The Art of Google

Today Google launched the second phase of The Google Art Project, the company's online art database. Norman Rockwell Museum is one of 134 new participants with the project, which features high-resolution images and, in some cases, "street views" of art galleries worldwide. 

I first learned about Google Art Project back in February 2011, at the time of its initial launch. It sounded like a great idea, especially with the technology that allowed viewers to look at galleries in the same manner as the company's street maps. Our Museum was in a perfect position, having just digitized our entire collection and shared on our own website. I sent an initial inquiry for the Museum, and that was that (I figured we would be competing with a lot of other interested venues). Initially there were only 17 different partners, including such high-profile sites such as Museum of Modern Art, The Van Gogh Museum, and The Hermitage Museum. What is great is about the site is that it offers visitors a chance to view rare collections and take a virtual tour of many spots around the world that they might otherwise have a challenging time visiting.

Today's expanded list includes such sites as The White House, which is a such a fantastic idea (great for students):

  

So, last fall Google Art Project got back in contact with Norman Rockwell Museum about getting involved. I think we really owe a great deal of thanks to Risa Schwartz, the daughter of Berkshire artist Sol Schwartz, who we had exhibited over the summer. Risa works at Google, and it was through her suggestion that Google gave us a look at being included in its new phase of the project. 

I served as a project coordinator for the endeavor, as we began looking at artwork from our permanent collections that could be included. One obstacle was the fact that we do not own the copyrights to Rockwell's work, since it was originally created for periodicals and advertisers. We did, however, own quite a few works that would fall under the public domain--earlier works, which showcase the artist's formative years. We thought that was worth moving ahead with, along with a selection of works in our collection from other American illustrators.

Norman Rockwell Museum's collections page on Google Art Project. 
Photo courtesy of Google.

The unique thing about Google Art Project is the high-quality images that are included-- you literally can view the detail on some works more closely than you would be able to in a gallery. I have to hand it to my colleague Thomas Mesquita, who took time to scan, photograph and upload many of the images included. At the same time, I worked hard to find appropriate text, links, edit and enter all of that information into the project's dashboard. A week or so before Christmas, we had completed the uploading, and Google's team worked at integrating it all into their database. 

I notice that we're in pretty good company, with such new venues as London's National Gallery, and The J. Paul Getty Museum also added today. I hope that this is just the starting point for us, and we will eventually be able to include some of Rockwell's more iconic later works, and make use of Google's Street View technology (Rockwell's original studio, which is on our grounds, would be perfect for that). But for now, it's great to see an initial idea become a reality, and I'm happy that I was able to contribute.

Related Links:

http://www.googleartproject.com

"A New Way To Tour The White House," YouTube clip

"Norman Rockwell Museum Joins Google Art Project" press release (written by yours truly)