Monhegan Island Internships

ANES student interned with Robert Stahl, Associate Director, Monhegan Museum, and Gail Scott, Independent Art Historian, on the James Fitzgerald Legacy Project, which is a part of the Monhegan Museum.

Current goals of the project included: completion of the Fitzgerald database of work present in the artist's Monhegan studio at the time of his death in 1971; completion of a database of work currently in the collection; completion of the archival housing of the work in the studio; initial work on the development of a Catalogue Raisonné; and continuation of/ participation in studio hours and tours of the artist’s home.

The Fitzgerald intern worked and interacted with Monhegan Museum curators on its main campus on Lighthouse Hill, and participated in Museum activities on the Lighthouse Hill campus as well.  Plus the intern was able to participate in the Monhegan experience.

Upon the death of the artist in 1971, Anne and Ed Hubert (his executors) used an index card and 3”x5” photo file system to record the work.  The estate included some 700+ watercolors, over 300 monochromes and sketches, and about 100 oil paintings.  The Legacy has proceeded with a plan for digitalization in keeping with the electronic database maintained on Lighthouse Hill.  The program utilized for this work is FileMaker Pro, which allows extensive cross referencing. This will be completed this summer and will be a major responsibility of the intern. 

As part of the above database, we are completing a reference of all work currently in the Fitzgerald Legacy collection.  The work is housed in several locations: flat files in the Fitzgerald studio on Monhegan, at the Rockwell Kent house on Horne Hill, in the vault on Lighthouse Hill, and in a high security climate controlled vault in Portland. 

The Legacy received a grant from IMLS to improve the archival housing of the works on paper in the studio.  That process, started in 2009, will be completed in 2011, and some of this work will also be a responsibility of the intern.

Studio hours have continued uninterrupted since the artist's death, and the intern will participate in this, serving as docent at the house, and also at the studio.  The Rockwell Kent house, also a part of the Museum, is opened during studio hours.        

The Fitzgerald Legacy is initiating a long-term project to develop a James Fitzgerald Catalogue Raisonnee.  The goal of the Catalogue Raisonnee will be to inventory the entire output of the artist throughout his career.  The intent will be to develop a database that is available through the Museum and on-line.  It is the goal of the Legacy to obtain high quality, high resolution images of all extant work.  As part of that process, we will be contacting Museums and collectors that hold his work in order to obtain images and data.  This is anticipated to be a several year, ongoing project, and is currently in the early stages.

At the completion of the 2011 summer season, the expected goals are: 

1.  The archival housing and inventory of the Fitzgerald studio work has been completed;

2.  The FileMaker Pro database of digitalization of the Hubert files has been completed;

3.  The Catalogue Raisonee project has been initiated with initial documentation of Museum work (work held in various Museum collections in the US) and that of major collectors.  The latter will include initial steps toward obtaining high quality/high resolution digital images.

The Monhegan Museum and the Fitzgerald Legacy anticipate an ongoing commitment to provide space for summer internship opportunities in the future.

The James Fitzgerald/Rockwell Kent Legacy

In 2004, longtime Monhegan summer resident Anne M. Hubert bequeathed to the museum her home and studio on Monhegan, along with the estate of James M. Fitzgerald. 

Both buildings were designed and built by Rockwell Kent during the years 1906 to 1910 for his own use. The studio, built by Kent as an art school, was subsequently owned by his cousin, the painter Alice Kent Stoddard. James Fitzgerald acquired the studio in 1952 and the house in 1958. Both buildings, which are on the National Register of Historic Places, are now open to the public on a limited basis each week during the summer. The Kent-Fitzgerald home is a historic house museum, and the studio is used to display paintings by James Fitzgerald from the museum’s collection.

In 2007, a symposium was held to honor the centenary of Kent's building the house on Monhegan. Several of the papers from the symposium have been or will be published in The Kent Collector, produced by the Rockwell Kent Archives at the SUNY Plattsburgh Art Museum.

The Fitzgerald/Kent Legacy Committee:
Robert Stahl, Chair
Dan Broeckelmann
Edward Deci
Gail Scott
Carol Stahl
Ellie Vuilleumier, Registrar (posthumous)