For quite a while the Museum has been planning for its 70th anniversary. So it should be no surprise that I have been thinking a lot about our first director John Rogers Cox. Cox, a native of Terre Haute, was instrumental in shaping the fine collection of American Regionalism in the Swope Art Museum. And though his vision has had a lasting influence the nature of the Swope Art Museum, he had a much longer career as an artist. Just recently, and totally unrelated, I was asked a general question about conservation of our paintings. It just so happens that the painting “White Cloud” by John Rogers Cox, was conserved last year at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The painting is currently off of our walls because it is on loan for the important traveling exhibition, organized by the Smithsonian, “To Make a World: George Ault and 1940s America“. The Exhibition is currently at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City where it will remain until January 8, 2012. Its last venue will be the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens and then the painting will make its way home to the Swope in time for the Exhibition “Dual Visions: John Rogers Cox, Artist and Curator“. Conservation has been very important to preserving the legacy that John Rogers Cox left to the Swope and the City of Terre Haute, Indiana. Because conservation is generally behind-the-scenes I want to share this link to a blog written by Christina O’Connell about the conservation of “White Cloud“. http://www.imamuseum.org/blog/2011/04/28/less-is-more/