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For the past 10 years, independent art consultant Doug Robinson ’67 has traveled across the United States and around the world securing and monitoring priceless works of fine art.
“I work with and ensure the physical reality of exhibitions,” he says. “My main concerns deal with the logistics of shipping works of art from one location to another. Not only do I arrange for the proper packaging and supervise the shipping of each item, but I will follow the exhibition to each scheduled destination to ensure that the collection is being handled properly.”
Each piece of art in an exhibition has to be catalogued, evaluated for special treatment, and packed by Robinson. He deals with the risk management aspect, procuring commercial insurance and federal indemnity, a coverage provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.
“This type of very direct work is a pleasure for me,” he says. “I get to handle and look at each object, whether it is a painting, sculpture, or artifact, which is something not many people get to do. Then again, not many people have spent a day standing in an airline cargo building waiting for art to be delivered.”
During his 23 years as registrar at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Smithsonian’s museum of international modern and contemporary art, Robinson monitored the care of the collection, both in the museum and in traveling exhibitions. A registrar is also responsible for the safe storage of the work, accountable for where each piece is at any given moment, and makes objects and their coinciding information available to curators and other scholars.
“When done well, no one ever knows about the registrar’s presence,” he explains.
Now, Robinson travels three to four months a year, organizing and securing exhibitions around the globe.
“Working on exhibitions from foreign locations such as Turkey, Russia, the Ukraine, and Kazakhstan has taken me on some interesting travels,” he says. “It’s given me some insights on how a lot of United States museums and museums abroad operate, which is sometimes very encouraging and sometimes very challenging.”
In the U.S., he has worked as an independent art consultant for the Smithsonian Museums, the World Bank, and the Kennedy Center, among others. While most of his clients are museums, he has consulted for other institutions that have art collections, foundations, and cultural exchanges.
“I have to bring museum standards and accountability to a non-museum institution,” he notes. “Though I use the same approach, a traveling exhibition is obviously more risky than to have art in a gallery or in storage. While it’s more complex, I’ve had some really great experiences doing this.”
One of his favorite locations is the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. He has overseen a number of exhibitions that have come from Russia to the United States and vice versa, and has used this opportunity to experience the work of lesser-known foreign artists.
“It’s an amazing feeling to walk into a gallery at the State Russian Museum for the first time and see a painting created by an artist I’ve never heard of,” Robinson says. “Through this work, I’ve been able to experience a wonderful sense of discovery.”
Then there’s the exotic. About five or six years ago, Robinson spent a full month in Istanbul as he waited for an exhibition to work through the bureaucratic process.
“My month in Istanbul gave me time to make myself at home,” he says. “Once, I even held the Topkapi Dagger in my hands; it was truly one of the most amazing things I have worked with.”
An economics graduate, Robinson credits his career path to his college experience.
“My years at Lafayette had the greatest influence on how my life turned out in terms of profession,” he says. “Johannes Gaertner, my art history professor, turned out to be the one who interested me the most, and pushed me to pursue this. The courses that I took with him were extremely formative for my future.
The professor also introduced Robinson to an alumnus who was working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
“[He] came to visit the Gaertners and thought I should work in a museum; a few years later, I was there. That visit really opened the door for me and I’ve always been grateful to Dr. Gaertner for that,” he adds.
Doug Robinson ’67