Art Docent Info

It sits there, a composition of shapes, pyramids, circles, cylinders rectangles, but no squares, no sides at precisely right angles..

It is the Louise Wells Cameron Art Museum and it is at a crossroads…literally and figuratively. It sits at the intersection of Independence Boulevard and 17th Street. And it sits at a crossroads in its quest for excellence.

And just how did it get where it is? Well, it took four godfathers to bring it into being. Those four godfathers were an artist, as businessman, an architect and a museum director. And each had a dream.

The artist wanted a place to feature North Carolina art.

The businessman wanted a memorial to his wife.

The architect wanted a showplace in his home state for his work.

And the museum director just wanted more space.

The Louise Wells Cameron Art Museum is the culmination of those dreams. But how did it all come together?

Well, take the museum’s first director, Ren Brown. As the 20 th century was drawing to a close he found himself faced with a growing and gnawing problem: trying to fit his ever-increasing collection into an ever-decreasing space in a three-building complex that was St. John’s Museum of Art. The oldest of the buildings was built in 1804 as a Masonic lodge. The second building originally was a Greek Orthodox Church and the third structure began its life as a schoolhouse.

What finally became St. John’s Museum had its debut on a Halloween night in rooms above a funeral parlor, and after acquiring the Masonic lodge, retained the lodge’s name—St. John’s---and a Masonic mural. So, there Brown was, with three structures, none of which was designed to be a museum, and trying to run a museum that was sadly in need of room.

He looked across the street at a community arts center, but was told to look elsewhere. The frame building had been used as a USO Center during World War II, and preservationists wanted to keep it as a remainder of the city’s role in helping provide an R&R haven for servicemen on the military-rich Carolina coast.

Now, the artist, Claude Howell. He had been a force in the museum since its and his early days. Howell was the glue that held the museum together once the idea was conceived by his teacher, English-born painting guru, Elisabeth Chant. She was the alarm clock that awakened the art community in what had been described as---and occasionally still is called---a sleepy Southern town. Chant, described as eccentric by some and mad by others, often said she held talks with King Arthur and displayed what she called life portraits to prove it. Whatever…. she certainly stirred not only paint but certainly the minds of Wilmingtonians---especially a young clerk for the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad—Claude Howell

Under the strong guidance of Elisabeth Chant, Howell turned from adding figures to painting figures. He often said that he fell in love with what he called the pure light of the Carolina coast. He displayed that love in the colors which he used to paint coastal scenes—a beach cottage, mullet fishermen, net menders. Painting enabled him to express himself better than any other medium. He did just three mosaics, and they too reflect life on the Carolina coast. One depicts marine transport and hangs in the Wilmington office of the Ports Authority; another shows life in a predecessor of Wilmington as a port city---Brunswick Town—and hangs as a memorial in a visitors’ center amid the ruins of the Eighteenth Century site; the third showing—fishermen, of course—is owned by the Louise Wells Cameron Museum of Art.

Howell. as a board member and a founder of St. John’s Museum, helped in its acquisitions. An opinionated, but intensely honest man, Howell looked mostly at North Carolina art. However, two of the museum’s treasures are sets of prints by persons so far as is known never came anywhere near North Carolina. One set is by Philadelphia-born, Paris-nurtured impressionistic Mary Cassatt. Those prints, gift of a man who retired to Wilmington, Samuel Hughes, weren’t about to be refused. Neither was a set of Japanese prints in vibrant, sparkling colors, similar to those that inspired Mary Cassatt. .

After a visit to the state art museum in Raleigh, Howell noted that what the state needed was not so much a North Carolina Museum of Art but a museum for North Carolina art. He worked throughout his life toward that goal, and in death left the bulk of his estate as a seed for such a museum.

Now, Brown needed a rainmaker to make that seed sprout. He didn’t have to look far. Here is where we meet the businessman---Bruce Cameron, and in fact the entire Cameron family. The name Cameron has been an integral part of the Wilmington scene since the last decade of the Eighteenth Century. There is a saying around these parts that one can not call himself a “native,” until he has at least three generations planted in the ground. The Camerons certainly have that, Robert Cameron having arrived in Wilmington shortly after the Revolutionary War to establish a shipping business.

There is a town south of Wilmington that for years was named Smithville after one of its leading citizens until it got its present name of Southport. If in any future times folks want to change Wilmington’s name, Cameron Town would be appropriate. Through the generations since the Eighteenth Century when Robert Cameron set up shop in Wilmington the name Cameron has been a vital cog in the workings of the city’s political, business and cultural life. Bruce B. Cameron, the World War II mayor of Wilmington, died in office and left five children: Bruce B. Cameron Jr. Daniel D. Cameron, Robert F. Cameron, Hilda Cameron Echols, and Rachel Cameron Camp.

All have been active in the city’s business, civic and cultural life. The school of business at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington bears the Cameron name, as does a building at local private school, Cape Fear Academy. All four were important figures in the growth of St. John’s Museum after it took that name in 1962. Camerons have served on its board, freely offering both money…. and advice on how to manage it. In 1978, Hilda Echols and Rachel Camp supplied funding so the museum could acquire the Greek church. In the early 1990s Bruce Cameron urged the museum board to set up an endowment that has now grown to more than $3 million Now, Bruce Cameron and his family again have come to the aid of the museum where his wife was a volunteer for more than 35 years. She died in 1997, and in her memory, Bruce Cameron gave $4 million and his children donated land valued at $2 million for what would become the Louise Wells Cameron Art Museum.

Ren Brown now had the land and some money to build at a new location. He figured he needed more money and an architect. For funds he estimated that $12.1 million would do the job and he had about half of that. A campaign was begun to raise more money. And when it seemed to be lagging, there Bruce Cameron was with an offer of additional funds.

That left just an architect. But Brown didn’t want just an architect. He wanted a person eminent in the field who knew the problems museums have. He began a nationwide search, and came up with a list of 22 firms that wanted to bid on the project. Brown narrowed the field to five, then, from that five he and the board chose the New York firm of Gwathmey, Siegel & Associates, the main architect being Charles Gwathmey.

The Charlotte-born, Ivy-League-educated Gwathmey had made his and his firm’s name known in the museum design field, and it looked as if he would be a good choice. It turned out to be much more than that. It was a perfect choice. Charles Gwathmey applied for the project because 1) It was to be a museum; 2) It was to be a museum in his native state; 3) It was to be a museum that would be THE museum of North Carolina art, and 4) It was to be a museum with which Claude Howell had been closely associated.

There’s that name again: Claude Howell. How is it that he again comes into the picture? Charles Gwathmey’s father, Robert, was a painter, and Charles’s mother, a photographer. From their Charlotte home they spent their summers at Wrightsville Beach and Wrightsville Beach is the family beach for Wilmingtonians; the same beach that Howell fell in love with. And oh, yes, they met. Robert Gwathmey was instrumental in getting Howell a Julius Rosenwald fellowship, that involved spending six months drawing on the North Carolina coast and six months painting in New York. Howell stayed with the Gwathmeys there and then went on a trip to Europe with the family, including young Charles.

About his father. Charles Gwathmey has been quoted as saying: “I think the most formative memory was when I was 11 and we lived in Paris for a year…He [his father] made me go to practically every church, chateau and museum in Europe….[Claude Howell being his tutor and sometime guide]. It was then that I realized that I loved the great combination of being able to conceive and draw. Architecture seemed very appropriate.”

And so Charles Gwathmey, the museum man…..(the tower and renovation at the Guggenheim, and museums at Harvard, in Miami and Washington are examples)…joined with another museum man, Ren Brown. Gwathmey, THE museum man, was not A museum’s man but HIS OWN man. When he takes on a project, he takes it over entirely…everything. Nothing on a project…he prefers to call them commissions…is done without his approval.

Holistic is a word that has been applied to his approach to a commission. Signature is another. If the commission bears Charles Gwathmey’s name, one can be assured that it is easily recognizable as being Gwathmey’s. One also can be assured that Charles Gwathmey has approved everything from the first drawing to the last blade of grass. Gwathmey has put it this way: “Architects think about space and form and materiality and color as integral and composite parts of the design development. It’s not additive; it’s not coming back after the fact.”

He has been quoted as saying that a commission is a combination of marriage, therapy and enlisting in the Marines. Gwathmey has added: “I’m uncompromising in what I believe.” And what does he believe? He has said: “In the spirit of graphic essence and referential logic, the rotated square overlaid on the circle is irrefutably articulate, primary and memorable.” One is reminded here of his addition and renovation of the Guggenheim and of a surrealistically shaped Pylon and Perisphere from the New York Worlds Fair.

And so, with the words holistic, signature, and perhaps a coined one…curvi-recti-lineal (combing curves and straight lines) was that to be the look of the Louise Wells Cameron Art Museum? Gwathmey has said: “I think what a building like this should do is, in a sense, make a compelling architectural object that engages people’s curiosity and also is memorable in the most positive way.”

Does the Louise Wells Cameron Art Museum do just that? Well early on there it was… a building, but not a museum. You ask, what makes a building a museum? Reference books say that the word museum is of Latin origin and “comes from the Greek mouseium, originally meaning temple dedicated to the 9 Muses, but after the Renaissance the word has been applied to a collection of objects of beauty and worth.” Well, there was nothing that would justify the use of the word museum, just a eco-skeleton of a museum…a skeleton that needed to be fleshed out. And Ren Brown was the person to turn that shell into a museum.

As one approaches, the building’s back seems to be facing the intersection. Not so, said Brown, the building actually has no back. He said that any public building in a park setting such as this one should be treated on a 360-degree basis, and that’s a problem with which architects must deal. To a lesser extent the traffic pattern at the intersection may have been an issue in the siting. Another factor is a 18 th century roadbed coming to a fork, or crossroads, the site of an 1865 skirmish as Confederate forces retreated toward Wilmington.

Historian Chris Fonveille has a story about the troops at what then was known as Forks Road. Seems that Confederate troops were withdrawing after the fall of Fort Fisher, the “Goliath” that had guarded the entrance to Wilmington’s port. A soldier was given permission to leave his regiment for a few hours…to visit his mother who lived nearby. He did and rejoined the retreating troops. The same scenario was repeated on the Union side. When the Union soldier reached his home, his mother said; “Your brother was through here a few hours ago.” A descendant of that family…. Bruce Cameron. As reminders of that past, there is a repaired breastwork on the site.

Facing the intersection is a stained glass window...presumably so it will catch the slanting rays of the afternoon sun. Brown said, well, yes, but that was not the main reason for the siting; it was just a small part the entire whole. Probably….. but it seems that the stained glass window…an entire part of the hole… would be a big part of the whole. The window, a gift of Rachael Mellon, Paul Mellon’s widow, is by Rowan LeCompte, the Leprechaunish designer of the rose window and 40-some-odd other windows in Washington’s National Cathedral. This window depicts two entwined trees. LeCompte did not use the blues and other awe-inspiring colors that mark his Cathedral windows, but living colors that LeCompte says will dance as the earth’s rotation makes the sun’s rays hit the window at different angles.

Three triangular peaks atop the roof catch one’s eye. Brown explained that they are skylights to let in natural light. But in a museum? Shouldn’t light…especially sunlight… temperature and humidity be closely controlled? Brown said that the skylights are over an exhibition gallery, and the amount of light that enters can be automatically adjusted from full light to no light. He explained that the glass is not transparent but translucent, which diffuses the light. Two scrims that slide across the base of each skylight act as illumination controls. The use of the triangle, or pyramid, in several cases tripled as in the Cameron museum, for skylighting has been employed by Charles Gwathmey in a private home, a convention center, an art gallery and at another museum.

So, that’s it? No, Brown replied, adding that there are lay ceilings suspended below each skylight, each with a translucent panel to further control natural light. And there is track lighting on each lay ceiling to add artificial lighting. The system was the work of the lighting engineer, Harry Branston, who has won a lifetime achievement award from the AIA. Brown noted: “There is a system of 10 or 12 settings. I can punch a button and the whole building goes to candlelight. Then I punch another button and get…well whatever I want in any of the galleries.”

And controlling temperature and humidity? Brown pointed out a building off to the left. The chillers are there, he said. They are configured so that each area would have its own individual temperature and humidity. All of that long row houses the chillers? Oh, no. Brown said, those nearest the road will serve as storage space for service equipment. The lineal aspect is noted.

And there is a pond. Brown said that water and glass are prime reasons for high electric bills. He pointed out that the huge array of glass that greets arrivals faces away from intense midday rays of the sun. Also, he says, the outside walls of the museum are 9 to 11 layers thick, further providing check reins on humidity and temperature. To point out the importance of maintaining such a controlled environment. Brown noted the cost of the system is one-sixth of the $12.1 million dollar price tag for the entire museum.

The outer shell of the museum; is it metal? Brown said that’s true; some of the building’s covering is zinc. Other areas are brick....brick that has a magnesium coating. The use of the zinc; new? “No, it has been used for more than 100 years. The use of zinc on roof tops is quite common, but bringing it down the sides required some workers to be trained in Germany. The zinc also is used inside as ceiling for the galleria that runs down the spine of the building,” Brown said.

Brown pointed to the glass. “That’s the gift shop. And notice the panes..some are long rectangles, others vertical, some square. And down the galleria there… on the right is a rectangle.. the back of the bar for the restaurant. Off to the left a curved niche in the wall is one side of a circular reception desk.

Hummm. “A rotated square overlaid on the circle is irrefutably articulate, primary and memorable.”

Brown called attention to the pure plaster walls in the exhibition gallery, providing a virtually solid white….well, what could pass for white… wall that to the touch feels almost as smooth as a baby’s skin. The technique, used primarily in Italy, is not new, Brown said, but has been in use since the 14 th or 15 th centuries. Brown showed off the galleries that are of various dimensions. He said at that time that the smallest gallery houses the oldest works of art....those of the18th century… a portrait from the 1760s being the oldest. Gradually the size of the galleries grows and the ceilings get higher for the art of the 19 th and 20 th centuries. Brown said, “Different size art calls for a different kind of ambience.”

We note the flooring. “It’s Brazilian cherry…a very hard wood.” Brown said. It was chosen because of the amount of foot traffic and also that fact that equipment will be moving over it.” Over concrete, there was a layer of plywood, then another at a 90-degree angle. Next came some sort of rubber-like material so that there would be a “give” in the flooring as one walked over it. Then the flooring itself.

Curves, straight lines, geometric shapes, all bear the Gwathmey stamp, but did he spend much time here supervising the work? “He had a project manager. Nancy Clayton. She and I served as his eyes and ears,” Brown said.

And they were faithful servants, indeed. Remembering the artists’ language of color, texture, line, shape and space. the building itself is a work of art.

But was it a museum? Well, it housed the works of Claude Howell, Mary Cassatt, visionary artist Minnie Evans, Romare Bearden and many others, artists, mostly from North Carolina, and a work by Robert Gwathmey, the architect’s father. Yes, now it was a museum all right.

The director basked in the glow of success.

Suddenly. a verdict of cancer and the director’s glow faded as did his life. And Ren Brown left for the last time what many called his museum.

There the museum was ---without a director, leaderless---right there where the roads crossed.