Press

ALBANY, N.Y. - The New York State Museum can boast 6 million objects in its collections stemming from biological, geological and historical studies. So, it was a daunting task for curators who chose the treasures to display in Looking Back: The New York State Museum in the Year 2000. The exhibit will run in Exhibition Hall from Thursday, July 15, 1999, to March 12, 2000.

"For more than 160 years, the State Museum has amassed an impressive collection that belongs to the people of New York State. It's an opportunity for people to learn more about the state and its Museum," director Cliff Siegfried said.

Probably the centerpiece of Looking Back is Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1932 Packard. Using his own money, Roosevelt purchased the 12-cylinder, seven-passenger Model 905 while governor. It cost $3,895 new. Later governors also used the car, which was transferred to the Museum's collections in 1971 from the state's fleet.

The Museum's collections are based on research in the natural sciences and human history. The artifacts and specimens are used every day by researchers, academics, industry and governmental agencies.

While the exhibit focuses on many of these objects, there's a fun side to it that illustrates some of the unusual things that find their way into all museums' collections.

Looking Back will also feature a "Cabinet of Curiosity" to display some of the oddities -- including a grain of rice engraved with a blessing -- that find their way into a museum's collections.

"It's a whimsical kind of display," said William Kelly, who headed the team of curators who put the Looking Back exhibit together. "In every museum there's weird stuff and you don't know why. Whereas modern acquisitions must relate to the Museum's mission, in the old days if someone had something unusual, we would take it," he said.

"As we prepare plans for major renovation of the Museum's exhibits and collections storage areas for the next century, we assembled this exhibit to remind ourselves and the public of our accomplishments in the last century," Kelly said.

Other items included in this exhibit:

• Paintings. A portrait of Teddy Roosevelt by Felipe Cossio del Pomar and three examples of Hudson River School art, including works by Jasper Francis Cropsey and Edward Gay.
• The writing desk of artist Thomas Cole, the father of the Hudson River School movement.
• The 2,000 pound salt pillar. A huge chunk of salt from Retsoff, NY, that was very popular with children in the old museum. Tongue-marks from generations of curious young visitors can be seen on the sides!
• Birds of New York: Watercolors by Louis Agassiz Fuertes. He was one of the world's great and influential painters of birds. The Museum commissioned Fuertes to illustrate "The Birds of New York," published in 1910 and 1914.
• Shaker furniture. The Museum possesses one of the premier collections of Shaker artifacts in the country.
• Rare fossils, gems and minerals.
• A dormer window from the Carnegie mansion in Manhattan.
• Architectural elements from New York houses from the late 1700s and 1800s.
• Gov. DeWitt Clinton's writing desk.
• Figures and artifacts from the well-remembered Native American "life groups" from the old Museum.
• An entire stationary steam engine that powered equipment in a paper mill in the Adirondacks.

N Y S M