They nodded at Locke as he strolled out into the fourth-floor members' gallery, sliding Meraggio's optics over his eyes.

In decades past, institutions like the Yale University School of Art had a reputation for giving their M.F.A. graduates a head start because of faculty members' gallery contacts.

I struck up a conversation with a retired professor named Yussef, and he invited me to join his party in the members' gallery, beneath a portrait of Saddam in bedouin garb, riding a muscular steed.