When we closed there was a general feeling of shock and dismay. But people will be pleased with what has happened. I'm looking forward to watching this sleeping giant wake up.

Tanner got routinely left out of surveys of American art. It was really in the 1980s that people realized that you really needed to be paying attention to more than the usual artists we all grew up on. There was a whole other layer ... either because they didn't work in New York, they weren't close friends with the major critics, or they were artists of color or women or Southerners or Westerners.

He's thinking of [his subjects] as ordinary people who are transformed by a touch from God, rather than the Renaissance depiction where people are glowing because of it.

If you believe in people; they will believe in you.

I happen to disagree that there will be a flood of people coming to this program.

So now the public can enjoy works in daylight that were painted in daylight. It is like a freshly refurbished old friendship.