Wadsworth Atheneum
Encyclopedia
The Wadsworth Atheneum is the oldest public
art museum in the United States
, with significant holdings of French and American Impressionist
paintings, Hudson River School
landscapes, modernist
masterpieces and contemporary works, as well as extensive holdings in early American furniture and decorative arts.
It is located at 600 Main Street
in a distinctive castle-like building in downtown Hartford
, Connecticut
, the state's capital. It easily accessible from I-91 and I-84, as well as by train.
With 196000 square feet (18,209 m²), the museum is the largest art museum in the state
of Connecticut
.
She stated that one of her top goals would be to attract visitors "who would never have otherwise thought of coming here". She previously had been director of Smithsonian Arts at the Smithsonian Institution
in Washington, D.C.
for three years, where she was responsible for budgeting and planning for the nine arts institutions within the Smithsonian. Before that, she was director and CEO of the Des Moines Art Center
from 1998 to 2005, where she was given credit for doubling attendance in her first two years. She led that museum into forming partnerships with more than 100 community groups.
in the heart of downtown Hartford. Its architects were Alexander Jackson Davis
and Ithiel Town
, who designed the "castle" that is the atheneum's oldest building. Construction began in 1842 after the museum was incorporated on June 1 of that year. While "1842" can be seen clearly above the building's name above the front doors, the museum itself did not open until July 31, 1844. It has been operating continuously since then.
The Wadsworth family, being one of the oldest and most affluent in the city contributed numerous valuable pieces of art
to the museum to be displayed at the time the Atheneum opened. The first collection consisted of 78 paintings, two marble
bust
s, one portrait miniature
, and one bronze
sculpture
.
The Wadsworth has also been utilized since its beginning as a place for drama
tic and dance
performances, exhibits of historical artifacts, social functions, and benefits.
The museum struggled financially in the decade before 2008 and went through five directors and three acting directors in that time. In fiscal year 2006, the museum had a deficit of about $284,000, and in the 2007 fiscal year the deficit was $540,000. In October 2007, the museum abandoned a planned expansion into the former Hartford Times building. The project, originally expected to cost $16 million, was later estimated to cost $19 million, with higher operating costs than originally expected.
In March 2010, the museum announced the start of a comprehensive renovation project across all five of the museum’s buildings, which will result in the addition of 8000 square feet (743.2 m²) of refurbished gallery space, a 14% increase, and the complete reinstallation of the museum’s permanent collection. The project is slated for completion by the end of 2011.
The museum is a member of the North American Reciprocal Museums
program.
The structure itself consists of the original, castle
-like building, plus 4 wings that have been added onto it since it was built. A new addition is being designed currently. The museum is home to approximately 50,000 objects, including ancient Roman
, Greek
, and Egyptian
bronzes; paintings from the Renaissance
, Baroque
, and French and American Impressionist eras, among others; 18th-century French porcelain
s (including Meissen
and Sèvres
); Hudson River School
landscapes; early American clothing
and decorations; early African-American art and historical artifacts; and more. The collections span more than 5,000 years of world history.
Just outside the "castle" is a statue of Nathan Hale
, dated 1899, by Enoch S. Woods. A short distance away, within the Connecticut State Capitol
is another, better-known sculpture of Hale by Bela Pratt
, a copy of his original at Yale University
.
In 1933, the Wadsworth sponsored George Balanchine
's immigration
to the United States from the Soviet Union
. Shortly after his immigration, Balanchine formed what is now known as the New York City Ballet
and chose to have his company's first performance at the Wadsworth in 1934. This is arguably the most important "first" in Wadsworth history.
The museum was the first in America to acquire pieces by Salvador Dalí
, Balthus
, Frederic Church, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Piet Mondrian
, and many other famous artists. Under the directorship of A. Everett 'Chick' Austin
, the first American exhibition of surrealism
was shown at the Wadsworth in 1931, and the first major U.S. Picasso retrospective was held in 1934. Also in 1934, the world premiere of the opera
Four Saints in Three Acts
by Gertrude Stein
and Virgil Thomson
was held at the Atheneum.
Public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individuals, and the public is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the Öffentlichkeit or public sphere. The concept of a public has also been defined in political science,...
art museum in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, with significant holdings of French and American Impressionist
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
paintings, 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...
landscapes, modernist
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
masterpieces and contemporary works, as well as extensive holdings in early American furniture and decorative arts.
It is located at 600 Main Street
Main Street
Main Street is the metonym for a generic street name of the primary retail street of a village, town, or small city in many parts of the world...
in a distinctive castle-like building in downtown Hartford
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...
, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
, the state's capital. It easily accessible from I-91 and I-84, as well as by train.
With 196000 square feet (18,209 m²), the museum is the largest art museum in the state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
of Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
.
Administration
Susan Lubowsky Talbott became museum director on May 1, 2008.She stated that one of her top goals would be to attract visitors "who would never have otherwise thought of coming here". She previously had been director of Smithsonian Arts at the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
for three years, where she was responsible for budgeting and planning for the nine arts institutions within the Smithsonian. Before that, she was director and CEO of the Des Moines Art Center
Des Moines Art Center
The Des Moines Art Center is an art museum with an extensive collection of paintings, sculpture, modern art and mixed media. It was established in 1948 in Des Moines, Iowa.-Description:...
from 1998 to 2005, where she was given credit for doubling attendance in her first two years. She led that museum into forming partnerships with more than 100 community groups.
Museum history
The Wadsworth, as it is most commonly known, was constructed on the site of the family home of Daniel WadsworthDaniel Wadsworth
Daniel Wadsworth of Hartford, Connecticut, was a traveler, amateur artist and architect, and arts patron. He is most remembered as the founder of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art....
in the heart of downtown Hartford. Its architects were Alexander Jackson Davis
Alexander Jackson Davis
Alexander Jackson Davis, or A. J. Davis , was one of the most successful and influential American architects of his generation, in particular his association with the Gothic Revival style....
and Ithiel Town
Ithiel Town
Ithiel Town was a prominent American architect and civil engineer. One of the first generation of professional architects in the United States, Town made significant contributions to American architecture in the first half of the 19th century. He was high-strung, sophisticated, generous,...
, who designed the "castle" that is the atheneum's oldest building. Construction began in 1842 after the museum was incorporated on June 1 of that year. While "1842" can be seen clearly above the building's name above the front doors, the museum itself did not open until July 31, 1844. It has been operating continuously since then.
The Wadsworth family, being one of the oldest and most affluent in the city contributed numerous valuable pieces of art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
to the museum to be displayed at the time the Atheneum opened. The first collection consisted of 78 paintings, two marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
bust
Bust (sculpture)
A bust is a sculpted or cast representation of the upper part of the human figure, depicting a person's head and neck, as well as a variable portion of the chest and shoulders. The piece is normally supported by a plinth. These forms recreate the likeness of an individual...
s, one portrait miniature
Portrait miniature
A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting, usually executed in gouache, watercolour, or enamel.Portrait miniatures began to flourish in 16th century Europe and the art was practiced during the 17th century and 18th century...
, and one bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
.
The Wadsworth has also been utilized since its beginning as a place for drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
tic and dance
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
performances, exhibits of historical artifacts, social functions, and benefits.
The museum struggled financially in the decade before 2008 and went through five directors and three acting directors in that time. In fiscal year 2006, the museum had a deficit of about $284,000, and in the 2007 fiscal year the deficit was $540,000. In October 2007, the museum abandoned a planned expansion into the former Hartford Times building. The project, originally expected to cost $16 million, was later estimated to cost $19 million, with higher operating costs than originally expected.
In March 2010, the museum announced the start of a comprehensive renovation project across all five of the museum’s buildings, which will result in the addition of 8000 square feet (743.2 m²) of refurbished gallery space, a 14% increase, and the complete reinstallation of the museum’s permanent collection. The project is slated for completion by the end of 2011.
The museum is a member of the North American Reciprocal Museums
North American Reciprocal Museums
The North American Reciprocal Museums program is a consortium of museums in the United States, Canada, Bermuda, El Salvador and Mexico which offers benefits to museum membership holders in more than 530 institutions...
program.
Structure and contents
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
-like building, plus 4 wings that have been added onto it since it was built. A new addition is being designed currently. The museum is home to approximately 50,000 objects, including ancient Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
, and Egyptian
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
bronzes; paintings from the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
, Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
, and French and American Impressionist eras, among others; 18th-century French porcelain
Porcelain
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...
s (including Meissen
Meissen
Meissen is a town of approximately 30,000 about northwest of Dresden on both banks of the Elbe river in the Free State of Saxony, in eastern Germany. Meissen is the home of Meissen porcelain, the Albrechtsburg castle, the Gothic Meissen Cathedral and the Meissen Frauenkirche...
and Sèvres
Sèvres
Sèvres is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris.The town is known for its porcelain manufacture, the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres, making the famous Sèvres porcelain, as well as being the location of the International Bureau of Weights...
); 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...
landscapes; early American clothing
Clothing
Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...
and decorations; early African-American art and historical artifacts; and more. The collections span more than 5,000 years of world history.
Just outside the "castle" is a statue of Nathan Hale
Nathan Hale
Nathan Hale was a soldier for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He volunteered for an intelligence-gathering mission in New York City but was captured by the British...
, dated 1899, by Enoch S. Woods. A short distance away, within the Connecticut State Capitol
Connecticut State Capitol
The Connecticut State Capitol is located north of Capitol Avenue and south of Bushnell Park in Hartford, the capital of Connecticut. The building houses the Connecticut General Assembly; the upper house, the State Senate, and lower house, the House of Representatives, as well as the office of the...
is another, better-known sculpture of Hale by Bela Pratt
Bela Pratt
Bela Lyon Pratt was an American sculptor.-Life:Pratt was born in Norwich, Connecticut to Sarah and George Pratt, a Yale-educated lawyer. His maternal grandfather, Oramel Whittlesey, was a pianoforte maker and founder in 1835 of the first music school in the country authorized to confer degrees to...
, a copy of his original at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
.
Museum firsts
Since its beginning, the Wadsworth has had a long tradition of "firsts".In 1933, the Wadsworth sponsored George Balanchine
George Balanchine
George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...
's immigration
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
to the United States from the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. Shortly after his immigration, Balanchine formed what is now known as the New York City Ballet
New York City Ballet
New York City Ballet is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Leon Barzin was the company's first music director. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company...
and chose to have his company's first performance at the Wadsworth in 1934. This is arguably the most important "first" in Wadsworth history.
The museum was the first in America to acquire pieces by Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
, Balthus
Balthus
Balthasar Klossowski de Rola , best known as Balthus, was an esteemed but controversial Polish-French modern artist....
, Frederic Church, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Piet Mondrian
Piet Mondrian
Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian , was a Dutch painter.He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism...
, and many other famous artists. Under the directorship of A. Everett 'Chick' Austin
Arthur Everett Austin, Jr.
Arthur Everett "Chick" Austin, Jr. was the innovative and pacesetting director of the Wadsworth Atheneum from 1927 through 1944. Austin's visionary gift included persistence in the introduction of then-modern theater and modern design and especially contemporaneous art...
, the first American exhibition of surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
was shown at the Wadsworth in 1931, and the first major U.S. Picasso retrospective was held in 1934. Also in 1934, the world premiere of the opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
Four Saints in Three Acts
Four Saints in Three Acts
Four Saints in Three Acts is an opera by American composer Virgil Thomson with a libretto by Gertrude Stein. Written in 1927-8, it contains about 20 saints, and is in at least four acts...
by Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
and Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music...
was held at the Atheneum.