The Block Museum is proud to continue its paid internship program by welcoming Bailey Pekar for the FY20-21 year. As part of the Block Museum of Art internship program, our students are conducting directed research on works of art in the permanent collection, assisting with curatorial research, and working with our new collection database. All Block interns take part in a Museum Seminar series in which they meet regularly with museum staff members for discussion and a behind-the-scenes look at museum careers.
Hello! I’m Bailey Pekar and I’m a junior from Minnesota. I’m pursuing a journalism and art history double major here at Northwestern and I’m particularly interested in how the two overlap.
If there’s anything I’ve learned in Medill, it’s that there’s more than one way to tell a story. I’ve always been fascinated by the stories museums tell through engagement with art. In my free time, I like reading, exploring Chicago and, of course, visiting art museums. Some of my favorites are the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and the Art Institute of Chicago, where I can spend hours wandering around the galleries. I’m so excited to have this opportunity to get involved at the Block Museum and learn all I can about what goes on behind the scenes working in a museum–especially when the doors are closed due to COVID!
My projects at The Block include researching art historical context and provenance of new objects entering the collection. Lately, I’ve researching an early modern drawing and trying to discern its place in history. It’s like putting together the pieces of a puzzle! In addition to incoming collections work, I will be reviewing and updating information in the collection database for public access. In particular I will be reviewing information related to our collections of prints by French caricature artist Honoré Daumier. I first learned about Daumier in an art history class here at Northwestern and I’m really looking forward to dive back into his work. I will also be writing collection-based web content for The Block and putting some of the journalism skills I’ve learned to use as well!
