About Matthew

Hometown:
Bloomsburg, PA

University Partner:
Williams College

Degree:
B.A. in Art History

Grant Partner:
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Senior Mentor:
Dr. Alan Chong, Curator of the Collection

"The chance to do challenging work with curators who were excited to accept me as a meaningful contributor, and then to go home and live with other passionate Scholars having equally powerful job experiences: there's just nothing else like it out there. There is so much to learn in the world of the past and the world of the present, and I think all the unknowns out there can have the potential to be a driving force rather than a barrier. I enjoyed my work, and the bright people I had the privilege of working and living with this summer, too much not to keep pursuing those unknowns, knowing that there is no final answer, but knowing also what one can find on the journey means just as much."

Scholar Background

Though he entered Williams College with almost no knowledge of art, Matt discovered there the joy of studying civilization's visual heritage. He intends to pursue a curatorial museum career, helping to make the artistic treasures of humanity not only available, but accessible, to new generations of museum-goers. Though concentrating on seventeenth-century Dutch art, Matt’s interests in art history extend over a wide range of periods, cultures, and also disciplines, as he is interested in studying the mechanics of human vision and how they have affected the history of visual production. He has interned with the Smithsonian Institution, and has also worked on research and exhibition development with the esteemed Dr. Arthur Wheelock Jr., curator of Northern Baroque Art at the National Gallery of Art. During the school year Matt works as a museum associate at the Williams College Museum of Art, developing and leading tours for elementary and high school students. He served on the art department’s Class of 1960’s Scholars Committee, which brings distinguished art historians, administrators, and artists to campus to speak on arts education. Outside of the visual arts, Matt is business manager and baritone singer for the Williams co-ed a cappella group “Good Question.” In the spring of 2008, he took a semester abroad and studied in Siena, Italy.

Internship Highlight

While at the Gardner Museum, Matt worked with the Curator of the Collection, Alan Chong, on researching Isabella Gardner's travels through Asia in 1883 and 1884, in preparation for an exhibition examining this period of her life. He read previously undiscovered letters written by Mrs. Gardner from her time in India and located and analyzed other original archival materials at Harvard University and at the Boston Public Library. Matt also identified and researched the political and cultural figures Mrs. Gardner met while in Japan, China, and India, and wrote biographies of these individuals to be published in the catalog alongside her diaries and photo scrapbooks. Matt was able to contribute to the conceptual design of the catalog and witnessed other day-to-day operations of the museum educators, conservators, archivists, and development staff.