Muscarelle Museum of Art

Muscarelle Museum of Art
Muscarelle Museum of Art in 2009
Muscarelle Museum of Art is located in Virginia
Muscarelle Museum of Art
Location within Virginia
Established1983 (1983)
LocationCollege of William and Mary
Williamsburg, Virginia
TypeArt museum
AccreditationAmerican Alliance of Museums
Collection size6,000 objects
Websitemuscarelle.wm.edu

37°16′05″N 76°42′57″W / 37.2679526°N 76.7158878°W / 37.2679526; -76.7158878

The Muscarelle Museum of Art is a university museum affiliated with the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. While the Museum only dates to 1983, the university art collection has been in existence since its first gift – a portrait of the physicist Robert Boyle – in 1732. Most early gifts to William & Mary relate to its history or the history of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Gifts of portraiture were the foundation of the early collection and include many First Families of Virginia (FFV) including sitters from the Page, Bolling and Randolph families.[1]

History

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Throughout the years, gifts of art continued to accumulate including a donation of White Flower by Georgia O'Keeffe given to William & Mary in 1938 by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. This major work in the collection had indiscriminately "decorated" various campus walls, old and new, until it was re-discovered by President Thomas Ashley Graves Jr. in the 1970s. Graves tasked Miles Chappell, from the department of art and art history, to make a college-wide inventory. It was at that time that the immensity and importance of the growing collection was understood and the need for a university museum became apparent.

With the support of numerous alumni, including a major benefactor, Joseph L. Muscarelle (W&M '27) and his wife Margaret, the Carlton Abbott designed Muscarelle Museum of Art opened in 1983 with Glenn D. Lowry as director. In 1987, the second director, Mark Johnson oversaw the expansion of the facility and the first American Alliance of Museums accreditation in 1988. Subsequent accreditations came in 2000 under then-director Bonnie Kelm, and in 2012 under former director Aaron De Groft. David M. Brashear was appointed as interim director in January 2019, and in June 2020 was named as the museum's fifth director.

Current activities

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Today the collection numbers over 6,000 works. Of particular note are Colonial American and English seventeenth and eighteenth century portraits; a survey collection of original prints and drawings from the fifteenth through the twenty-first centuries including Japanese prints and a major collection of German Expressionist works by Hans Grohs; and the Jean Outland Chrysler collection of American modern works interpreted in oils, drawings, watercolors, and sculpture. Recent acquisitions include European master works by such artists as Luca Giordano and Luca Forte, historic photographic works by Julia Margaret Cameron, Carleton E. Watkins and Edward S. Curtis, as well as contemporary Native American works by Kay WalkingStick, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Emmi Whitehorse, and Cara Romero.

Plans are underway to renovate and expand the existing museum to create a state of the art facility as part of the Martha Wren Briggs Center for the Visual Arts[2] designed by world-renowned architects Pelli Clarke & Partners. The expanded Muscarelle Museum of Art will provide additional gallery space for both traveling exhibitions and the permanent collection as well as create additional space for lectures, events, and programming.[3]

Selected exhibitions

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Exhibition Start Date End Date
Shared Ideologies, Selected works by Native American artists from the 1970s to the Present September 1, 2021 February 13, 2022
Forever Marked By The Day September 10, 2021 January 23, 2022
1619 / 2019 November 6, 2019 January 26, 2020
Women with Vision: Masterworks from the Permanent Collection February 10, 2018 May 13, 2018
In the Light of Caravaggio: Dutch and Flemish Paintings from Southeastern Museums February 10, 2018 May 13, 2018
Building on the Legacy: African American Art from the Permanent Collection September 2, 2017 January 14, 2018
Fred Eversley: 50 Tears an Artist: Light & Space & Energy September 2, 2017 December 10, 2017
The Bones of the Earth: Scholars Rocks and the Natural World in Chinese Culture, Selections from the Robert Turvene Collection April 21, 2017 August 13, 2017
The Art and Science of Connoisseurship February 11, 2017 August 13, 2017
Botticelli and the Search for the Divine: Florentine Painting between the Medici and the Bonfires of the Vanities February 11, 2017 April 5, 2017
Building the Brafferton: The Founding, Funding and Legacy of America's Indian School September 10, 2016 January 8, 2017
Contemporary American Marine Art: 17th National Exhibition of the American Society of Marine Artists September 10, 2016 December 2, 2016
Norman Rockwell and the Boy Scouts February 6, 2016 August 21, 2016
Hiroshige's 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō February 6, 2016 August 21, 2016
Twilight of a Golden Age: Florentine Painting after the Renaissance, masterworks from the Haukohl Family Collection April 25, 2015 January 17, 2016
Leonardo da Vinci and the Idea of Beauty February 21, 2015 April 5, 2015
Tree to Mountain: The Woodblock Prints of Tōshi Yoshida October 17, 2014 February 8, 2014
21st Century Diplomacy: Ballet, Ballots and Bullets May 31, 2014 September 28, 2014
Caravaggio Connoisseurship: Saint Francis in Meditation and the Capitoline Fortune Teller February 8, 2014 April 6, 2014
Glenn Close: A Life in Costume September 28, 2013 January 12, 2014
A Brush with Passion: Mattia Preti (1613–1699) February 9, 2013 April 14, 2013
Michelangelo: Sacred and Profane, Masterpieces from the Casa Buonarroti February 9, 2013 April 14, 2013
African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond from the Smithsonian Art Museum September 28, 2012 January 6, 2013
Athenian Potters and Painters: Greek Vases from Virginia Collections August 18, 2012 October 7, 2012
Seeing Colors: Secrets of the Impressionists October 20, 2011 January 22, 2012
In Memory Still: A Kiowa Legacy in Art September 10, 2011 November 13, 2011
Envelopes: Architect's Unfinished Experiments with Building "Skins" September 17, 2010 October 24, 2010
Merging Souls: Arts of Devotion in Latin America April 24, 2010 July 18, 2010
Unbearable Beauty: Triumph of the Human Spirit, Photographs by W. Eugene Smith and Aileen M. Smith April 24, 2010 July 18, 2010
Michelangelo: Anatomy as Architecture, Drawings by the Master February 6, 2010 -
Deeply Superficial: Andy Warhol's "Voyeurism" November 7, 2009 January 17, 2010
Spanish Baroque in the New World: Sibyls from Zurbarán's Studio August 4, 2009 November 1, 2009
Tiffany Glass: A Riot of Color ("Art of Glass" ten year anniversary in Conjunction with Chrysler, Contemporary Art Center of VA, and the VA Arts Festival) April 16, 2009 July 12, 2009
The Dutch Italianates: Seventeenth-Century Masterpieces from Dulwich Picture Gallery November 13, 2008 March 22, 2009
Beyond the Edge of the Sea: Diversity of Life in the Deep-Ocean Wilderness September 5 November 2, 2008
Painting the Italian Landscape: Views from the Uffizi January 25, 2008 March 23, 2008
Legacy of the Generations: Jacob Lawerence's Legend of John Brown November 16, 2007 December 16, 2007
America the Beautiful: The Monumental Landscape of Clyde Butcher September 6, 2007 December 16, 2007
Building a College: The Colonial Revival Campus at The College of William & Mary September 6, 2007 November 12, 2007
Stars & Stripes: Rare & Historic American Flags from the Collection of Mark and Rosalind Shenkman June 16, 2007 July 29, 2007
Visions of the Soul: Works by Hans Friedrich Grohs May 5, 2007 July 29, 2007
An American Story: The Wyeth Family Tradition In Art April 21, 2007 May 27, 2007
Jaune Quick-To-See Smith: Contemporary Native American Paintings and the Response to Colonization February 10, 2007 April 8, 2007
Medici in America, Natura Morta: Still-Life Paintings of the Medici Collections & Caravaggio's Still Life with Fruit on a Stone Ledge November 11, 2006 January 7, 2007
The Tsar's Cabinet: Two Hundred Years of Russian Decorative Arts Under the Romanovs August 26, 2006 October 8, 2006
Eloquent Vistas: The Art of Nineteenth-Century Landscape Photography from the George Eastman House Collection November 5, 2005 January 8, 2006
Charles E. Burchfield: Backyards and Beyond August 27, 2005 October 23, 2005
Toulouse-Lautrec: Master of the Moulin Rouge August 28, 2004 October 24, 2004
American Studio Glass: A Survey of the Movement January 24, 2004 March 21, 2004
Shaped with Passion: The Carl A. Weyerhaeuser Collection of Japanese Ceramics from the 1970s August 18, 2001 October 7, 2001
Quilt National 1999: The Best in Contemporary Quilts May 5, 2001 July 7, 2001
Georgia O'Keeffe in Williamsburg: A Re-Creation of the Artist's First Public Exhibition in the South January 27, 2001 April 27, 2001
Bridges & Boundaries Revisited: African Americans & American Jews August 26, 2000 October 29, 2000
Hung Liu: A Ten Year Survey 1988–1998 August 26, 1998 October 18, 1998
Ties That Bind: Iban Ikat Fabrics July 11, 1998 August 16, 1998
Inuit II: From the Collection of Frederick & Lucy S. Herman; Contemporary American Indian Art: The Joe Fedderson Collection August 23, 1997 October 19, 1997
Building Form: Ansel Adams & Architecture June 14, 1997 August 17, 1997
Nell Blaine: Retrospective October 19, 1996 December 1, 1996
Voyages & Visions: Nineteenth-Century European Images of the Middle East from the Victoria & Albert Museum January 20, 1996 March 3, 1996
African-American Works on Paper October 21, 1995 December 3, 1995
Before Discovery: Artistic Development in the Americas Before the Arrival of Columbus May 27, 1995 August 27, 1995
The Passionate Observer: Photographs by Carl Van Vechten April 1, 1995 May 21, 1995
The Reverend James Blair: Preparatory Models & Drawings for the Stature by Lewis Cohen February 25, 1995 May 21, 1995
Drawn on the Spot: Perceptions and Views October 15, 1994 January 8, 1995
A Golden Age of Painting: Dutch, Flemish & German Paintings of the 16th – 17th Centuries from the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston, Texas; The Fine Art of Drawing: Works on Paper from the Museum and the Herman Foundation Collections January 23, 1993 March 21, 1993
Lila Katzen Quincentenary Sculpture Exhibition: Isabel, Columbus & the Statue of Liberty February 29, 1992 April 5, 1992
Rodin: Sculpture from the B. Gerald Cantor Collection February 28, 1991 April 28, 1991
Portraits & Prospects: British & Irish Drawings & Watercolors from the Collection of the Ulster Museum January 13, 1990 March 4, 1990
Photographs by David Hockney March 18, 1989 April 30, 1989
Art & the Law December 21, 1987 January 17, 1988
Photographs by Yousuf Karsh July 4, 1987 September 20, 1987
Modernism in America: 1937–1941 August 25, 1985 November 17, 1985
19th Century German Drawings from the Frederick & Lucy S. Herman Foundation April 24, 1985 May 4, 1985
Gene Davis: Child & Man Collaboration January 11, 1985 February 25, 1985
Into the Melting Pot: The Immigration of American Modernism (1909–1929) October 8, 1984 January 10, 1985
In Search of Light: Spanish Painters from 1850–1950 May 11, 1984 July 9, 1984
Late 20th Century Art from the Sydney & Frances Lewis Foundation February 4, 1984 April 30, 1984
Form, Function, & Finesse: Drawings from the Frederick & Lucy Herman Foundation October 21, 1983 December 21, 1983

References

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  1. ^ "About the Muscarelle". Muscarelle Museum of Art. Retrieved 19 March 2017.
  2. ^ University Advancement staff (November 18, 2016). "W&M announces new, multimillion-dollar Martha Wren Briggs Center for the Visual Arts" (Press release). William & Mary College. Retrieved 20 February 2019.
  3. ^ "Muscarelle director unveils details of museum expansion".
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