A photo essay. To view all 34 images, check out the email version.
It’s official.
The Yale University Art Gallery’s Leslie P. and George H. Hume American Furniture Study Center—the Hume Furniture Study for short, encompassing American furniture and decor from as far back as 1650—has moved from downtown to Yale West Campus in Orange, officially opening last weekend. But as far as the general public is concerned, the Study is really reopening today thanks to the resumption of its weekly public tours. Henceforth on Fridays, you can catch a noon shuttle from YUAG or drive yourself to West Campus for a 12:20 tour through American history.
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If you’ve toured the old Study on York Street, you’ll be wowed by the upgrades. (If you never got to see the previous digs, you’ll be wowed anyway, and not just by the furniture.) With super high ceilings accommodating a ground floor and a mezzanine as well as state-of-the-art lighting, curators and caretakers can display a lot more of the collection—including items that simply couldn’t fit before—and make it look better, too. They can move pieces with ease, either to lecture zones within the larger space or to conservation and photography facilities in the very same building. The air is clean and fresh and both the furniture and visitors have much more room to breathe.
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But not too much. Like the old Study, the new one easily invites comparisons to that warehouse in the final scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the boxed-up Ark of the Covenant is being placed within a huge room presumed to be full of other spectacular treasures. Only, the treasures in the Study—“1,300 objects, including more than 900 pieces of furniture and looking glasses, 50 clocks, 300 examples of contemporary wood turning and sculpture, and 30 architectural elements,” according to a press release—aren’t boxed up. They’re lined up and spruced up, just waiting for appreciative eyes.
Leslie P. and George H. Hume American Furniture Study Center
Yale West Campus – 100 West Campus Dr, Orange (map)
Public tours: Fri 12:20-1:30pm; meet at noon for a shuttle from the Yale University Art Gallery
(203) 432-0632 | yuag.furniturestudy@yale.edu
www.artgallery.yale.edu/furniture-study
Written and photographed by Dan Mims.
