The Museums Council of New York met last night at the New York
   Historical Society.  The place looks wonderful, a real contrast to the
   image presented over the last few years in the professional and
   general press.

   Betsy Gotbaum, the Director, greeted us graciously and announced
   1 and 1/2 interesting news items.  The first is that NYHS has received
   a $7.5 million grant from the Luce Foundation which will enable them
   to bring their collection back in house, after some period where it
   lived in a warehouse in Manhattan.  They have hired a project manager
   who is a very experienced and very pleasant museum professional (his
   name escapes me at the moment, though we spoke quite a lot).

   The second 1/2 interesting item is that "there is something that will
   be announced next week of equal or greater importance than the Luce
   program."  From what she suggested it sounded like a major
   collaboration or partnership with an existing institution, not the
   Museum of the City of New York (she clarified).

   Jack Rutledge (I think, I'm bad with names), who is the Director of
   Exhibitions and Collections (worse with titles), spoke about the
   deaccessioning fracas.  I won't go into detail in this description,
   but he certainly conveyed two points: 1) the deaccessioning was
   critical to the survival of the institution; 2) that it was conducted
   thoughtfully and carefully with an eye toward distributing items that
   were not part of a reasonably broadly defined mission statement.

   Then we had a rich and fascinating tour of the Audubon exhibition that
   has been traveling around the country and recently returned to the
   Society.  Jack emphasized that the Society is not primarily an art
   museum, so the exhibition is re-cast as a social/historical
   exhibition, with art objects at its core.  As an example, he recounted
   Audubon's personal story surrounding his various failures in business
   and his apparently sudden decision, at 35, to leave his wife and two
   children to get on a boat to paint all of America's birds.  Jack also
   emphasized the work behind the artifacts, both the fieldwork and the
   artwork, not to mention the work of JJ Audubon's wife at home raising
   two children with no money...

   I should point out that the watercolors (which also include various
   media like charcoal, pen, shellac, collage) are very inviting and
   impressive as art objects as well.

   Then, we had dinner.  It was a large convivial group of nearly 60
   museum people representing 18 institutions.  I hope that you will
   join us, if possible, the next time when we meet in April at the
   Jewish Museum to look at their exhibit, Points of Entry, (I think its
   called, bad with exhibition titles, too)  about immigration.

   We have published our annual directory, which has staff listings
   for all of the 81 member institutions, as well as exhibition schedules
   for the coming year, admissions, etc.  It's a big job to get together,
   and it is available for sale ($5 to members, $10 to non-members) from
   Marcia Rudy at the New York Hall of Science (718)699-0005.

   Plans for a web site were recently initiated, and we'll keep you
   posted.

   Eric Siegel
   Chairman
   The Museums Council of New York