Hands-On Training in a Museum : Art: Nine USC graduate students researched, installed and curated the ‘Roman Portraiture’ show at the Fisher Gallery.

“Roman Portraiture: Images of Character and Virtue,” an exhibition of 14 marble portraits on loan from the J. Paul Getty Museum, opens today at USC’s Fisher Gallery. Most visitors will assume that this exhibition and its accompanying, fully researched catalogue were prepared by the museum’s staff. After all, the exhibition, because it deals with antiquities, may be considered more complex than the average contemporary art show.

But in fact it was put together as a class assignment for the nine students of the university’s museum studies program class of 1991.

“I knew in my mind that there would be a lot involved in doing this exhibition, but until you’re actually doing it, you just don’t realize how much,” said student Laura Cogburn--who, like her eight classmates, is completing her masters degree in art history as part of the three-year program.

The museum studies program, run by Fisher Gallery Director Selma Holo, was established eight years ago and has graduates working at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Norton Simon, J. Paul Getty and Laguna Art museums. Graduates also work at more distant institutions such as the prestigious Brooklyn Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, National Gallery of Art in Washington, and Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

“What’s happening with the program is that it’s becoming real national,” said Holo. “It’s no longer a regional thing. Now we’re providing curators back East. The quality of Western-trained and educated kids is becoming known. We’re providing people for the whole country.”

Curating an original exhibition (past museum studies shows have included “Romance With Nature: 19th Century American Landscapes” in 1989, “A Selection of British Paintings” in 1988 and “Masterworks from the 16th & 17th Centuries” in 1987) is only a part of the museum study program’s practical aspects. In the first year, each class--which normally has only five to seven students--selects a work of art to purchase for the Fisher Gallery’s permanent collection. A budget of $1,000 is provided for this purchase. Then in the third year, students serve internships at prestigious museums throughout the country.

But it is the hands-on preparation of the exhibition that takes up much of the students’ time during the program’s first two years. Although Holo and the art history faculty select the actual exhibitions, the rest of the work--from researching individual artworks, to building display pedestals, to sending out reception invitations--is done by the students.

The students’ work on “Roman Portraiture,” which is on view through April 20, actually began last year. Under the direction of faculty member John Pollini, a noted specialist in Roman classical art, each student selected and researched one portrait (in most cases these are heads of individual Roman figures such as Julius Caesar, but a couple of marble funerary reliefs are also included).

Through their research, which appears in the exhibition catalogue, the students determined not only who the portraits represented, but also where they were made, what type of marble was used, and the date each was sculpted. Some students even found evidence suggesting the portraits were not indeed who or what they had previously been thought to be.

“My piece had previously been identified as three different people--Germanicus, Drusus Julius and Nero Julius, and Nero Julius is who I say it is,” said Kathryn Kanjo, noting that she based her findings on evidence such as the bridge of the portrait’s nose and its hairstyle. “We’ve used the standard scholarly procedure,” said Kanjo, who added that the Getty has supported the students’ research, even when it differed with previous findings.

Outside of the research, the majority of work on the exhibition began last September, and the students said that since January, they have each spent an average of 20 hours a week on activities such as planning the show’s installation and accompanying educational programs, sorting out the budget and doing press relations.

The work has taught them many things, the students said, including the value of teamwork, the need to make compromises, and the tricks of working within a fairly strict budget (Holo said the exhibition’s total budget was about $20,000, which included many in-kind services provided by the Getty, such as insurance and shipping costs).

And because of the Getty’s involvement (this is the first time the museum has collaborated closely with Fisher Gallery) the students said that they have learned how to do things in the ideal way, even though they realize that the institutions they will work at may not have the financial and other resources to do so.

“Working with the Getty makes you very conscious of each step,” said student Jennifer Easton. “They have a whole other realm of standards that other (institutions) can’t meet.”