Joyce Ice, the director of the Art Museum at West Virginia University, has edited a collection of essays about the journey of an artwork from its place of origin to a private collection, and finally to a museum.
Titled “On Collecting: From Private to Public, “the book was published by the University of Washington Press in July 2009 and features Folk and Tribal Art from the Diane and Sandy Besser Collection at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, N.M., where Ice previously served as director for nine years before coming to WVU.
Each essay in the book examines the collecting process from a different perspective: collector, dealer, artist, curator, museum director, or lawyer.
Writing from these varied viewpoints, the authors share their experiences, using examples drawn from their personal and professional lives. The volume’s contributors offer readers a glimpse behind the scenes into the roles and relationships that influence the transfer of private collections.
The 160-page book has 100 color photographs of images from the Besser collection, which includes ceramics, textiles, beadwork, miniature bronzes, masks, and wood carvings from New Mexico, as well as ceremonial objects and jewelry from around the globe.
Ice is a WVU graduate and earned a doctorate in folklore and anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. She recently completed her second term as a member of the U.S. National Committee of the International Council of Museums, and has served on the Board of Trustees of the Fund for Folk Culture and as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
She attended the prestigious J. Paul Getty Trust’s Museum Leadership Institute, and the International Partnership Among Museums program in New Zealand.
“Collections are the heart of a museum,” she said. “The process of collecting and how those collections come to a museum fascinates me. I look forward not only to building the new Art Museum at WVU, but also to adding select works of art to the collection.”
Design of the Art Museum at WVU is currently underway. It will be located adjacent to the WVU Creative Arts Center, near the former Erickson Alumni Center, which will serve as the museum’s education center.
For more information about the book, including the table of contents, visit
www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/ICEONC.html. Ice’s book may also be ordered by phone 1-800-537-5487 or online at www.washington.edu/uwpress/.
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CONTACT: Charlene Lattea, College of Creative Arts
304-293-4841 ext. 3108, Charlene.Lattea@mail.wvu.edu