Cow paintings and other art two-by-two at UK Art Museum

The beam from a tiny flashlight flickers across the swaths of gray, white and brown paint that make up the left hindquarter of a dairy cow. For the most part, the strokes are smooth. But as the light bobs closer to the udder, a tiny raised fleck appears.

“Is that just dust?” Bebe Lovejoy, the University of Kentucky Art Museum registrar, asks as she leans in closer to the painting. Kim Broker, the associate registrar of the Kemper Museum from where this piece was delivered, flashes the light over the spot again.

Both agree after inspection that it looks like a small thread or piece of debris that likely fell on the painting when it was varnished long ago, rather than an issue that arose during shipping. With that settled, they continue to go over the entire painting inch by inch.

Many in the Lexington community would recognize this painting without a close inspection; it is almost identical to a work by Julien Dupré, whose canvas, In the Pasture from 1883, has long been a favorite of visitors to the museum. An earlier painting by Dupré, In Pasture from 1882, has been borrowed from the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis — and will be displayed opposite UK’s version in order to create a wondrous compare and contrast scenario.

However, the process of borrowing, shipping and installing works of art is more involved than simply tossing it in the back of a moving truck at Museum A and hanging it up at Museum B.

“You can’t just put it in a UPS box and ship it in the mail,” says Janie Welker, the museum curator, says.

She goes into detail about the steps that have been taken to keep this painting safe during transit: special foam padding complete with cut-outs to aid in removal from the shipping crate, a layer of protective plastic and three travel companions.

Broker, along with two drivers, accompanied In Pasture on the five-hour drive from St. Louis.

“There needs to be two drivers to ensure that there is always someone to stay with the painting.” she says. “It can be nerve-wracking at times, but I am basically paid to be nervous.”

Once it arrived in Lexington on Feb. 11, the painting stayed in its crate for 24 hours to climatize; then began the inspections by Broker and Lovejoy, during which they look for and agree upon any issues — like peeling paint or dents — that may have occurred in transit. It is the responsibility of the institution to which the artwork is loaned to ensure that it stays in the same condition as the day it was uncrated.

On the morning of Feb. 12, the two Dupré paintings were hung side-by-side, serving as the focal point for One + One, a permanent collection installation that brings together several artists who repeat signature motifs or utilize techniques that establish distinct states of the same image with small changes to composition or density.

This show has been years in the making; initially Welker wanted to secure In Pasture as part of an exhibition called A Romance with the Landscape: Realism to Impressionism that she helped organize in 2006. However the painting was unavailable for loan at the time. So when she finally saw the two paintings together on Friday, it was a vision recognized, one that she hoped museum guests would appreciate.

It seems visitors were as enthusiastic as museum staff about the exhibition. During the members’ opening reception that evening, guests popped between “In the Pasture” and “In Pasture,” comparing and contrasting various aspects of the two works — the color of the milk maids’ headscarves, the slip of sky in the background, the spots on the cows — before moving on to other sets of duplicates (including a delightful pair by Andy Warhol).

However, little did they know what it took to get those works on the wall.

This story was originally published March 5, 2016 at 1:15 PM with the headline "Cow paintings and other art two-by-two at UK Art Museum."