Williams College Museum of Art

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Williams College Museum of Art
Williams College Museum of Art Exterior.jpg
The Williams College Museum of Art
Williams College Museum of Art
Established1926
Location76 Spring St., Williamstown, Massachusetts
Coordinates 42°42′40.27″N73°12′9.69″W / 42.7111861°N 73.2026917°W / 42.7111861; -73.2026917
TypeArt museum
AccreditationAmerican Alliance of Museums, 1993, 2004, 2020
CollectionsContemporary art, photography, prints, Indian painting
Collection size15,000
FounderKarl Weston
DirectorPamela Franks
Website artmuseum.williams.edu

The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) is a college-affiliated art museum in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It is located on the Williams College campus, close to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) and the Clark Art Institute. Its growing collection encompasses more than 14,000 works, [1] with particular strengths in contemporary art, photography, prints, and Indian painting. The museum is free and open to the public.

Contents

History

Lawrence Hall, soon to house Williams College Museum of Art, before the addition of the two wings designed by Francis Allen in 1890 Lawrence Hall in 1890.jpg
Lawrence Hall, soon to house Williams College Museum of Art, before the addition of the two wings designed by Francis Allen in 1890

WCMA was established in 1926 by Karl Weston, an art history professor who made it his mission to provide students with a place to experience art directly, rather than as slides or in textbooks. The college's art collection, in large part donated by Eliza Peters Field in 1897, had been housed in two small wings of what was then the college library, Lawrence Hall, designed by Thomas A. Tefft in 1846. When the library was moved to Stetson Hall in 1920, Weston transformed the octagonal brick building into an art museum, adding a T-shaped wing in order to provide additional space for galleries and the college's rapidly expanding art history curriculum.

Over the next half-century, under a series of directors, the college enlarged the art department and the museum's collection. In 1981, Director Franklin W. Robinson hired Charles Moore to redesign the building in order to raise facilities to professional standards and double exhibition space. This coincided with an expansion of WCMA's staff, educational programs, and exhibition schedule.

Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums in 1993, and re-accredited in 2004, the museum has been the site of dozens of exhibitions (see Past Exhibitions, below). In 2012, Williams College hired director Christina Olsen, who served through August 2017, before leaving to become the director of the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA). In May 2018, the college named Pamela Franks, Senior Deputy Director and Seymour H. Knox Jr., Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Yale University Art Gallery to be WCMA's new Class of 1956 Director.

In the summer of 2019, WCMA temporarily closed its doors for a series of renovations. While the museum was closed, WCMA exhibited 40 works of art from its Williams Art Loan for Living Spaces (WALLS) collection in a gallery space called Summer Space at 76 Spring St.

Collection

Maurice Prendergast, Figures Under the Flag (1900-1905) Prendergast Maurice Figures Under the Flag 1900-05.jpg
Maurice Prendergast, Figures Under the Flag (1900–1905)

Made up of 15,000 individual works, the collection has particular strengths in ancient Egyptian, Assyrian, and Greco-Roman objects, Indian Painting, African Sculpture, American photography, American art, and international modern and contemporary art. The museum is also home to the world's largest assembly of works by the artist brothers Maurice Prendergast and Charles Prendergast. These works were donated in 1983 by Charles's widow Eugenie Prendergast. They were the basis for WCMA's Prendergast Archive and Study Center, which is maintained as a center for scholarship on the brothers and their contemporaries.[ citation needed ]

Marking its 75th anniversary in 2001, the museum installed Eyes (Nine Elements) by Louise Bourgeois. This outdoor sculpture has since become a symbol of the museum's dedication to contemporary art, as well as an iconic part of the Williams campus.[ citation needed ]

Notable artworks

Fulkerson Fund for Leadership in the Arts

Established[ when? ] by Allan W. Fulkerson '54, the Fund is now in its fifth year and continues to support a variety of student-centered projects at WCMA. Central components include:[ citation needed ]

Monuments Men

American military men removing the van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece from the Altaussee salt mine [de], 1945 Ghent altarpiece at Altaussee.jpg
American military men removing the van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece from the Altaussee salt mine  [ de ], 1945

During World War 2, a group of nearly 350 servicemen and women was established to recover and protect artwork from areas affected by the conflict. This organization was known as the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program (MFAA), or more colloquially, the Monuments Men. Among the ranks of this enterprise were Williams graduates Charles Parkhurst '35 and Lane Faison '29, who both returned to WCMA to serve as museum directors after the war. In February 2014, Sony Pictures released The Monuments Men , a feature film directed by George Clooney that has revived interest in these lesser-known heroes of the war. On March 7, 2014, WCMA celebrated its own two Monuments Men by inviting Faison's sons and Parkhurst's widow to speak at the museum.[ citation needed ]

Williams Art Mafia

This informal group studied under the trio of Lane Faison, Bill Pierson and Whitney Stoddard, and became collectively known as the Williams Art Mafia. Its members include: [2]

Major past exhibitions

Asco: Elite of the Obscure, A Retrospective, 1972-1987 Asco exhibit at WCMA, 2012.jpg
Asco: Elite of the Obscure, A Retrospective, 1972–1987

List of directors (1926–present)

DirectorFromTo
Karl E. Weston 19261948
S. Lane Faison 19481976
Whitney Stoddard 19601961
Franklin W. Robinson19761979
Milo C. Beach 19791979
John W. Coffey II19791980
Thomas Krens 19801988
Charles Parkhurst 19831984
W. Rod Faulds19881989
Linda B. Shearer19892004
Marion M. Goethals20042005
Lisa Corrin20052011
Katy Kline20112012
Christina Olsen20122017
Lisa Dorin20172018
Pamela Franks 2018present

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References

  1. "Williams College Museum of Art Collection - Artstor". www.artstor.org.
  2. Kinzer, Stephen (2004-03-31). "LEGACY; One College's Long Shadow: Looking Back at the 'Williams Mafia'". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2022-04-24.
  3. "Alex Donis Exhibitions".

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