The Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Fla., was riding high as “From Chaos to Order,” an exhibition of ancient Greek art, became its first major traveling show in years, making stops at museums in Florida and South Carolina before preparing to head west.
“The idea was to look at the origins of Greek art in a new way,” said Michael Bennett, the former St. Petersburg curator who organized the show of works from the Geometric period, circa 900 to 700 B.C.
“We felt it had something new to say about Greek art.”But earlier this year, when the exhibition was scheduled to travel to the Denver Art Museum, the staff there balked because many of the 57 artifacts lacked detailed provenances.
The Denver museum had recently had its own scandal, when it returned four artifacts to Cambodia.
Its director, Christoph Heinrich, suggested postponing the Florida exhibition in the hope that the provenance issues could be resolved.
Persons:
”, Michael Bennett, Sol Rabin, Christoph Heinrich
Organizations:
of Fine Arts, Denver Art Museum, Denver
Locations:
St . Petersburg, Fla, Florida, South Carolina, St, Petersburg, Denver, Cambodia