 McLellan House, Portland Museum of Art | |
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| Location | Portland, Maine |
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| Coordinates | 43°39′13″N70°15′44″W / 43.65361°N 70.26222°W |
| Type | Art Museum |
| Website | portlandmuseum.org |
The Portland Museum of Art, or PMA, is the largest and oldest public art institution in Maine. Founded as the Portland Society of Art in 1882. It is located in the downtown area known as The Arts District in Portland, Maine.
The PMA used a variety of exhibition spaces until 1908; that year Margaret Jane Mussey Sweat bequeathed her three-story mansion, now known as the McLellan House , and sufficient funds to create a gallery in memory of her late husband, Lorenzo De Medici Sweat, who was a U.S. Representative. Noted New England architect John Calvin Stevens designed the L. D. M. Sweat Memorial Galleries , which opened to the public in 1911.
Over the next 65 years, as the size and scope of the exhibitions expanded, the limitations of the Museum's galleries, storage, and support areas became apparent. From 1960 to 1962, Donelson Hoopes served as its director. In 1976, Maine native Charles Shipman Payson promised the Museum his collection of 17 paintings by Winslow Homer. Recognizing the Museum's physical limitations, he also gave $8 million toward the building of an addition to be designed by Henry Nichols Cobb of I. M. Pei & Partners. Construction began on the Charles Shipman Payson Building in 1981, and within two years the $8.2 million facility was opened to the public.
Payson's gift of the Homer paintings served as a catalyst for the Museum's expansion as well as for significant long-term loans and outright gifts to the Museum. In direct response to the Payson gift, the 1979 gift of the Hamilton Easter Field Art Foundation Collection added more than 50 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by American modernists to the collection. In 1991, the Joan Whitney Payson Collection (owned by Charles Payson's wife Joan Whitney, a Whitney family heiress and New York City socialite) of 20 impressionist and post-impressionist works of art was given to the Museum on permanent loan. In 1996, Elizabeth B. Noyce, art collector and Maine philanthropist, bequeathed 66 works of American art, which is the most extensive and diverse gift of American art ever presented to the Museum.
The PMA attracts approximately 140,000 visitors a year, and has around 8,500 members.
The Museum's collection includes more than 22,000 artworks, dating from the 18th century to the present. The PMA's collection features works by artists including Winslow Homer, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Louise Nevelson, Andrew Wyeth and John Greenleaf Cloudman. The Museum has the largest European collection in Maine. The major European movements from impressionism through surrealism are represented by the Joan Whitney Payson, Albert Otten, and Scott M. Black collections, which include works by Giambattista Pittoni, Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, René Magritte, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, and Auguste Rodin. The Elizabeth B. Noyce Collection, a bequest of 66 paintings and sculptures, includes paintings by George Bellows, Alfred Thompson Bricher, Abraham Walkowitz, and Jamie Wyeth, and masterpieces by Childe Hassam, Fitz Henry Lane, and N. C. Wyeth.
The Museum's three architecturally significant buildings unite three centuries that showcase the history of American art and culture.
Since its opening in 1983, the Charles Shipman Payson Building has been the public face of the Museum. Although the original vision of both the architect and the Museum's strategic plan was to integrate all three buildings, the Charles Shipman Payson Building the L. D. M. Sweat Memorial Galleries, and the McLellan House only recently has the Museum been positioned to achieve this goal. In January 2000, the Museum launched a $13.5 million capital campaign to raise funds for the preservation and educational interpretation of its two historic structures.
The project to integrate the three buildings began in the fall of 2000 and was completed in October 2002. The McLellan House and L. D. M. Sweat Memorial Galleries have an emphasis on 19th-century American art, and the Payson Building houses European and American works from the 20th and 21st centuries. The project to "complete the Museum" returned the McLellan House to its original neoclassical elegance and the L. D. M. Sweat Memorial Galleries to their Beaux-Arts splendor, in the process creating distinctive spaces for the Museum's outstanding collection of 19th-century American art. The Museum's expanded space allows a more complete presentation of the permanent collection, which in recent years has grown in quality and historical importance. In 2014, Scott Simons Architects was engaged to develop a campus masterplan to help position the museum for growth. [1] [2] [3] The museum is open from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. every day except Monday and Tuesday. [4]
In 2022, the Museum presented plans for a 5,600 m2 (60,000 sq ft) expansion, announcing four finalist teams led by international firms Adjaye Associates, Toshiko Mori, MVRDV, [5] and LEVER who created the winning design.
Andrew Newell Wyeth was an American visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He believed he was also an abstractionist, portraying subjects in a new, meaningful way. The son of N. C. Wyeth and father of Jamie Wyeth, he was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century. James H. Duff explores the art and lives of the three men in An American Vision: Three Generations of Wyeth Art. Raised with an appreciation of nature, Wyeth took walks that fired his imagination. Henry David Thoreau, Robert Frost, and King Vidor's The Big Parade (1925) inspired him intellectually and artistically. Wyeth featured in a documentary The Metaphor in which he discussed Vidor's influence on the creation of his works of art, like Winter 1946 and Portrait of Ralph Kline. Wyeth was also inspired by Winslow Homer and Renaissance artists.
James Browning Wyeth is an American realist painter, son of Andrew Wyeth, and grandson of N.C. Wyeth. He was raised in Chadds Ford Township, Pennsylvania, and is artistic heir to the Brandywine School tradition — painters who worked in the rural Brandywine River area of Delaware and Pennsylvania, portraying its people, animals, and landscape.
Joan Whitney Payson was an American heiress, businesswoman, philanthropist, patron of the arts and art collector, and a member of the prominent Whitney family. She was also co-founder and majority owner of Major League Baseball's New York Mets baseball franchise, and was the first woman to own a major league team in North America without inheriting it.
The Crocker Art Museum is the oldest art museum in the Western United States, located in Sacramento, California. Founded in 1885, the museum holds one of the premier collections of Californian art. The collection includes American works dating from the Gold Rush to the present, European paintings and master drawings, one of the largest international ceramics collections in the U.S., and collections of Asian, African, and Oceanic art. The Crocker Art Museum has been accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, a high standard for US museums.
The Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, United States, is an art museum that specializes in American art. Its permanent collection includes works by such artists as Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Sully, Thomas Eakins, Eastman Johnson, Fitz Henry Lane, Frank Benson, Childe Hassam, and Maurice Prendergast, as well as a significant collection of works by the 20th-century sculptor Louise Nevelson. Four galleries are devoted to contemporary art.
John Calvin Stevens was an American architect who worked in the Shingle Style, in which he was a major innovator, and the Colonial Revival style. He designed more than 1,000 buildings in the state of Maine.
The L. D. M. Sweat Memorial Galleries are a series of art galleries that are part of the Portland Museum of Art, which is located in the Arts District of Portland, Maine.
The McLellan-Sweat Mansion is a historic house museum on High Street in Portland, Maine. It forms the rear component of the Portland Museum of Art complex. Built in 1800–01, the house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970 as a well-preserved Federal style brick townhouse.
The Ogunquit Museum of American Art is a small art museum located on the coast in Ogunquit, Maine. The museum houses over 3,000 pieces in its permanent collection.
Charles Shipman Payson was the owner of the New York Mets of the National League from 1975 through 1980. In 1975, he inherited the club upon the death of his wife, Mets founder Joan Whitney.
The Charles Shipman Payson Building is the most recent expansion of the Portland Museum of Art (PMA) in Portland, Maine, located on the corner of High Street and Congress Square. Henry N. Cobb designed the Payson Building, which introduced over five times more gallery space than in the adjacent, historic PMA buildings. The building opened in 1983, after Mr. Payson donated 17 Winslow Homer paintings and ten million dollars to the museum. Similar in theme to these Homer paintings, the Payson building contains a collection of contemporary paintings and short-term exhibitions created by Maine artists, focusing on regional themes.
The Charles Q. Clapp House is a historic house at 97 Spring Street in central Portland, Maine. Built in 1832, it is one of Maine's important early examples of high style Greek Revival architecture. Probably designed by its first owner, Charles Q. Clapp, it served for much of the 20th century as the home of the Portland School of Fine and Applied Art, now the Maine College of Art. It is now owned by the adjacent Portland Museum of Art. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
Zillman Art Museum-University of Maine (ZAM) is an art museum in downtown Bangor, Maine. It is part of the University of Maine, which is located in nearby Orono, Maine. The University of Maine Art Collection was established in 1946, under the leadership of Vincent Hartgen. As the initial faculty member of the Department of Art and curator of the art collection, Hartgen's goal was to provide the people of Maine with significant opportunities to experience and learn about the visual arts and their diverse histories and cultural meanings.
Maine Maritime Museum, formerly the Bath Marine Museum, offers some exhibits about Maine's maritime heritage, culture and the role Maine has played in regional and global maritime activities. Maine Maritime Museum has a large and diverse collection, made up of millions of documents, artifacts and pieces of artwork and includes an extensive research library.
Charles Frederick Kimball (1831–1903) was a 19th-century American painter who focused on pastoral landscapes and marine art. He was also an etcher and a master cabinet maker. He was active in Portland, Maine.
Gertrude Tiemer Wille was an American painter, photographer, and poet. Tiemer achieved her greatest notoriety for inter-dimensional, multi-exposure photography. Her paintings of landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and other pieces adopted both the realist and abstract styles of art. Tiemer exhibited her work at galleries in Maine, New York City, and other venues throughout the U.S. and internationally.
Charles Steven DuBack (1926–2015) was an American artist, known for his large-scale paintings, collage, and drawings.
The Lamont Gallery is a non-profit art gallery located on the campus of Phillips Exeter Academy, in Exeter, New Hampshire, United States. It primarily showcases visiting exhibitions of local, national and international acclaimed artists, along with art of Phillips Exeter students and faculty. However, it also possesses a small collection.
Jessica F. Nicoll is an American museum director and curator and an authority on American art and culture. She serves as Director and Louise Ines Doyle '34 Chief Curator of the Smith College Museum of Art. She was previously the Chief Curator and Curator of American Art of the Portland Museum of Art.
Hans Moller was a German-born American artist who worked mostly in an abstract format and is primarily considered to have been a colorist.
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