Wolfsonian redux - Miami, Florida, museum makes an alliance with the state university system

Art in America, Jan, 1997 by Paula Harper

In late 1995, the Wolfsonian, a new museum of decorative and applied arts, opened in Miami Beach on a high note of celebration and optimism. While founder Mitchell Wolfson, Jr., provided a Substantial portion of the operating budget, the fledgling institution found it difficult to attract the additional funding. Attendance did not meet expectations and grants and contributions were hard to come by. By midsummer of 1996 rumors were circulating that the museum was in crisis, based on reports of repeated cutbacks and staff layoffs. Many potential funding sources seemed stuck with a preconception that the Wolfsonian was a rich man's private curio cabinet - this in spite of plaudits for the excellence, and broad public appeal, of the initial exhibition, "The Arts of Reform and Persuasion, 1885-1945," now on a three-year world tour [see A.i.A., Jan. '96].

After a year of struggling through some swampy patches, the Wolfsonian may have emerged onto the sunlit plain. If present negotiations succeed, some time next summer the Wolfsonian will become "The Wolfsonian Museum at Florida International University" (though it will remain in its present quarters). In a deal that is pending the approval of the State Board of Regents and the Florida Legislature, Florida International University (FIU), which is the Miami branch of the State University of Florida system, will run the institution as both a facility for its students, especially those in architecture and design, and as a resource for the general public. The operating budget will be met by additional state funding for the university earmarked specifically for the Wolfsonian. In turn, Wolfson will give FIU the collection of about 70,000 pieces of "decorative and propaganda art" and the library of about 36,000 books, periodicals and ephemera in the fields of industrial arts, design and architecture. He will also donate the museum's building, the exquisitely renovated Washington Storage at Tenth Street and Washington Avenue in South Beach.

Wolfson himself is beatific about this prospect. It would guarantee a new and long life for his museum within a stable university system in one of the fastest growing states in the nation. If all goes as hoped in the negotiating and approval process, there will soon be a surprise happy ending to what might have been a cautionary tale.

In another shift, the first director of the Wolfsonian, Peggy Loar, whose contract expired in October, has been replaced by Cathy Leff, who was named interim director in November. Leff has worked for Wolfson since 1987, managing his corporate and business interests. For the past several years, she has been publisher and executive editor of the Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts. The latest issue, a handsome, 291-page anthology of scholarly investigations into the public arts of Cuba between 1870 and 1945 is a best-seller in Miami.

Administrative turbulence notwithstanding, four new exhibitions, currently on view at the Wolfsonian, reinforce the impression that the collection is a bottomless treasure trove of puzzles and surprises: "Art and Design in the Modern Age: Selections from the Wolfsonian Collection" (the show includes a handsome, leatherbound copy of Mein Kampf in braille); "Culinary Culture" (bar and kitchen artifacts, including a silver cocktail shaker from the World War I era shaped like a bomb); "Wish You Were Here" (old postcards and maps from early Miami); and "Modern Dutch Posters."

Coda: His energies unflagging, Wolfson is hard at work on a second Wolfsonian, this one in Genoa, Italy. Over the past 10 years, the collector has poured millions into restoring the Castello MacKenzie, a vast, turreted folie replete with drawbridges, loggias and watchtowers, built at the turn of the century by the architect Gino Coppede for a Scottish insurance broker in a style best described as "Tuscan interpretation of Gothic Revival." The castle is intended eventually to house a branch of Wolfson's library and a collection of about 10,000 objects, mostly of Italian design.

Wolfson is in the process of negotiating an arrangement with the Italian government. In return for Wolfson's gift of the historic building, the Italian government would finish the interior restoration of its more than 100 rooms, at an estimated cost of $3-5 million. Then a consortium of the Wolfsonian, the Italian government and the University of Genoa would run the exhibition programs and operate the Castello as a study and exhibition center. Although details remain to be worked out, this arrangement would ensure the Wolfsonian's continuing presence in Genoa and the accessibility of its ever expanding resources to scholars worldwide.