Class News

Bill Morse ’64 reports on final YAA Assembly event of this season

April 16, 2021

Bill Morse, the 1964 Delegate to YAA, and Tony Lavely both “attended” the final YAA Assembly of 2020-21, aka “The Year of the Zoom.” The event on April 13 featured Courtney Martin, Director of the Yale Center for British Art, Barbara Rochenbach, Yale University Librarian, and Stephanie Wiles, Director of the Yale Art Gallery.

Bill asked a question of the panelists: “Why, despite Paul Mellon’s family’s Irish roots (the Mellon’s emigrated to the US several centuries ago), didn’t he show more interest in Irish art?”

Bill wrote: “It was a very good presentation. Faced with the pandemic, the Yale Library, Yale Art Museum, and the Yale Center for British Art struggled at first. Then, they all developed better digital access to books, manuscripts, and art. Apart from expanding Yale’s digital collection and outreach, they developed ‘Best practices for teaching on Zoom.’ The library and art galleries worked together and are now working towards simplifying the current need to do multiple searches, by developing one digital outreach portal. About 15 years ago I was traveling in Egypt, and in Alexandria I saw how their spectacular new library digitalized everything in their collections and made it easily accessible to the entire world.

“Courtney Martin, the Director of the Yale Center for British Art, made some interesting points. First, it’s called the ‘British’ Center (embracing England, Scotland, and Ireland). Second, Mellon’s mother was English, and she took him on several visits to England. I had asked, ‘What Irish art is in the collection?’ There is a pretty significant Irish artist, W.B. Yeats’ brother, John (“Jack") Yeats. I have seen much of Jack's art at the Clark Museum in Williamstown MA. Jack would have been better known had Paul Mellon been more interested, as a collector, in his own Irish heritage.

“Barbara Rochenbach, Yale’s University Librarian, said ‘We are your library for life.’ We now have access to a very large collection of digital images. I especially liked this point: ‘Our collections are related to one another. They speak to one another.’ The pandemic triggered innovation, new energy, more collaboration, and greater access to everything in Yale’s collections. Remote access, in many ways, can be better than in-person access. The extensive access to new voices represents, better than ever, Yale’s vision of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

“Stephanie Wiles was recently named to her position as Director of the Yale Art Gallery. Her resourcefulness and leadership are impressive.

“I should also mention the West Campus, where Yale’s Art collection is spectacular, and the Peabody, which collaborated with the Yale Library, Art Gallery, and British Art Center in their efforts to digitalize everything and work towards one single digital portal. The Peabody also stores a major part of its collections at the West Campus. I saw that on a tour several years ago.”