For 17 years, Wilson interns have made vital contributions to the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery program. These students learn how to care for the Scripps permanent collection, organize an exhibition, and prepare catalogs. These special opportunities are the gift of C. Jane Hurley Wilson ’64 and Michael G. Wilson, who annually support a full-time summer internship, as well as three part-time academic-year internships. This year’s interns, McKenzie Floyd ’12, Danielle Kaufman ’10, Ashley Newton ’10, and Jennie Waldow ’12, are writing essays about rare photographs donated by the Wilsons, which will be featured in a catalog accompanying a fall 2011 exhibition, “Focus on Photographs.”
Wilson interns also participate in ongoing conservation projects. For example, they met with Rob Singer, curator of Japanese Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Hisaji Sekichi, a conservator from Kyoto, whose treatment dramatically improved a group of damaged Chinese paintings in the Scripps collection.
Wilson internships have launched students into careers in the visual arts, as well as prestigious graduate programs, such as ones at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London and the Institute of Art at New York University. Others have pursued museum careers, such as Anne Purkey Levine ’98, who is registrar at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego.