Meet Larisa Grollemond: assistant curator of manuscripts at Getty, lover of the feel and smell of old books, and curator of the Getty exhibition Blood: Medieval/Modern, on view through May 19, 2024.
The gist of what I do: I create exhibitions for Getty’s manuscripts department, and as part of that work and other projects, I try to connect art history and medieval art with the lives of contemporary people.
In the last couple of years especially, museums have faced a reckoning: what is the function of a museum as a public space? And what social responsibility does a museum have to its visitors and community? I hope to not only argue for the relevance of medieval art but also to produce exhibitions, programming, and digital content that speaks to what the past can teach us about today.
A budding medievalist: I had a very nontraditional path to art history in some ways. I grew up on a farm in northern Illinois and am a first-generation college student. But I also grew up going to the Bristol Renaissance Faire in Wisconsin. At first I went with my parents—I think they thought, “This will just be a fun thing to do on a summer day.” I was so enamored by people coming in costume. Renaissance faires are participatory, and you really need to immerse yourself to have a good time. You learn what they call “castle speak”—“good morrow,” “prithee” (please), and, of course, a hearty “huzzah!”—and you have to embody a character. I found that fascinating and intimidating as a shy kid. When I started going with my friends in high school, we began dressing up, with me going as a refined Tudor lady. It was really fun because we were all super nerds, and it was a way of bonding with other super nerds and exploring those fandoms.
I was also really into reading and fantasy-adjacent worlds and loved Disney movies, especially the medieval-inspired ones like Robin Hood and Sleeping Beauty. I was so taken by that idea of historical fiction. All these interests played into this fascination with the past, whether that was a fantasy past, a real past, or a fantasy past inspired by the real past. I don’t think I would’ve become a medievalist without those early experiences.
Discovering manuscripts: I didn’t really understand art history as a career path until I was in college. I went to New York University and started taking medieval history classes and then art history classes. I didn’t quite realize that I could do both of those things at the same time until I was a junior or senior.
I decided to get my master’s degree in art history at CUNY Hunter College. I had a wonderful professor, Cynthia Hahn, who was a medievalist. I took a bunch of classes with her, and when it came time to choose a thesis, I decided to work on a manuscript held at the Morgan Library. I went to research that manuscript and was just like, “Oh, this is it.” The manuscript was the first one I had handled. It was, of course, fascinating intellectually, but there’s also this very personal aspect of handling people’s books. Someone touched it, it belonged to them, and it was potentially a really important object for this person. I remember the smell—since parchment is prepared animal skin, medieval manuscripts tend to have a bit of an earthy scent. That experience of doing in-depth research, handling manuscripts, and thinking about the complicated social and cultural context that book was made in got me started down the path of studying medieval manuscripts more seriously.
From academia to Getty: While I was at the University of Pennsylvania for my PhD in art history, I knew I wanted a career that wasn’t as niche as a professorship, because I wanted to talk to regular people about art. After I finished my dissertation, I got a graduate internship in the manuscripts department here at Getty. I knew Getty had an incredible manuscripts collection from my own dissertation research, and I was thrilled I could be with medieval books regularly. It was transformational, participating in the workings of the department, curating shows, seeing all the ways the curators interact with other areas of the museum. At the end of my internship, I was hired as an assistant curator.
A day in the life: What I like best about my job is that it’s extremely varied. I’m working on a couple of different exhibitions now, and each one is at a slightly different stage. The morning might be looking at the gallery text for a show that’s coming up, and making sure that those wall labels and section texts are ready to go. I might need to do research for upcoming exhibitions, and that could mean looking at actual manuscripts, which is a highlight of my day. And then there’s so much to do around the production of digital content. If I’m working on a video for my Instagram Reels series Medieval Tymes, in which I answer frequently asked questions about the Middle Ages and medieval art, that might be scripting, choosing images, or filming a video, which takes a lot longer than you might think.
Most memorable visitor feedback: In the Fantasy of the Middle Ages exhibition, we included a case of Middle Ages–inspired items from pop culture that were lent by Getty staff. One of the items was a comic book that was a gender-swapped story of the Arthurian legend The Once and Future Queen. It just so happened that some of the writers and illustrators of that comic book unexpectedly came to the exhibition. They posted on social media: “This is incredible. We can’t believe our work is on view at the Getty.” It’s funny to me, because as a medievalist, most of the artists and creators who I deal with are dead. Not just dead, but super dead, and lots of times their names and identities are lost to history. So I never think about contemporary artists respond-ing to things on view, but it was such a cool moment.
Favorite artwork in the Getty collection: We have a manuscript of excerpts from the Roman poet Ovid that was made for Anne of Brittany, who was the queen of France around the early 1500s. She is a fascinating figure to me because she was a woman, but was politically active, and then later in life she became a patron of the arts and had an extensive book collection. Our manuscript includes an early portrait of Anne as queen, and the rest of the images tell the stories of classical women who were wronged by their lovers. It’s an interesting glimpse into what was in fashion at the French court around that time, not to mention a stunning work of art.
What you would have liked about living in the Middle Ages: Nothing. Even if you were a relatively successful peasant, the work that it took just to be alive in a premodern, preindustrial society, just to make food for yourself and your family—we are not prepared for that conversation. A couple of nights of sleeping with your livestock on a straw mattress, someone from the 21st century would be done. If you had to pick, maybe living in a good convent somewhere would be the best scenario. If you were a rich widow who ended up at a nice convent, that would be the ideal situation. Other than that, being a nobleman would be the second-best option.
But the Middle Ages is an interesting period to me because it seems at once really historically removed, really far away in the imagination, but then also weirdly present because we see the echoes of it in so much of popular culture. For me it’s about exploring the shared humanity of the people looking at the art and the people who made, experienced, and used the medieval art in our galleries. At the end of the day, these are just people who have wants and needs and desires and hopes and a lot of shared interests, even with contemporary people. Uncovering those moments of connection between past and present is really fascinating for me.
