The Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art

"Our Met visit really took me back to my school field trip days! I remember visiting the museum in high school with my French class, and doubled over laughing with friends at stupid jokes. Today felt like the more grown up version!

There were so many great finds in the visible storage room including a pair of large scale fish still life paintings, and the many, many silver trophy plates, but my favorite of them all was the quirky double-sided screen simply titled: “Porcupines” and “Nightmare” (one name for each side of the screen) by Robert Winthrop Chanler.

The visible storage room has a great digital interface that usually provides a little info blurb about each piece when you type in the item code, but this screen didn’t have any info and I love that mystery and that we have no idea with the artist decided to pair these two things together. Maybe I was drawn in by the two-for-one deal?

I also love how the display case itself was reworked with the center removed to ensure both sides of the screen were visible to visitors; a true exercise in what this room is meant to accomplish!" - Zach Weiss