Mint Museums
Encyclopedia
The Mint Museum is a cultural institution in Charlotte, North Carolina
that comprises the Mint Museum RANDOLPH and the Mint Museum UPTOWN. Together these two locations have hundreds of collections showcasing art and design from around the globe.
Kathleen V. Jameson, former assistant director of programming for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, assumed the position of Executive Director of both museum locations as of July 1, 2010, succeeding Phil Kline upon his retirement.
. Opening in 1936, it was the first art museum in North Carolina
, USA. The permanent collections include American Art
, Ancient American Art, American and European ceramics
, American and European Decorative Art, North Carolina Pottery
, historic costume and fashionable dress and accessories, African Art
, Asian Art
, historic maps, Contemporary Art
, and photography. The companion Mint Museum of Craft + Design focuses on contemporary craft.
's work.
The American Art collection comprises approximately 900 works created between the late 1700s and circa 1945. It includes portraiture of the Federal era, 19th century landscapes, and paintings from the group known as "The Eight
" (Robert Henri
, George Luks
, William Glackens
, John Sloan, Everett Shinn
, Maurice Prendergast
, Ernest Lawson
, and Arthur Bowen Davies). Additional highlights in this area include works by John Singleton Copley
, Gilbert Stuart
, Thomas Sully
, and Hudson River School
painters Thomas Cole
and Sanford Gifford.
The Art of the Ancient Americas collection includes roughly 2,000 objects from more than 40 culutres, spanning more than 4,500 years. The collection includes body adornments, tools, ceramic vessels, sculpture, textiles, and metal ornaments.
There are about 2,230 objects in the Mint's collection of Contemporary Art. These include the Bearden collection and other works on paper, contemporary sculpture, and photography from circa 1945 to the present.
The Mint's Decorative Arts collection, considered one of the finest in the country, centers on its holdings in ceramics. Containing more than 12,000 objects from 2000 B.C. to 1950 A.D., the collection includes a wide variety of ancient Chinese ceramics, 18th century European and English wares, American art pottery, and North Carolina pottery.
Almost 10,000 items of men's, women's, and children's fashions from the early 18th century to present-day haute couture are included in the museum's collection of Historic Costume and Fashionable Dress, which approaches fashion as an art form.
The Mint Museum of Craft + Design has been proclaimed as one of the foremost craft museums in the nation. It opened in 1999 following an $8.2 million donation to the Mint Museum of Art for purchase of a separate space to house the museum's craft and design collection in Charlotte's Uptown. Its permanent collection has been described as "complex and eclectic", featuring "everything from fine jewelry to fiber arts, from wacky, satirical, narrative ceramic sculpture...to product design."
The museum closed temporarily in February 2010 to begin a move from its building on North Tryon Street to its new home on Charlotte's Levine Center for the Arts. It is scheduled to reopen in its new facility in October 2010. The move will expand the museum's gallery space from 10000 square feet (929 m²) to 18000 square feet (1,672.3 m²) in the new facility.
Machado and Silvetti Associates
of Boston, the building's estimated cost is $57 million. Now that it is complete, this building will be known as the Mint Museum Uptown with the original building on Randolph Road to be known as the Mint Museum Randolph.
The Uptown location spreads over five floors and houses collections of glass, ceramics, wood and other material from the Mint Museum of Craft + Design. Contemporary Art, American Art and some of the European Art collections from the Randolph Road facility have also moved to the new location, bringing the Mint's arts and craft and fine arts focuses under one roof for the first time.
The historic Randolph Road building remains open. Renovations and reinstallation are scheduled to highlight the Museum's holdings in Ceramics; Historic Costume and Fashionable Dress; Ancient American Art; Asian Art; Coins & Currency; Decorative Arts; and Spanish Colonial Art.
. Designed by noted architect William Strickland
, construction of the Federal-style
Charlotte Mint
building began in 1836 by Perry & Ligon of Raleigh, North Carolina at a cost of $29,800.00. It opened July 27, 1837 at its original location at 403 West Trade Street. The facility coined $5 million in gold from 1836 to the outbreak of the Civil War.
In 1931, when Mecklenburg County
planned to expand the main post office, located adjacent to the Mint, the building became endangered. Widespread public support for preserving the building on its original site proved futile. When the U.S. Treasury Department stated that it had no objection to anyone moving the building to another site, in 1933, a group of citizens raised $950 for the dismantling and removal of the Strickland building to its present location on donated land on Randolph Road. The Museum formally opened to the public on October 22, 1936 as North Carolina's first art museum. The building underwent major expansions in 1967 and 1985.
The structure was placed on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission's List of Designated Historic Landmarks in 1976.
Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte is the largest city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the seat of Mecklenburg County. In 2010, Charlotte's population according to the US Census Bureau was 731,424, making it the 17th largest city in the United States based on population. The Charlotte metropolitan area had a 2009...
that comprises the Mint Museum RANDOLPH and the Mint Museum UPTOWN. Together these two locations have hundreds of collections showcasing art and design from around the globe.
Kathleen V. Jameson, former assistant director of programming for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, assumed the position of Executive Director of both museum locations as of July 1, 2010, succeeding Phil Kline upon his retirement.
Mint Museum RANDOLPH
The Mint Museum Randolph, resides in a federal style building that once housed the Charlotte MintCharlotte Mint
The Charlotte Mint was a branch of the United States Mint that came into existence on March 3, 1835 during the Carolina Gold Rush. The first gold mine in the United States was established in North Carolina at the Reed Gold Mine...
. Opening in 1936, it was the first art museum in North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, USA. The permanent collections include American Art
American Art
American Art is the debut album of the band Weatherbox. It was released on May 8, 2007 on Doghouse Records. The album received critical acclaim from several sources including underground music distribution company Smartpunk, who lauded the band's style:...
, Ancient American Art, American and European ceramics
Ceramic art
In art history, ceramics and ceramic art mean art objects such as figures, tiles, and tableware made from clay and other raw materials by the process of pottery. Some ceramic products are regarded as fine art, while others are regarded as decorative, industrial or applied art objects, or as...
, American and European Decorative Art, North Carolina Pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...
, historic costume and fashionable dress and accessories, African Art
African art
African art constitutes one of the most diverse legacies on earth. Though many casual observers tend to generalize "traditional" African art, the continent is full of people, societies, and civilizations, each with a unique visual special culture. The definition also includes the art of the African...
, Asian Art
Asian art
Asian art can refer to art amongst many cultures in Asia.-Various types of Asian art:*Afghan art*Azerbaijanian art*Balinese art*Bhutanese art*Buddhist art*Burmese contemporary art*Chinese art*Eastern art*Indian art*Iranian art*Islamic art...
, historic maps, Contemporary Art
Contemporary art
Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...
, and photography. The companion Mint Museum of Craft + Design focuses on contemporary craft.
Collection highlights
The Mint Museum is the largest visual arts institution in Charlotte and holds the largest public collection of Charlotte-born artist Romare BeardenRomare Bearden
Romare Bearden was an African American artist and writer. He worked in several media including cartoons, oils, and collage.-Education:...
's work.
The American Art collection comprises approximately 900 works created between the late 1700s and circa 1945. It includes portraiture of the Federal era, 19th century landscapes, and paintings from the group known as "The Eight
The Eight
The Eight may refer to:*Ashcan School, an American school of painters*The Eight , a Hungarian art movement*The Eight ...
" (Robert Henri
Robert Henri
Robert Henri was an American painter and teacher. He was a leading figure of the Ashcan School in art.- Early life :...
, George Luks
George Luks
George Benjamin Luks, was an American realist artist and illustrator. His vigorously painted genre paintings of urban subjects are examples of the Ashcan school in American art.-Early life:...
, William Glackens
William Glackens
William James Glackens was an American realist painter.Glackens studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and later moved to New York City, where he co-founded what came to be called the Ashcan School art movement...
, John Sloan, Everett Shinn
Everett Shinn
Everett Shinn was an American realist painter and member of the Ashcan School, also known as 'the Eight.' He was the youngest member of the group of modernist painters who explored the depiction of real life...
, Maurice Prendergast
Maurice Prendergast
Maurice Brazil Prendergast was an American Post-Impressionist artist who worked in oil, watercolor, and monotype...
, Ernest Lawson
Ernest Lawson
Ernest Lawson was a Canadian-American painter and a member of The Eight, a group of artists which included the group's leaders Robert Henri, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, Arthur B. Davies, Maurice Prendergast, George Luks, and William J. Glackens...
, and Arthur Bowen Davies). Additional highlights in this area include works by John Singleton Copley
John Singleton Copley
John Singleton Copley was an American painter, born presumably in Boston, Massachusetts, and a son of Richard and Mary Singleton Copley, both Irish. He is famous for his portrait paintings of important figures in colonial New England, depicting in particular middle-class subjects...
, Gilbert Stuart
Gilbert Stuart
Gilbert Charles Stuart was an American painter from Rhode Island.Gilbert Stuart is widely considered to be one of America's foremost portraitists...
, Thomas Sully
Thomas Sully
Thomas Sully was an American painter, mostly of portraits.-Early life:Sully was born in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England, to the actors Matthew and Sarah Sully. In March 1792 the Sullys and their nine children immigrated to Richmond, Virginia, where Thomas’s uncle managed a theater...
, and Hudson River School
Hudson River school
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by romanticism...
painters Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist. He is regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School, an American art movement that flourished in the mid-19th century...
and Sanford Gifford.
The Art of the Ancient Americas collection includes roughly 2,000 objects from more than 40 culutres, spanning more than 4,500 years. The collection includes body adornments, tools, ceramic vessels, sculpture, textiles, and metal ornaments.
There are about 2,230 objects in the Mint's collection of Contemporary Art. These include the Bearden collection and other works on paper, contemporary sculpture, and photography from circa 1945 to the present.
The Mint's Decorative Arts collection, considered one of the finest in the country, centers on its holdings in ceramics. Containing more than 12,000 objects from 2000 B.C. to 1950 A.D., the collection includes a wide variety of ancient Chinese ceramics, 18th century European and English wares, American art pottery, and North Carolina pottery.
Almost 10,000 items of men's, women's, and children's fashions from the early 18th century to present-day haute couture are included in the museum's collection of Historic Costume and Fashionable Dress, which approaches fashion as an art form.
Mint Museum of Craft + Design
The Mint Museum of Craft + Design honors the legacy of the Charlotte region's rich craft heritage by collecting artistic craft in glass, metal, fiber, wood, mixed-media, and clay, including jewelry and furniture. With over 2,500 works, its permanent collections "present the creative evolution of studio craft from the utilitarian objects of the 19th century to the art of today". It also encourages the creation of art, spawns collaborations and dialogue, and serves as a forum for artists, craft theory, aesthetics and technology.The Mint Museum of Craft + Design has been proclaimed as one of the foremost craft museums in the nation. It opened in 1999 following an $8.2 million donation to the Mint Museum of Art for purchase of a separate space to house the museum's craft and design collection in Charlotte's Uptown. Its permanent collection has been described as "complex and eclectic", featuring "everything from fine jewelry to fiber arts, from wacky, satirical, narrative ceramic sculpture...to product design."
The museum closed temporarily in February 2010 to begin a move from its building on North Tryon Street to its new home on Charlotte's Levine Center for the Arts. It is scheduled to reopen in its new facility in October 2010. The move will expand the museum's gallery space from 10000 square feet (929 m²) to 18000 square feet (1,672.3 m²) in the new facility.
Mint Museum UPTOWN
The Mint Museum's new 145000 square feet (13,470.9 m²) location opened on October 1, 2010. Designed byMachado and Silvetti Associates
Machado and Silvetti Associates
Machado and Silvetti Associates is an architecture and urban design firm headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Incorporated in 1985, the firm's principals Rodolfo Machado and Jorge Silvetti have been in association since 1974...
of Boston, the building's estimated cost is $57 million. Now that it is complete, this building will be known as the Mint Museum Uptown with the original building on Randolph Road to be known as the Mint Museum Randolph.
The Uptown location spreads over five floors and houses collections of glass, ceramics, wood and other material from the Mint Museum of Craft + Design. Contemporary Art, American Art and some of the European Art collections from the Randolph Road facility have also moved to the new location, bringing the Mint's arts and craft and fine arts focuses under one roof for the first time.
The historic Randolph Road building remains open. Renovations and reinstallation are scheduled to highlight the Museum's holdings in Ceramics; Historic Costume and Fashionable Dress; Ancient American Art; Asian Art; Coins & Currency; Decorative Arts; and Spanish Colonial Art.
Randolph Road building
The oldest section of the Randolph Road building originally served as the home of the first branch of the United States MintUnited States Mint
The United States Mint primarily produces circulating coinage for the United States to conduct its trade and commerce. The Mint was created by Congress with the Coinage Act of 1792, and placed within the Department of State...
. Designed by noted architect William Strickland
William Strickland
William Strickland may refer to:* William Strickland , English clergyman* William Strickland , credited with introducing the turkey to England, later a Member of Parliament...
, construction of the Federal-style
Federal architecture
Federal-style architecture is the name for the classicizing architecture built in the United States between c. 1780 and 1830, and particularly from 1785 to 1815. This style shares its name with its era, the Federal Period. The name Federal style is also used in association with furniture design...
Charlotte Mint
Charlotte Mint
The Charlotte Mint was a branch of the United States Mint that came into existence on March 3, 1835 during the Carolina Gold Rush. The first gold mine in the United States was established in North Carolina at the Reed Gold Mine...
building began in 1836 by Perry & Ligon of Raleigh, North Carolina at a cost of $29,800.00. It opened July 27, 1837 at its original location at 403 West Trade Street. The facility coined $5 million in gold from 1836 to the outbreak of the Civil War.
In 1931, when Mecklenburg County
Mecklenburg County, North Carolina
-Air:The county's primary commercial aviation airport is Charlotte Douglas International Airport in Charlotte.- Intercity rail :With twenty-five freight trains a day, Mecklenburg is a freight railroad transportation center, largely due to its place on the NS main line between Washington and Atlanta...
planned to expand the main post office, located adjacent to the Mint, the building became endangered. Widespread public support for preserving the building on its original site proved futile. When the U.S. Treasury Department stated that it had no objection to anyone moving the building to another site, in 1933, a group of citizens raised $950 for the dismantling and removal of the Strickland building to its present location on donated land on Randolph Road. The Museum formally opened to the public on October 22, 1936 as North Carolina's first art museum. The building underwent major expansions in 1967 and 1985.
The structure was placed on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission's List of Designated Historic Landmarks in 1976.