that are crammed into too little space, such as the correspondence between the museum and Joseph Cornell. The Wadsworth was the first museum to purchase one of his cunning boxes. And space concerns mean that there isn't room for equipment that they often need.
Paintings are x-rayed to reveal layers of paint and earlier stages of the work.
Every detail is tagged and inventoried and at somebody's fingertips. The home for these textiles is a wintry basement room where everything is shrouded in muslin, like so many hundreds of unbleached pillows on hangers and shelves. Playing off the sunny image Monet painted of his wife Camille, windswept atop a grassy hill and clutching a green parasol, Krute is suiting out her mannequin all in white. She's been cleaning the cottons, one square inch at a time, and decking out the doll. Inc. All rights reserved.