The Story of Curating Jim McDowell’s Red Tails Face Jug with Nasher’s Chief Curator Marshall N. Price Ph.D. [Ep21]

Today you’ll hear the culmination of our series on Jim McDowell and his Face Jug.

Today’s episode is many months in the making. We are very excited because this is the culmination of a series of features we have written about Jim McDowell and his Face Jug: A story about how it has traveled throughout our audience and how Susan and Michael Hershield made it possible to give it to the Nasher Collection. We heard from the collectors, the artists, and the museum. We are trying to do more work to explain to people how to buy art, what to look for, and what a museum looks for when they collect a piece. The conversation with our guest today was a unique opportunity to launch a series on how to buy art. Marshall N. Price is the Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. He graduated from Western Maryland College and received a Master’s degree in Art History from Penn State. He also received a Ph.D. in Art History from the City University of New York. We hear from Marshall about his journey to becoming the Chief Curator at Nasher and his experience in the position. He talks about the challenges he faced and his thoughts on the benefits of being embedded in an academic community. He also talks about the collection, programs and the greatest things about the Nasher Museum. We then hear about the incredible story of Jim McDowell’s Face Jug acquisition and the history behind the Red Tails jug. You do not want to miss out on this amazing episode. So start listening now!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Recapping the journey of Jim McDowell’s new Face Jug to the Nasher Museum
• A dream job: how Marshall got there and when he realized art would become his life.
• The experience of being the Chief Curator at Nasher and the pressures it includes.
• Marshall talks about the challenges he faced as he walked into the curator role.
• His thoughts on the benefits of being embedded in an academic community.
• More about the different programs running at Nasher (at any given time).
• Marshall talks about the collection at Nasher and the focus of the institution.
• How Nasher is working to continue to incorporate artists of Color in their collection.
• One of the great things about Nasher Museum.
• Marshall’s story of Jim McDowell’s Face Jug acquisition: The Red Tails as homage to the
• Tuskegee Army Airfield.
• How people can enjoy Jim’s work at the Nasher.
• Marshall’s thoughts on what this acquisition will mean for Jim’s career.
• Plans surrounding youth programming at Nasher and how they plan to educate the young.

Tweetables:

“Curators have a great amount of responsibility in terms of what they present, how it’s interpreted, being stewards of collections — I take that responsibility very seriously and think very carefully about that. But it is a dream job in a lot of ways!” — Marshall N. Price [0:09:50]

“Because we [The Nasher] is embedded in an academic community, it enables us to do certain things and to function in certain ways that I think private museums that do not have that kind of support are unable to do or it may be more challenging to do.” — Marshall N. Price [0:12:36]

“One of the great things about the Nasher is that while we are part of Duke University, we have a lot of autonomy from the University so we are able to craft our own program.” — Marshall N. Price [0:20:30]

“We decided that this piece by Jim was the right one for the museum because I could envision a young child looking at that and relating to it or being curious by it.” — Marshall N. Price [0:30:41]

Longer Quotes:

“I think the museum world has been in the middle of a reckoning now for a number of years and — a lot of institutions have been scrambling or working toward making up for past practices of exclusion. And that’s really important. I mean, it's been overdue for a long time and I hope that it continues. I am optimistic that it will, but the museum world experienced a similar reckoning back in the early 1970s and — it didn’t move the needle a lot back then because we are still here having the same conversations, but I am optimistic that the second reckoning is hopefully going to make a difference.” — Marshall N. Price [0:19:05]

“The piece that we selected is titled Red Tails and it's a homage to the Tuskegee Air Men who fought during World War II, and painted the tails of their airplanes red to identify themselves as Black aviators. The piece itself is specifically a homage to Colonel Charles ‘Chief’ Anderson who is widely considered as the Father of Black Aviation. So, I felt that it not only told this wonderful story about American history, American Black history — but it also fits within the collection here because of Jim’s own history. Jim as you know calls himself the Black Potter and sees himself in the lineage of the old Edgefield potters and David Drake. It dovetails so well with the work we have here at the museum.” — Marshall N. Price [0:25:09]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Marshall N. Price Ph.D. on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/mnormanprice/

Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University — https://nasher.duke.edu/

Jim McDowell — https://blackpotter.com/

From Concept to Collection: How Jim McDowell’s New Face Jug Made It to the Nasher Museum Collection [Part I] — https://www.artsvilleusa.com/jim-mcdowell-nasher-museum/

From Concept to Collection: How Jim McDowell’s New Face Jug Made It to The Nasher Museum Collection [Part II] — https://www.artsvilleusa.com/jim-mcdowell-nasher-museum-part-two/

From Concept to Collection: How Jim McDowell’s New Face Jug Made It to the Nasher Museum Collection [Part III] — https://www.artsvilleusa.com/jim-mcdowell-nasher-museum-part-three/

Artsville Podcast — https://artsville.captivate.fm/

Scott “Sourdough” Power — https://www.notarealartist.com/

Louise Glickman — https://www.louiseglickman.com/

Daryl Slaton — http://www.tailsofwhimsy.com/

Crewest Studio — https://creweststudio.com/

Sand Hill Artists Collective (SHAC) — https://sandhillartists.com/