Geffen Gets Mixed Grades on Lighting 101

Grafton Tyler Brown, View of Tahoma (Mount Ranier), 1886. LACMA

Christopher Knight recently called out LACMA on the awkward lighting of Grafton Tyler Brown's small painting View of Tahoma in the Geffen Galleries. He wrote on Instagram,

"A wide strip of dark shadow runs edge-to-edge across the top of the canvas, like a black cloud obliterating an ample swath of sky. The bar covers one-sixth of the picture.… That wide and intrusive shadow ruins the visual effect.… The ragged dark rectangle looks like a nasty storm is brewing over Tahoma.

"Thin shadows are often cast across the top edge of paintings in museums’ public spaces, even with great effort expended in designing lighting systems to minimize the interference. But not here. This disfiguring shadow is cast from inflexible, ceiling-mounted light fixtures, inadequate to the job."

Ceiling lights in Peter Zumthor's David Geffen Galleries

Eugène-Louis Boudin, Scene on the Beach at Trouville, Sunset, 1867

The Brown is hung in one of the Geffen's enclosed "core" galleries that (supposedly) offer the best control of light. Knight's post led me to search for other examples of intrusive shadows cast by frames. Just as bad are a Eugène Boudin seascape in the Perenchio collection and a William Michael Harnett still life. PhotoShop tells me that nearly 23 percent of the Harnett is in shadow.

William Michael Harnett, Alas, Poor Yorick, 1877

This is definitely a problem of small paintings with big, projecting frames. But it depends on the frame's design. A small Courbet seascape has a frame that casts a shadow on itself rather than on Courbet's brushwork.

Courbet, The Wave, about 1869

With some frames, shadows are all but inevitable. I don't know enough about lighting to say whether the Geffen's fixtures contribute to the problem. It does seem that the Geffen's core rooms present a unique challenge. With their single exits, dark floors, dark ceilings, and walls tinted dark red, dark blue, or even black, these spaces have relatively little ambient light to soften shadows. 

Degas, At the Café-Concert: The Song of the Dog, about 1876–1877

This Degas loses "only" about 4 percent to shadow. But because the shadow strip is near black, it reads as a redaction.

van Gogh, Tarascon Stagecoach, 1888

In comparison the strip of shadow on van Gogh's Tarascon Stagecoach is less disturbing because there is diffuse light to fill it in. The van Gogh is in a more open space with sideways natural light.

As Knight notes, the shadow problem could be solved by dispensing with problematic period frames. But period frames, when they survive, are a vital part of the historical inheritance. Other museums do a better job of lighting for them. However, that's typically in rooms with brighter walls and often, skylights.

Mexico, Folding Screen with Indian Wedding, Mitote, and Flying Pole, about 1660–1690

LACMA curators and installers have been tweaking the Geffen's lighting since the opening. The award for most improved lighting ought to go to the Spanish Colonial Folding Screen with Indian Wedding. Previously it had the unwanted distinction of being the only painting installed against a window. That is, the back was to the window. The painted surface was a murky silhouette against blasting L.A. sunlight. Now it's been moved to a concrete wall, revealing beautifully legible details and colors.