With giddy eyes and a quick tongue, junior Matt Turtoro explains his exhibit It's a Man's World.
"It's a display exhibition of three generations of the Garrett men. I mean, the most fascinating of all of them, John Work Garrett, Jr., was a career diplomat and collected many items from across the world, and we used the unique environment of the Evergreen House to showcase their many accomplishments."
It's a Man's World is the current exhibit at the Evergreen House, one of two small art museums owned and operated by Hopkins and located near Loyola College and the College of Notre Dame. On display is part of the Garrett family's collection. The exhibition is half history and half fine and decorative arts, consisting of pieces like small Japanese makeshift purses and articles signed by America's 25th president, William McKinley. "It's customary for a president to sign his photo when he leaves the White House and we do have the six signatures of the presidents during John Works, Jr.'s career as diplomat," Tuturo pointed out. "McKinley actually never got to sign his photo because he was shot, so that's why we just have his signature on Garrett's portrait on display."
Curator Turtoro took upon the monumental task of planning, researching and implementing this installation. "I really wanted to showcase the male side of the Garrett family," Turtoro explained. "It took three months of research and one month of actual installation to set up this exhibition," he explained.
Turtoro's zeal for art history started when he was a sophomore. He applied for a paid student internship at the Evergreen Museum and eventually became a docent - a tour guide - for the museum, and then an office assistant before applying to be a student curator for a show in April. After receiving the appointment, Turtoro worked frantically to find a theme for his show and then actually showcase it. "I was here about five days a week [for a few months], and I spent my summer going through boxes and boxes, grouping objects and figuring out which rooms would be good for display," Turtoro said.
Turtoro's enthusiasm for his work also shines through his own painting of a map of the world. He has labeled countries visited by the various generations of Garrett men to show where each piece originated. With the help of Homewood House Manager Mary Plumber. "I spent about two weeks overall on this map," Turtoro noted with a grin. "It was the least I could do to show how remarkable this man [John Work Garret, Jr.] was because he traveled about 500,000 miles during his lifetime, collecting different things from the countries he visited."
The exhibition consists of seven sections. The first display is an overview of the men's travels. The tour continues through the library with Turtoro explicating Garrett's collection of rare American coins from as early as the colonial days. The exhibition then moves to the mansion's second floor Print Room, where the family's fascination with prints from the Italian Renaisaance through to the 19th century is highlighted. The next gallery - the children's study - showcases their travels made as children. The exhibition concludes in the Far East Room of the mansion's north wing with a display of the correspondence documenting the family's acquisitions of rare Japanese and Chinese decorative arts.
During the tour, Turtoro proved his encyclopedic knowledge of the exhibition by adding interesting anecdotes and contextual information to the pieces. "I was just worried that I was too boring because I could talk about these things for hours," Turtoro admitted. "But to me, this history is rich and fascinating."
Turtoro's research and ambition paid off. "The [exhibition] shows a tremendous amount of research," one visitor to the museum said. "The documentation is fantastic, and you need at least two or three passes to get the full impact of it all."
Turtoro also pointed out the Hopkins connection to the Garrett family. "We're not really sure why the Garrett family left the Evergreen House and a number of their pieces to Hopkins," Tuturo said. "But, we do know that John Work Garrett, Jr. went to Japan with a team from Hopkins that documented some of the fauna there. And his aunt, Mary Elizabeth Garrett, actually was a major donor to Johns Hopkins medical campus."
In the cozy atmosphere of the Evergreen Museum, It's a Man's World is a culmination of enterprise and effort by Matt Turtoro.
It's a Man's World is open through March 8, 2009. The Evergreen Museum is located at 4545 N. Charles St. For more information go to www.museums.jhu.edu.
