DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum

Last updated
deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum
DeCordova-museum.png
USA Massachusetts location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location of deCordova in Massachusetts
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (the United States)
Established1950 [1]
Location51 Sandy Pond Road
Lincoln, Massachusetts
United States
Coordinates 42°25′52″N71°18′41″W / 42.43108°N 71.31143°W / 42.43108; -71.31143
Type Art museum and sculpture park
DirectorMichael Busack
Owner The Trustees of Reservations
Public transit accessLincoln stop on the Fitchburg MBTA Line and a 1.5 mile walk
Website deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum

The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is a sculpture park and contemporary art museum on the southern shore of Flint's Pond in Lincoln, Massachusetts, 20 miles northwest of Boston. It was established in 1950, and is the largest park of its kind in New England, encompassing 30 acres.

Contents

Providing a constantly changing landscape of large-scale, outdoor, modern and contemporary sculpture and site-specific installations, the Sculpture Park displays more than 60 works, most on loan to the museum. Inside, the museum features rotating exhibitions. DeCordova's permanent collection focuses on works in all media, with particular emphasis on photography and works by artists with connections to New England.

History

deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is located on the former estate of Julian de Cordova. [1] Independent appraisers determined that de Cordova's collections were not of substantial interest or value, so the collection was sold and the proceeds were used to create a museum of regional contemporary art. The Trustees reached this decision after they noticed the near absence of modern art exhibitions in the Boston area, and the lack of venues for works by regional contemporary artists. When it officially opened in 1950 as the deCordova and Dana Museum, it was the only museum to focus its exhibitions and collecting activities on living New England artists, while also offering an educational program in the visual arts.

The founding director was Frederick P. Walkey, a graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He aggressively organized an exhibition schedule and arts instruction program with a clear educational mandate. DeCordova established a reputation for ground-breaking exhibitions that introduced New England audiences to important trends within contemporary art both regionally and nationally, including Pop Art and Boston's post-war expressionist movement. It changed its name to the deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in around 1989. Georgia Litwack taught photography courses at the deCordova. [2]

In 2019, deCordova was acquired by The Trustees of Reservations, a land conservation and historic preservation non-profit. [3]

DeCordova is under the direction of Michael Busack, Museum Director for the Trustees and Senior Curator Sarah Montross. [4] The prior director of deCordova was John Ravenal, who was appointed in 2015.

In 2023, the museum building was closed to permit an upgrade to its HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) systems, which was expected to last for two to three years. The outdoor sculpture park remains open. [5]

Architecture

The New England architect John Quincy Adams designed the extensive renovations that transformed Julian de Cordova's mansion into a public museum prior to its opening in 1950. The lower floors housed galleries, while the third floor offered studio art classes. The School attracted hundreds of students, eventually overwhelming the limited space within the Museum. In 1966, deCordova constructed a complex of four studio buildings to accommodate its expanded educational programs and meet the equipment standards of a professional art studio. In the early 1980s, the Museum consolidated and renovated two existing buildings to form administrative offices for the School and its outreach programs.

In 1998, the institution completed the New Century Campaign for deCordova, an $8 million effort to upgrade its building. Kallmann McKinnell & Wood modernized and expanded deCordova’s educational facilities to include a new studio, a store, and a gallery dedicated to exhibitions by School instructors and students. The Museum’s exhibition space was expanded with a 20,000 square foot addition and a roof terrace to provide views of the Park. The main galleries were renovated to install a climate control system, a café, and a library.

Art

Texas Triangles, by Charles Ginnever at the DeCordova Sculpture Park Texas Triangles.jpg
Texas Triangles, by Charles Ginnever at the DeCordova Sculpture Park

DeCordova's emphasis on modern and contemporary art fueled its rapid popularity during the 1950s and 1960s, but by the 1980s, the Museum faced competition from a growing number of local museums, universities, and private galleries all of which shared a similar artistic mission. With the arrival of director Paul Master-Karnik in 1982, deCordova initiated a series of curatorial programs to further strengthen its commitment to New England’s contemporary artists. Master-Karnik introduced the Annual Exhibition, formerly Artist/Visions, which featured works by emerging New England artists and provided an annual snapshot of regional talent.

To maintain the institution’s connection to New England and its support for local emerging artists, former director Dennis Kois (appointed in 2008) established the PLATFORM series, an ongoing exhibition series of site-specific installations by New England artists. In 2010 the deCordova Biennial replaced the Annual Exhibition series to expand the curatorial voice, allowing for an advisory board and co-curator opportunities. Now occurring every other year, the deCordova Biennial displays New England’s leading emerging to mid-career artists, emphasizing the quality and vitality of the art created in this region.

In order to emphasize its focus, the Museum officially changed its name in 2009 from deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park to deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. The landscaped lawns, forests, fields, and terraces of deCordova's Sculpture Park reveal a cross-section of how contemporary artists work outdoors, and how outdoor art enters into complex dialogues with sites and environmental conditions. This is accomplished with a three-tiered program of collection works, loans, and site-specific projects and commissions. The collection includes works by significant twentieth- and twenty-first-century artists that provide an art-historical context for other work in the park, and include sculptures by Dorothy Dehner, Antony Gormley, Dan Graham, Hugh Hayden, Sol LeWitt, Beverly Pepper, Jaume Plensa, Ursula von Rydingsvard, and John Wilson. Artists with sculptures on loan to deCordova include Jim Dine, Paul Matisse, Kathy Ruttenberg, and Arlene Shechet. Site-specific projects and special installations designed and implemented especially for the Sculpture Park have included works by Orly Genger, Maren Hassinger, Leeza Meksin, and many more. In 2019, deCordova completed work on Watershed, a permanent installation by sculptor Andy Goldsworthy.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Francisco Museum of Modern Art</span> Modern and contemporary art museum in San Francisco, California (SFMOMA)

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art, and has built an internationally recognized collection with over 33,000 works of painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, design, and media arts. The collection is displayed in 170,000 square feet (16,000 m2) of exhibition space, making the museum one of the largest in the United States overall, and one of the largest in the world for modern and contemporary art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles</span> Art museum in California , U.S.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's original space, initially intended as a temporary exhibit space while the main facility was built, is now known as the Geffen Contemporary and located in the Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles. Between 2000 and 2019, it operated a satellite facility at the Pacific Design Center facility in West Hollywood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art</span> Art museum in Kansas City, Missouri

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art museum in Kansas City, Missouri, known for its encyclopedic collection of art from nearly every continent and culture, and especially for its extensive collection of Asian art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden</span> Art museum in Washington, D.C., U.S.

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft and is part of the Smithsonian Institution. It was conceived as the United States' museum of contemporary and modern art and currently focuses its collection-building and exhibition-planning mainly on the post–World War II period, with particular emphasis on art made during the last 50 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago</span> Art museum in Chicago, Illinois

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in the Near North Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporary art venues. The museum's collection is composed of thousands of objects of Post-World War II visual art. The museum is run gallery-style, with individually curated exhibitions throughout the year. Each exhibition may be composed of temporary loans, pieces from their permanent collection, or a combination of the two.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Honolulu Museum of Art</span> Art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States

The Honolulu Museum of Art is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. The museum has one of the largest single collections of Asian and Pan-Pacific art in the United States, and since its official opening on April 8, 1927, its collections have grown to more than 55,000 works of art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fruitlands Museum</span> United States historic place

Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts, is a museum about multiple visions of America on the site of the short-lived utopian community, Fruitlands. The museum includes the Fruitlands farmhouse, a museum about Shaker life, an art gallery with 19th-century landscape paintings, vernacular American portraits, and other changing exhibitions, and a museum of Native American history. In 2023, readers of USA Today voted to name Fruitlands as one of the ten best history museums in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madison Museum of Contemporary Art</span> Art museum in Madison, Wisconsin

The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA), formerly known as the Madison Art Center, is an independent, non-profit art museum located in downtown Madison, Wisconsin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston</span> Art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, US

The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) is an art museum and exhibition space located in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The museum was founded as the Boston Museum of Modern Art in 1936. Since then it has gone through multiple name changes as well as moving its galleries and support spaces over 13 times. Its current home was built in 2006 in the South Boston Seaport District and designed by architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum</span> Art museum in Connecticut, United States

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is located in Ridgefield, Connecticut. The Aldrich has no permanent collection and is the only museum in Connecticut that is dedicated solely to the exhibition of contemporary art. The museum presents the first solo museum exhibitions by emerging artists, significant exhibitions of established and mid-career artists whose work is under recognized, thematic group exhibitions exploring topics in contemporary art and society, and newly commissioned work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rose Art Museum</span> Art museum in Massachusetts, US

The Rose Art Museum, founded in 1961, is a part of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA. Named after benefactors Edward and Bertha Rose, it offers temporary exhibitions, and it displays and houses works of art from its permanent collection of 9,000 objects. The museum has one of the largest collections of modern and contemporary art in New England. Since its inauguration, the Rose Art Museum has been recognized for its avant-garde and forward-thinking approach to modern and contemporary art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Wilson (artist)</span> American visual artist (born 1949)

Anne Wilson is a Chicago-based visual artist. Wilson creates sculpture, drawings, Internet projects, photography, performance, and DVD stop motion animations employing table linens, bed sheets, human hair, lace, thread and wire. Her work extends the traditional processes of fiber art to other media. Wilson is a professor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Jean Shin is an American artist living in Brooklyn, NY. She is known for creating elaborate sculptures and site-specific installations using accumulated cast-off materials.

Gabriella De Ferrari is an American art historian, curator, and writer who has worked with and led major arts institutions throughout the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dave Cole (artist)</span> American sculptor

Dave Cole is an American contemporary visual artist specializing in sculpture.

Rachel Perry is an American artist. She is known for conceptual works using drawing, photography, video, collage, sculpture and performance, which address “the fleeting nature of experience, the elusiveness of desire, and the persistence of objects in a throwaway culture.” Art critic Jerry Saltz has written that her work "not only grappl[es] with consumerism but [she is] just about swallowed whole by it.” Her work also considers themes of gender identity, narcissism, privacy and information overload.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boise Art Museum</span> Art museum in Boise, Idaho

The Boise Art Museum (BAM) is located at 670 Julia Davis Drive in Boise, Idaho, and is part of a series of public museums and cultural attractions in Julia Davis Park. It is the permanent home of a growing collection of contemporary realism, modern and contemporary ceramics, as well as the largest public collection of works by acclaimed Idaho outsider artist and bookmaker James Charles Castle. The museum also features major traveling exhibitions and installations throughout the year.

John B. Ravenal is an art historian, writer, and museum curator. Before 1998, he was the Associate Curator of 20th-Century Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. From 1998 to 2015 he was curator of contemporary art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia, where he organized exhibitions of Ryan McGinness: Studio Visit (2014); Xu Bing: Tobacco Project(2011), and Sally Mann: The Flesh and The Spirit (2010). He was curator of the VMFA's Jasper Johns and Edvard Munch exhibition, Jasper Johns and Edvard Munch: Love, Loss, and the Cycle of Life. His lecture about the exhibition took place in the Leslie Cheek Theater in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The show opened in November 2016 in partnership with the Munch Museum in Oslo. He is the author of the exhibition catalogue Jasper Johns and Edvard Munch: Inspiration and Transformation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murray Dewart</span> American sculptor

Murray Dewart is an American sculptor best known for his large gate-like structures in granite and bronze. Dewart's sculptures are often created for site-specific locations and installed in parks and gardens. His work is in more than thirty museums and public collections around the world. He is the editor of the Random House anthology Poems About Sculpture.

Craig Stockwell is a visual artist who paints large, colorful, abstract paintings. He served (2013-20) as the Director of the MFA in Visual Arts program at the New Hampshire Institute of Art.

References

  1. 1 2 "The History of deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum". The Trustees of Reservations. Retrieved 2021-07-16.
  2. ↑ Marquard, Bryan (May 17, 2020). "Georgia Litwack, whose photography focused on accomplished women, dies at 98 of COVID-19 complications". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 2020-12-12.
  3. ↑ Laidler, John (26 March 2019). "Town approves Trustees' acquisition of deCordova park and museum". Boston Globe. Retrieved 16 July 2021.
  4. ↑ Whyte, Murray (12 March 2021). "Jessica May named to artistic leadership at deCordova and other Trustees properties". Boston Globe. Retrieved 16 July 2021.
  5. ↑ "deCordova Planning FAQs". Trustees. Retrieved 21 June 2024.


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.