AMICO Press Release
February 11, 2000
The Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) Announces
Three New Members for Start of the New Year
AMICO Headquarters; Pittsburgh, PA
The Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) is pleased to welcome the Dallas
Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, and the Museum of the Americas
Foundation to our growing Consortium. These three new Members further
increase the depth and variety of the AMICO Library, enhance its usefulness
as an educational tool, and add strength to the institutional knowledge
sharing of the Consortium. "With AMICO membership now over thirty
institutions we are hitting our stride as an organization and as a tool for
humanities studies," states AMICO Executive Director, Jennifer Trant.
"Dallas and Denver bring significant collections and the MOA Foundation
adds a new dimension to the AMICO Library reaching into the Caribbean,
Mexico, and Latin America," Ms. Trant adds.
The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA), located in Dallas, Texas, houses an
impressive encyclopedic collection of nearly 25,000 objects - from the arts
of Africa, ancient America, Asia, and the Pacific, to European and American
decorative arts and paintings and sculpture by old master, impressionist,
modern, and contemporary artists. Additionally, the DMA has been a leader
in providing public access to its collection records via the GTE
Collections Information Center. As DMA Director John R. Lane notes,
"Joining AMICO will be a great way to provide that information more widely,
as well as enhance the content of the Center for our visitors through AMICO
Library access."
Colorado's Denver Art Museum (DAM) has the largest and most comprehensive
collection of world art between Kansas City and the West Coast, with over
40,000 works of art. The varied holdings include a particular strength in
the Native Arts with more than 17,000 objects from the indigenous peoples
of North America, a collecting commitment to the area of architecture,
design, and graphics, and many standards that capture the spirit of the
American West. DAM also is a rich repository of Asian art, locally and
world-renowned Modern and contemporary works, over 5,000 objects from the
pre-Columbian and Spanish Colonial periods, and fine selections of European
and American masters. Lewis Sharp, DAM's Director, hopes this
collaboration with AMICO will "broaden exposure of DAM's collection to new
users and help us further our educational mission."
The Washington, DC-based Museum of the Americas Foundation was established
in 1998 through the shared work of the Organization of American States, the
Inter-American Development Bank, and the Smithsonian Institution with the
ambitious mission to create an inclusive museum devoted to the art and
culture of the Western Hemisphere. The Foundation will work closely with
the Smithsonian Institution as well as museums throughout North America,
the Caribbean, and South and Central America to bring public attention to
the existing, rich collections that chronicle cultural achievement in the
Western Hemisphere. "The MOA is scheduled to open in 2007, but with our
online presence and our contributions to AMICO, we have a great opportunity
to build awareness and provide valuable resources virtually to our
potential audiences," observes Christopher C. Addison, President of the
Foundation.
The AMICO Library, officially launched July 1st, 1999, has made multimedia
documentation of artworks from the collections of leading museums across
North America available to universities, colleges, schools, and public
libraries. The 1999-2000 edition of the AMICO Library documents over 50,000
different works of art, from prehistoric goddess figures to contemporary
installations. More than simply an image database, works in the AMICO
Library are fully documented and may also include curatorial text about the
artwork, detailed provenance information, multiple views of the work
itself, and other related multimedia. As Jennifer Trant, AMICO Executive
Director, notes, "subscribers find the AMICO Library of interest because it
combines the immediacy and accessibility of the Web with the persistence
and academic weight of traditional library reference sources."
The AMICO Library is accessible over secure networks to institutional
subscribers, including universities, colleges, libraries, schools, and
museums. Designated users can include faculty, students, teachers, staff,
and researchers. Educational institutions may subscribe to the AMICO
Library by contacting one of its distributors. These include the Research
Libraries Group (RLG) and the Ohio Library and Information Network
(OhioLINK). A subscription to the AMICO Library provides a one-year
license to use works from the compiled AMICO Library for a broad range of
educational purposes. Interested subscribers may preview a Thumbnail
Catalog of the AMICO Library and get further information at
http://www.amico.org.
The AMICO Library is a product of the Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO),
an independent non-profit corporation, with 501 (c) 3 designation from the
IRS. The Consortium is today made up of 31 major museums. It's an
innovative collaboration - not seen before in museums - that shares,
shapes, and standardizes digital information regarding museum collections
and enables its educational use.
Current List of AMICO Members:
Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Art Gallery of Ontario
Art Institute of Chicago
Asia Society Gallery
Center for Creative Photography
Cleveland Museum of Art
Dallas Museum of Art
Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College
Denver Art Museum
Detroit Institute of Arts
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
The Frick Collection and Art Reference Library
George Eastman House
J. Paul Getty Museum
The Library of Congress
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The McMichael Canadian Art Collection
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Montréal Museum of Fine Arts
Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal
Museum of the Americas Foundation
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
National Gallery of Canada
Philadelphia Museum of Art
San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Jose Museum of Art
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Walker Art Center
Whitney Museum of American Art
Contact Information:
AMICO
Jennifer Trant, Executive Director
Art Museum Image Consortium Phone (412) 422 8533
2008 Murray Avenue, Suite D Fax (412) 422 8594
Pittsburgh, PA 15217 Email: [log in to unmask]
http://www.amico.org
----------------------------
Kelly Richmond
Communications Director
AMICO-Art Museum Image Consortium
2008 Murray Ave, Suite D
Pittsburgh, PA 15217 USA
Phone: +1 412 422 8533
Fax: +1 412 422 8594
[log in to unmask]
http://www.amico.org
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