Walters Art Gallery

The new art season will bring us Greek gold and Monet, terrorism and technology, and maybe even a building boom. It seems sure that the coming year will see one new museum building in the works, and if everybody's hopes come true there could be three.Baltimore Museum of Art director Arnold Lehman says construction will begin about Feb. 1 on the museum's wing for 20th century art. The $7-million-plus project, combining the new wing with renovation in the existing structure, will add about 50,000 square feet of space, including about 25,000 of gallery space, and is projected to open in the spring of 1994.

Architectural overreach may be at the core of the glitches uncovered in the Walters Art Gallery's 1974 building: a climate-control system that does not maintain the steady temperature and humidity levels needed to preserve works of art, and ceiling-mounted "reheater" coils that drip water and oil on the floor below. One wonders why a building barely 20 years old has developed so many problems it is untenable for its original purpose.To be sure, some of the blame belongs to the Walters' management.

The Walters Art Gallery's latest blockbuster exhibit, "Angels from the Vatican," which closed Sunday, was a success if not a smashing success. Attendance and revenue figures did not meet projections, but the show made the gallery a profit thanks to store sales, and the Walters' membership rolls reached a record.The exhibit, devoted to the depiction of angels in art from pre-Christian times to the 20th century, drew 57,000 ticketed attendees in its eight-week run, which began Nov. 8. That was 24 percent below the gallery's projection of 75,000.

When Michael P. Mezzatesta arrives in Baltimore later this year to take over the helm of the Walters Art Gallery, he will find a thriving institution in the process of navigating its way through a difficult transition.Mr. Mezzatesta, director of the Duke University Museum of Art in Durham, N.C., was named last week to succeed Robert Bergman, who headed the Walters since 1981. During that time the museum's budget nearly tripled, from $2.3 million to more than $7 million, while attendance doubled to more than 300,000 visitors a year.

The Walters Art Gallery's 1974 building has developed so many problems that it can no longer safely house the institution's priceless collection of Egyptian, Greek and Roman art. Officials estimate the total cost of repairs at about $6 million -- about half of which must be raised from city, state and federal governments.The problems include a climate-control system that cannot maintain the steady temperature and humidity levels needed to preserve works of art, ceiling-mounted "reheater" coils that drip water and oil on the floor and unsafe or inadequate stairwells and handicapped access ramps.

The story of a 'good' man in a bad time"Good," a play by C. P. Taylor set in Nazi Germany, will make its Baltimore premiere at Fells Point Corner Theatre, 251 S. Ann St., beginning Friday. Produced on Broadway in 1982 by the Royal Shakespeare Company, "Good" was described by its late author as the "story of how a 'good' man gets caught up in the nightmare of the Third Reich."Fells Point Corner's production is directed by Barry Feinstein and features Joe Moore as a German philosophy professor and Richard Jackson as a Jewish psychologist.

The Walters Art Gallery plans to close its 1974 wing this summer so it can start a $16 million overhaul of the building that will take three years to complete.Galleries on the second and fourth floors of the 1974 building will be closed to the public by mid-June, and the entire building will be closed starting Aug. 15 so the renovations can proceed hTC without damaging art or patrons.The Walters' 1908 building at 600 N. Charles St. and its separate Museum of Asian Art inside the Hackerman House at 1 Mount Vernon Place will remain open during the renovation period.

WELL into her second year on the job, Baltimore Museum of Art director Doreen Bolger is creating quite a buzz about her ambitious agenda for the museum, including a redesign of the museum's galleries.She has already broken with the past by restoring the original gilt frames to the Cone Collection's Impressionistic paintings -- a clear bow to local tastes.As Ms. Bolger moves forward, there are several other areas of local concern that I hope she considers:Open the BMA on Mondays. Baltimore's three major museums -- the Museum of Art, the Walters Art Gallery and the American Visionary Art Museum -- are all closed on Mondays.

WITH THE wisdom of Solomon, Judge Joseph H. H. Kaplan ruled that the Maryland Institute, College of Art may sell the Lucas collection but must then compensate the two museums that care for it. How much, must await an adversary hearing. So in theory the dispute is resolved in the institute's favor. Whether it is actually in the institute's interest to sell the massive collection of prints plus paintings and sculpture to enlarge its endowment is left unresolved.Time remains for an amicable solution or fourth-party intervention that would provide a gift of money to the institute and title to the art to the Baltimore Museum of Art and Walters Art Gallery now holding it. However unlikely, that would be the best solution for Baltimore.

THE CLOSURE of parts of the Walters Art Gallery from this summer until March 2001 will inconvenience the museum-going public while giving it something to anticipate.The opulent 1980s renovation of the 1904 building made the installations of the 1974 addition look cramped and poorly lighted. Now, with a mix of private and public money, this treasure owned by the people of Baltimore will be brought up to its own high standard.The renovation will make the museum more open and inviting, with the wonderful arms and armor exhibit an immediate attraction for young viewers.