Henry Walters

When William R. Johnston, curator of 18th and 19th century art at the Walters Art Gallery, decided to tell the story of the museum's founders, William and Henry Walters, he had no idea what it would entail.That was 25 years ago -- 25 years in which Johnston read hundreds of history books, perused thousands of pages from inventories or minutes and pored over what surely must have seemed like tens of thousands of footnotes.You see, William and Henry, father and son, were very private people.

Baltimore artist Christopher Myers recently created a public art installation in Baltimore consisting of 100 cast-concrete sculptures in the shape of Mad Dog brand wine bottles, each with a spent bullet from a handgun embedded in its base.Myers began placing his life-size bottles in various locations around the city July 31 with the intention of allowing them to be found by passers-by."Conceptually, these bottles are small votives to the city and its issues -- substance abuse, crime, murder, littering," said Myers.

People come, of course, in two kinds: the collectors, the others. Years ago, William and Henry Walters, father and son, collected works of art; Baltimore is the richer and more famous for it. For some while, William R. Johnston has been collecting -- details, stories, insights regarding the founders of Walters Art Gallery.The result is a book, "William and Henry Walters, The Reticent Collectors" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 310 pages, $39.95). And what a book! Johnston, by now the senior member of the gallery's professional staff, interviewed Walters family members, since deceased; he read memoirs, old auction catalogs, old newspapers; he coped with the exasperating habit, in both Walterses, of not preserving correspondence and receipted bills.

150 years ago in The SunJune 15: OMNIBUSES -- Cold Spring and Govanstown -- A line of accommodating coaches has been placed on the York road, making two round trips a day, to Govanstown, stopping at the Cold Spring Hotel and other places on the road. This must be a great accommodation to persons visiting the above delightful and healthy places of resort, and also to the numerous families living on the route.100 years ago in The SunJune 17: Within a few days the City Commissioners of Public Baths, Messers.

ALL MY LIFE I've heard stories and tales about William and Henry Walters, Baltimore's father and son art collectors who gave the city its appropriately legendary gallery and collection.As a child, I listened to one of the great Baltimore stories, the lamp that remained perpetually lighted on West Mount Vernon Place. This is the tale of Jennie Walters, the daughter of William Walters, who broke her father's heart. The father kept the light visible in hopes his daughter would return to his side.

FOR TWO DECADES, Richard H. Randall was Mr. Walters Art Gallery. As its director from 1965 to 1981, he led the campaign for a bond issue to fund its expansion, then supervised the building and installation of the new wing of 1974, tripling the exhibitions of the great collection assembled by William T. and Henry Walters and given by the latter to the people of Baltimore.His public manner sometimes reinforced an image of the Walters as an unwelcoming private club -- always a bum rap, and one he did much to reverse.

William Noel, the Walters Art Gallery's recently appointed assistant curator of manuscripts and rare books, scores a hit with his first show in the manuscript gallery. Called "Covered in Meaning," it's a show of book bindings, and it brings together some of the collection's most beautiful, unusual and important bindings, dating from the mid-11th century down to 1962.It's a show of treasures but not simply a "treasures of " show. It doesn't just throw gorgeous stuff at you, though there's enough gorgeous and rare material here to provide a feast for the hungriest eye.There's a tiny 16th-century prayer book, only about an inch square but made of gold and set with rubies.

THE WALTERS ART GALLERY has made a substantial advance in the acquisition of 17 works of Ethiopian Christian art, most of which are now on public view. This complements its holdings in Armenian, Russian, Greek and early Italian Christian devotional art.This addition to the collection flows naturally from the Walters' xTC stunning introduction of Ethiopian religious art to Americans in its 1993 show, which fed its own interest and reputation, indirectly leading to this purchase and extended loan.

Hypocrisy and the Lucas CollectionIn his May 14 letter to The Sun concerning the Maryland Institute College of Art's ownership of the Lucas collection, Kenneth A. Willaman asks the core question.After the many years our museums have spent cataloging and lovingly conserving works of art, can citizens expect those same works to be found on the auction block at Sotheby's?The answer is a resounding "Yes."The records of both the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Gallery reflect this.

Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Joseph H.H. Kaplan is expected to rule later this week whether the Maryland Institute, College of Art may sell all or part of its renowned Lucas Collection -- or whether that question should be decided next spring in a trial.The collection, which includes thousands of prints, oil paintings and sculptures, was given to the institute in 1910 by Henry Walters. Considered one of the most important bequests ever made in Baltimore, it has been on loan to the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Gallery since 1933.

In a quiet, windowless room deep inside the Walters Art Museum, a digitization specialist places a 900-year-old Quran into the cradle of the Stokes Imaging System. She turns a page, lowers a wedge to hold the book in place, and snaps a picture. She raises the wedge, turns the page, lowers the wedge, and repeats. And repeats. And repeats. It's painstaking work, photographing one of the most important collections of Islamic manuscripts in North America, and slow. But scholars say the two-year project has put the Baltimore museum at the vanguard of a movement that is transforming the study of ancient texts.

All it took was a brief scan of the crowd at the Walters Art Museum gala to notice there was a little something different at this party. A bright red miter drifted amid a sea of bobbing bare heads. A set of enormous puffed velvet sleeves rubbed shoulders with dozens of traditional tuxedos. A gold lame toga twinkled alongside scores of cocktail dresses and gowns. This was "A Night In The Museum," where guests were encouraged to wear either black-tie attire or a costume inspired by one of the museum's paintings.

Baltimore art collector Henry Walters had a great eye for painting and sculpture, but he also had a thing for bling. While he was expanding the art collection that his father William began assembling in the mid 1800s, Henry amassed one of the most wide-ranging private jewelry collections in the U.S., including works by Tiffany & Co., Rene Lalique and others. His greatest finds form the core of Bedazzled: 5000 Years of Jewelry, a lavish exhibit that opens today and runs through Jan. 4, 2009, at the Walters Art Museum.

As Walters Art Museum conservator Elissa O'Loughlin pulled back the lid to one of two wooden crates left in the museum's attic for decades, Gary Vikan broke the tension. "Oh, my God, not another Monet! We have much too many of those," the museum's director said. The audience burst into laughter. Vikan was standing too far away to see the crates' contents -- volumes of well-preserved black, leather-bound photo albums and one box. O'Loughlin opened the box and removed an 80-page red leather book.

A nationally renowned specialist in museum design, Polshek Partnership Architects of New York, has been selected to develop a master plan to guide growth and development of Baltimore's Walters Art Museum campus over the next decade. Museum director Gary Vikan said Polshek was selected over 10 candidates that sought the commission, the first comprehensive planning exercise at the Walters in 11 years. Open since the 1930s with an extensive collection assembled by William and Henry Walters, the city-owned museum began at 600 N. Charles St. and has grown into a campus that includes nine properties on three city blocks stretching along Centre Street.

A reader recently directed my attention to a copy of Washing `The Great Unwashed:' Public Baths in Urban America 1840-1920, by Marilyn Thornton Williams, a college professor, whose 1991 book chronicles the almost-forgotten public bath movement that blossomed during the 19th century. Urban social reformers pushed the many benefits that could be derived by regular bathing in addition to personal cleanliness and freedom from infectious diseases. Regular bathing also gave one a certain middle-class respectability, whether one was middle class or not. Having a relationship with hot water, a bar of soap and a clean towel was a necessary and good thing.

EXHIBIT WALTERS' PRECIOUS BOOKS It's an odd name for an unusual exhibit. Schatzkammer: Henry Walters' German Manuscripts, an exhibit of 24 medieval German manuscripts, is on display Saturday through Oct. 29 at the Walters Art Museum. Henry Walters amassed the collection of high-quality, rare and illustrated ninth-through-16th-century Gospel books, prayer books, liturgical manuscripts and theological texts throughout his lifetime. During the Middle Ages, precious books and possessions such as these were stored in the Schatzkammer, or treasury, of a church or palace for protection.

Gary Vikan, the director of the Walters Art Museum, is dusting off a relic of years past - and for the best of reasons. It's a bronze plaque that hung outside the museum until 1982, and it reads: ADMISSION FREE. Beginning Oct. 1, both the Walters and the Baltimore Museum of Art will drop their $10 entrance fee, allowing anyone and everyone to explore the city's art treasures at no charge. It's a gesture beyond generous. It's an opportunity to enhance the cultural awareness of individual and community alike.

In "Ode to a Grecian Urn," the 19th-century Romantic poet John Keats described a pair of lovers on the side of an ancient vase who exist in a timeless realm forever removed from the onrushing tide of history. Keats' idea of a timeless, ideal realm of art was the conventional wisdom of his era. But as the century wore on, it became more and more tenuous as a guide for creative artists. The 19th century was an age of unprecedented, rapid change. The invention of railroads, the telegraph and industrial mass production, the rise of universal literacy and a popular press, the expansion of cities and the huge accumulations of capital in business all served to shrink space and time.

William Walters and his son, Henry, spent much of their lives in the late 19th and early 20th century buying works of art, sometimes by the ship load. They purchased illuminated manuscripts, suits of armor and medieval and Renaissance paintings. What the Baltimore-born industrialists overlooked were works by African-American artists. Now with the purchase of a marble bust of a 19th-century abolitionist and an impressionist landscape of Boston, the Walters Art Museum - built around the collection bequeathed to the city by Henry Walters in 1931 - will include art by two African-American artists.