Dr. Sidney Goldstein
Special Exhibitions: Behind the Scenes
Since Dr. Sidney Goldstein joined the staff in 1983, the St. Louis Art Museum has held many spectacular exhibitions of art from all periods and featuring a wide variety of materials. In his Fine Arts Society lecture Dr. Goldstein will share with us some of the challenges a curator faces in developing, shipping and installing – particularly – exhibitions of Ancient and Islamic Art.
We asked Dr. Goldstein to tell us something about his background, and he wrote the following:
"My training as a Classical Archaeologist began at the University of Missouri-Columbia when I was an under-graduate in the 60s. I had the good fortune to be asked to participate in excavations at a Roman glass factory at a site called Jalame in Northern Israel. I had no interest in glass, but the opportunity to travel abroad and serve as a staff member on an excavation was compelling. Living in a pension and driving one of the excavation's jeeps was not what I envisioned as the typical excavation life.
"I was hooked and went on to graduate school and a very different excavation experience! Harvard University had collaborated with Cornell University since before the First World War in excavation at the site of Sardis in Western Turkey. It was an enormous site: some seasons there were 35 to 40 staff members from all over the world working in the excavations compound. During the late 60s and early 70s when I served as an Archaeologist-Conservator, we discovered the gold refineries of the legendarily rich Lydian king Croesus. In the 6th century B.C. he was the first to mint both gold and silver coinage. He was also the first to devalue the currency, as his gold coins had more silver content than the naturally occurring gold mined from the nearby Pactolus River.
"After teaching Art History and Archaeology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (1971-1973), I took a year off in 1973 to catalogue glass at the Corning Museum of Glass in upstate New York as a visiting curator. Corning was a co-sponsor of the Israeli excavations with the University of Missouri. I remained in Corning to become the Chief Curator and assisted in the installation design of the galleries for their new building, which opened in 1979.
"As Associate Director and Curator of Ancient and Islamic Art at the St. Louis Art Museum, I helped develop plans with other curators to reinstall the Ancient and Islamic, Asian, Contemporary and Modern and Decorative Arts Galleries which opened in 1987 and 1988 along with six period rooms. In 2001, I turned my attention entirely to curatorial matters although I had been acquiring objects for the collection and curating special exhibitions since I joined the staff in 1983. Gold seems to be a consistent thread in my ancient exhibitions from Egyptian Gods to Thracian Gold to the Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur or Mughal Jewelry from India. The Mughal show had some relief from gold with thousands of diamonds, emeralds and rubies!
"I am looking forward to working once again with curatorial colleagues to consider new gallery spaces at the St. Louis Art Museum and to reconfigure the existing spaces in the 1904 Cass Gilbert Building. It is a very exciting time in Forest Park as London-based architect David Chipperfield works on plans for a new structure to complement that Beaux Art masterpiece."
When and where to hear Dr. Goldstein's lecture: Thursday, March 13, 2008, at 10 a.m., Lakeview Museum, 1125 West Lake Ave., Peoria, Illinois.
Other programs in the Fine Arts Society's 2007-2008 lectures series: "The Guitar in Art" with Dr. Lily Afshar, "Glass and Light" with Christopher Ries, "The First and the Last in Rembrandt's Prints" with Dr. Paul Crenshaw, "Beauty or Blasphemy: Representations of the Virgin Mary in Contemporary Art" with Dr. Sarah Glover, "Romanian Sculptor Constantin Brâncuşi: Combining Elegance and Sensitivity" with Mariana Carpinişan and "On High Ground: The Documentation of Buddhist Art in the Indian Himalayas" with Dr. Rob Linrothe.
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Last updated on July 14, 2008.
