Robert Dawson Evans Memorial Galleries for PaintingsSource: Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin, Vol. 10, No. 57 (Jun., 1912), pp. 17-18Published by: Museum of Fine Arts, BostonStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4423551 .

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Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin

Published Bi-monthly. Subscription price, 50 cents per year postpaid. Single copies, 10 cent? Entered July 2, 1903, at Boston, Mass., as Second-Class Matter, under Act of Congress of July 16, 1894

Vol. X Boston, June, 1912 No. 57

Robert Dawson Evans Memorial Galleries for Paintings

ON April 9 the contract was let for the con-

struction of the Evans Memorial Wing, to contain galleries for paintings, and by May 1 the work was well under way. The plans of the interior follow the general scheme worked out before the present building was begun. On the main floor, large top-lighted galleries on the Fenway side, and smaller galleries, with top or side light, on the court side, form a continuous circuit for the exhibi- tion of paintings, while a corridor through the middle of the building affords space for water- colors, drawings, and miniatures. On the lower floor the print department will have rooms for

study, repair, storage, and exhibition ; the painting department will have offices and overflow space for paintings ; and there will be space for rooms with decorative interiors, like the Bremgarten and Lawrence rooms. The basement is to contain a women's rest room, rooms for the repair of paint- ings, and additional space for storage. As in the

present building, the department of paintings is by itself, with direct access from the entrance, and the

upper floor contains the main exhibition galleries, while the lower floor gives space mainly for admin- istration and for study.

The architect furnishes the following statement as to the building :

The exterior of the building with its principal fa?ade toward the Fenway consists, as the draw-

ing shows, of a Greek-Ionic colonnade fifty feet

high composed of twenty-two fluted columns, the whole surmounted by a parapet, where will be carved the name of the building and an inscription. This colonnade and parapet serves as a screen wall to the lofty top-lighted galleries behind it. The architecture is classic and quietly dignified in feeling and in mass, to correspond with the park-like char- acter of its surroundings, and expresses outwardly the long series of galleries inside. The recessed entrance behind the centre of the colonnade is reached by a broad flight of steps leading from the driveway, and directly opposite what the Park

Department proposes to make the widest part of the Fenway basin.

Visitors entering from the Fenway, after passing through the outer vestibule, will find themselves at the foot of the memorial staircase which leads to the galleries above. It is this staircase that will form the most interesting and decorative archi- tectural feature of the interior. Starting immedi-

ately opposite the entrance, the stair leads to a first broad landing, where on the wall is to be placed the tablet commemorative of Robert D. Evans.

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?, 18 MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS BULLETIN

Then at this point the stair divides into two flights that both curve back in a semi-circle, and thus bring the visitor to a hall or distributing lobby in the very centre of the building. The semi-circular staircase

cage is flanked by a row of columns along which

pass those visitors that come through the existing building from the Huntington Avenue side across the connecting gallery, which, in the completed scheme, provides a large hall or gallery in which are to be hung the Museum's collection of tapes- tries. This connecting gallery cannot be built now, owing to lack of funds, and a long and unfortu-

nately ugly temporary connection of sheet iron will have to bridge the space between the present building and the new one.

The galleries for paintings on the main floor are so devised as to embody the results gained by years of experiment and study. They are arranged to give variety in shape, in volume, and in elabo- ration of architectural treatment. The walls will be hung with draperies that give the proper tone

to the background, or will be panelled with wood to make the galleries more like the rooms in which the pictures were originally hung generations ago. For the same reason the ceilings have been more richly treated, and marble and stone generously used in the decoration of the galleries and halls will make possible a handsome and harmonious setting for the pictures. A special ventilating system will not only insure a full supply of fresh air at all times, but the air will be properly humidified, to avoid danger to the pictures from the too great dryness of artificially heated halls.

The Water-Colors of Edward D. Boit and John S. Sargent

THE names of Mr. Boit and Mr. Sargent are

inseparable. The two artists have many times exhibited their work together and their friendship is of long standing. Their many appreciative friends have long desired to see some of their water-colors

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