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Baltimore Museum of Art | |
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%2c_10_Art_Museum_Drive%2c_Baltimore%2c_MD_21218_(40330853244).jpg) Baltimore Museum of Art in March 2018 | |
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| Established | 1914 |
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| Location | 10 Art Museum Drive Baltimore,Maryland, 21218, U.S. |
| Coordinates | 39°19′34″N76°37′9″W / 39.32611°N 76.61917°W /39.32611; -76.61917 |
| Director | Asma Naeem |
| Chairperson | James Thornton |
| Public transit access | BaltimoreLink routes Silver, 21, 51, 94, 95 Charm City Circulator Purple Route |
| Website | www |
| Designated | 1987 |
TheBaltimore Museum of Art (BMA) inBaltimore,Maryland, is anart museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects[1] encompasses more than 1,000 works byHenri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of modern art, as well as one of the nation's finest holdings of prints, drawings, and photographs. The galleries currently showcase collections of art from Africa; works by established and emerging contemporary artists; European and American paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts; ancient Antioch mosaics; art from Asia, and textiles from around the world.
The 210,000-square-foot (20,000 m2) museum is distinguished by a neoclassical building designed in the 1920s by American architectJohn Russell Pope and two landscaped gardens with 20th-century sculpture.[2] The museum is located betweenCharles Village, to the east,Remington, to the south,Hampden, to the west; and south of theRoland Park neighborhoods, immediately adjacent to theHomewood campus ofJohns Hopkins University, though the museum is an independent institution and not affiliated with the university.
The highlight of the museum is theCone Collection, brought together by Baltimore sistersClaribel (1864–1929) andEtta Cone (1870–1949). Accomplished collectors, the sisters amassed a wealth of works by artists includingHenri Matisse,Pablo Picasso,Paul Cézanne,Edgar Degas,Paul Gauguin,Vincent van Gogh, andPierre-Auguste Renoir, nearly all of which were donated to the museum. The museum is also home to 18,000 works of French mid-19th-century art from theGeorge A. Lucas collection, which has been acclaimed by the museum as a cultural "treasure" and "among the greatest single holdings of French art in the country."[3]
The BMA is currently led by Dr. Asma Naeem, who was appointed in January 2023 by the Board of Trustees after a 10-month international search. She joined the BMA in 2018 as the Eddie C. and C. Sylvia Brown Chief Curator and previously held curatorial positions at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. She holds a B.A. in art history and political science from Johns Hopkins University, a juris doctor from Temple University, an M.A. in art history from American University, and a Ph.D. in art history from University of Maryland. Naeem is the first person of color and the first person raised in Baltimore to lead the museum.[4]
Since October 2006, The Baltimore Museum of Art and theWalters Art Museum (formerly Walters Art Gallery), have offered free general admission year-round as a result of grants given by Baltimore City, Baltimore County, and several foundations.[5] The museum is also the site of "Gertrude's Chesapeake Kitchen", a popular restaurant owned and operated by chefJohn Shields.[6]
In February 1904, theGreat Baltimore Fire destroyed much of the central part of theBaltimore's downtown business district. In response, the municipal government established a city-wide congress to develop a master plan for the city's recovery and future growth and development. The congress, headed by Dr.A. R. L. Dohme, decided that a major deficiency of the city was the lack of an art museum. This decision led to the formation of an 18-person Committee on the Art Museum, with art dealer and industrialist Henry H. Wiegand as chairman. Ten years later, on November 16, 1914, the museum was officially incorporated.[7] Along with Minneapolis and Cleveland, Baltimore's museum was "modeled after two prominent 1870s predecessors, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston".[8] According to a booklet published at the time of incorporation, it was stated that Baltimore lagged behind other cities "in regard to matters of aesthetic interest."
Still without a permanent site, the fledgling museum was founded with but a single painting,William Sergeant Kendall'sMischief, which was donated by Dr. Dohme himself. As the museum's founders were confident that more art would eventually be acquired, the nearbyPeabody Institute agreed to hold the collection for a time until a permanent home was established.[9] The committee began planning a permanent home for the museum's holdings.
By 1915, the group had decided to permanently house the museum in theWyman Park area, west of the Peabody Heights neighborhood, later renamed Charles Village. In 1916, a building was purchased on the southwest corner ofNorth Charles and West Biddle Streets as a possible location for the museum. Although an architect was employed to remodel it, it was never occupied. By 1917, the group had received a promise fromJohns Hopkins University for the land further south of the newGeorgian Revival architecture-Federal styled campus they were in the process of moving to. This prospective plot was near the old Homewood Mansion of 1800 and the laterItalianate style Wyman Villa mansion of William Wyman, a Johns Hopkins University donor and trustee. The group subsequently left the downtown site atNorth Howard Street and West Centre, which they had occupied since 1876.
Prior to moving to its permanent home in 1929, however, the museum was temporarily moved in July 1922 to the former home of their prime benefactor and foundress,Mary Elizabeth Garrett (1857–1915), at 101 West Monument Street, on the southwest corner with Cathedral Street facing West Mount Vernon Place and theWashington Monument. Garrett, a philanthropist who also further endowed theJohns Hopkins School of Medicine, was the only daughter ofJohn Work Garrett (1820–1884), theCivil War-era President of theBaltimore and Ohio Railroad who supported then PresidentAbraham Lincoln, and was a scion of theRobert Garrett banking firm in the city.
In 1923, the museum's inaugural exhibition opened there with attendance topping 6,775 during its first week.[10] The house was offered by Miss M. Cary as a home for the "collections" and a meeting place for the board of trustees. The old Garrett mansion was acquired in 1925 by the group of art enthusiasts who bought the property for the purpose of keeping the museum intact. Despite having limited space, the museum offered accommodations to art associations and a hall for meetings.
At Wyman Park, architect John Russell Pope (1874–1937) was engaged to design the museum's permanent home. With his years of study in Europe, Pope is considered to be the main examplar of the classical revival style that proved so popular with traditional American architects. He is credited with a number of major buildings along the American east coast and abroad, including the National Archives Building in Washington, New York's American Museum of Natural History, and the Tate Gallery Sculpture Hall in London.[11] His distinct brand of classicism, both serene and monolithic, was perhaps the perfect choice for such an ambitious project.
The cornerstone was laid on October 20, 1927, facing the future Art Museum Drive running diagonally from North Charles Street. The systems engineering for the building's original design was completed byHenry Adams, noted local mechanical engineer. The building consists of three floors and includes several rooms that were reconstructed and/or replicated from six localMaryland historic houses before their loss or razing.[12]
The building phase was marked by controversy over its location, cost, and the quality of workmanship, but on April 19, 1929, it opened on schedule without much fanfare. The first visitors were greeted byRodin'sThe Thinker in the Sculpture Court, and most of the objects on display were lent by Baltimore and Maryland collectors. An average of 584 visitors attended the museum each day during its first two months.
By the 1930s, the public reception was such that director Roland McKinney, in a letter to board chairman Henry Treide, noted, "People seem to feel that the Museum belongs to them and show that they are sincerely proud of it and its activities." However, these people were mostly upper-crust, privileged, and white, a fact noted in a 1937 Carnegie Corporation report. "[Baltimore] cultural institutions (outside of the library and the schools) have appealed to, been intended for, and been supported by a pretty small minority... they need to be opened up, for the viewpoint of the entire community and its needs", it concluded. Local artists were feeling slighted, as well. "We, the living, resent being left to work in a vacuum of indifference and neglect while so much of the dead past is exhausted [by the BMA]," the president of the Artists' Union of Baltimore complained toThe Evening Sun in 1937. The writer of the letter was Morris Louis, whose work, decades later, would be in the BMA's contemporary collection. Treide responded with an extensive community outreach survey and, in 1939, presented the city's first exhibition of African-American art. The show drew over 12,000 visitors in two weeks.[9]
Many of the objects lent to the museum when it opened were eventually donated to it. Among the donors who have shaped the museum's collection are Blanche Adler, Dr. Claribel Cone and Etta Cone, Jacob Epstein, Edward J. Gallagher, Jr., John W. and Robert Garrett,Mary Frick Jacobs, Ryda H. and Robert H. Levi,Saidie Adler May, Dorothy McIlvain Scott, Elsie C. Woodward, andAlan and Janet Wurtzburger. The growing collection is reflected in the three major expansions: the Saidie A. May Wing in 1950, the Woodward Wing in 1956, and the Cone Wing in 1957. These additions were all designed by local architects Wrenn, Lewis and Jencks to harmonize with the original Pope Building.
The museum's collection includes more than 95,000 objects,[13] making it the largest art museum inMaryland. It is governed by a private board of trustees and receives funding from the City of Baltimore,Baltimore,Carroll, andHoward counties; the state of Maryland, various corporations and foundations, federal agencies; individual trustees, and private citizens.
The BMA welcomes more than 200,000 visitors annually. In addition to its art collection, it organizes and hosts traveling exhibitions and serves as a major arts center for the region through its programs.
In June 2022, it was reported that AFSCME Council 67 would represent BMA workers, along with those atWalters Art Museum andEnoch Pratt Free Library if unionization efforts were successful at those institutions.[14]
In 2018, the BMA announced its intention to sell seven works by artists already well-represented in the collection in order to acquire more contemporary works by women and artists of color.[15] This initiative led to the addition of works byMark Bradford,Isaac Julian,Wangechi Mutu,Amy Sherald,Carrie Mae Weems,Jack Whitten,Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, and other notable contemporary artists.[16][17] In fall 2019, the museum transformed the East Lobby with a major new work by artistMickalene Thomas as part of the Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker Biennial Commission. This endowment gift is the first named public art commission in the U.S.[18] and includes a curatorial fellowship to help strengthen the diversity of the museum. The current Meyerhoff-Becker lobby commission by Mexican-American artistRaúl de Nieves debuted in November 2023.[19]
In November 2019, it was announced that the Baltimore Museum of Art would only purchase works made by female artists in 2020.[20] The decision was made in efforts to work towards "re-correcting the canon."[21] Marking the 100th anniversary of the19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote, all twenty-two exhibitions in 2020 focused on women artists.[22] A controversy arose in October, 2020, over the proposed sale of museum holdings to increase its endowment. Among the artworks slated for auction to raise an estimated $65 million wasThe Last Supper byAndy Warhol. The ensuing outcry resulted in cancellation of the sale.The Baltimore Sun said the museum was " ... battered by more negative publicity than it has endured in recent memory", which led to criticism of the museum's leadership.[13]
Between 2012 and 2015, the BMA completed a $28 million renovation that improved galleries for contemporary, American, African, and Asian art collections; improved essential infrastructure, and created more visitor amenities.[23]
The first phase of the BMA's renovation was completed in November 2012 with the reopening of the Contemporary Wing.[24] In November 2014, after being closed for almost 30 years, the neoclassical Merrick Historic Entrance was reopened to the public to coincide with the museum's 100-year anniversary.[25] The next phase encompassed the Dorothy McIlvain Scott American Wing, comprising the first and second floors of the BMA's original 1929 building designed by the acclaimed American architect John Russell Pope; the 1982 East Wing Lobby and Zamoiski East Entrance designed by Bower, Lewis & Thrower; and critically important upgrades to the museum's infrastructure. The architect for this phase of the renovation was theBaltimore-based architecture firm Ziger/Snead, with construction completed byThe Whiting-Turner Contracting Company ofTowson, Maryland. The project manager was Synthesis, Inc., ofColumbia, Maryland. The BMA also greatly expanded galleries for its African and Asian art collections, which opened in April 2015.[26] The culmination of the renovation was the opening of the new $4.5 million, 5,000 sq ft (460 m2) Patricia and Mark Joseph Education Center in October 2015.[27]
The renovation was funded by the museum's philanthropic campaign,In a New Light: The Campaign for The Baltimore Museum of Art, which raised $80.7 million and added more than 4,000 artworks to the collection during the decade leading up to the BMA's 100th anniversary.[28]
The BMA was one of the first museums in the United States to obtain a collection ofAfrican art. A large part of the collection was donated by Janet and Alan Wurtzburger in 1954. It contains more than 2,000 objects whose sources range from ancientEgypt to contemporaryZimbabwe, and includes works from many other cultures, includingBamana,Yoruba,Kuba,Ndebele. The collection includes many different forms of art, includingheaddresses,masks,figures, royal staffs,textiles,jewelry,ceremonial weapons, andpottery. Several of the pieces are known for their use in royal courts, performances, and religious contexts, and many are internationally known.
Highlights of the collection include works by carversZlan and Sonzanlwon, and figures by the legendary brasscaster Ldamie. Also on display are aLozi throne fromc. 1900, most likely carved in the court of King Lewanika of westernZambia, a 20th-century Hausa Koranic prayer board, and a 2006 video work by Theo Eshetu. Several of the masks and figurative sculptures are recognized internationally as the best of their type.[29]
The BMA's American art collection includes paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts spanning from the colonial era to the late 20th century. The museum has several works of art from the Baltimore area, including portraiture byCharles Willson Peale,Rembrandt Peale, and other members of the Peale family; silver from Baltimore's prominent silver manufacturing companySamuel Kirk & Son;Baltimore album quilts; and painted furniture by John Finlay and Hugh Finlay ofBaltimore.
The American painting collection at the museum ranges from 18th-century portraits and 19th-century landscape painting to American Impressionism and modernism, with works by artistsJohn Singleton Copley,Thomas Sully,Thomas Eakins,John Singer Sargent,Childe Hassam, andThomas Hart Benton. Notable canvases includeA Wild Scene (1831–1832) byThomas Cole,La Vachère (1888) byTheodore Robinson, andPink Tulip (1926) byGeorgia O'Keeffe. These are complemented by holdings of prints and drawings, as well as modern photographs from the Gallagher/Dalsheimer Collection. Artists represented includeImogen Cunningham,Man Ray,Paul Strand, andAlfred Stieglitz.
The BMA has a long record of collecting works byAfrican American artists that began in 1939 with one of the first exhibitions of African American art in the country. This collection has grown with the addition of works by 19th- and 20th-century African-American artistsJoshua Johnson,Jacob Lawrence,Edmonia Lewis,Horace Pippin, andHenry Ossawa Tanner, as well as numerous works by contemporary artists.
The BMA's holdings of American decorative arts include an extensive furniture collection that represents the major historic cabinetmaking centers of Baltimore,Philadelphia,New York City, andBoston. Many of these objects came from Dorothy McIlvain Scott, a generous Baltimore philanthropist and collector.
A gift in 1933 by Mrs. Miles White, Jr. of over 200 pieces of Maryland silver formed the nucleus of a silver collection that now encompasses objects by leading 18th- and early 19th-century silversmiths in Annapolis and Baltimore, as well as examples of early English silver owned by Maryland families during the Federal era. Among them is theAnnapolis Subscription Plate, made by Annapolis silver smith John Inch and the oldest surviving silver object made in Maryland. Later masterworks by artists fromLouis Comfort Tiffany toGeorg Jensen are also on view.
Other notable aspects of the decorative arts collection include a rare set of five clerestory windows and two mosaic-clad architectural columns that represent Tiffany's contribution to 20th-century ornament. Period rooms from six historic Maryland houses, along with architectural elements from other historic buildings, illustrate town and country building styles from the 18th and 19th centuries, and miniature rooms made by Chicago miniaturistEugene Kupjack that invite scrutiny of a variety of decorative styles at close range.
The BMA exhibits a collection ofAntioch mosaics, the result of its participation in excavations of this ancient city, known today asAntakya in southeasternTurkey, near the border ofSyria.
With the support of BMA Trustee Robert Garrett, the Baltimore Museum of Art joined the Musées Nationaux de France,Worcester Art Museum, andPrinceton University during the excavations of 1932 to 1939, discovering 300 mosaic pavements in and around the lost city. The BMA received some of the mosaics from the excavation, totaling 34 pavements, 28 of which are on display in the museum's sunlit atrium court.
Discovered in the affluent suburb ofDaphne and the nearby port city ofSeleucia Pieria, the mosaics date from the days of the emperorHadrian in the 2nd century A.D. to the Christian empire ofJustinian in the 6th century, bridging theClassical world and the earlyMiddle Ages. The mosaics illustrate how the classical art ofGreece andRome evolved into the art of the early Christian era, and tell the story of how people lived in this ancient city prior to its destruction by catastrophic earthquakes in 526 and 528 A.D. The mosaics are notable for their grand scale and elaborately patterned borders, and the brilliance of their decorative and naturalistic effects.[30]
This collection contains works from 59 distinct artistic traditions fromAztec andMaya ofMesoamerica,Chimú andMuisca ofAndeanSouth America, andNicoya, and the Atlantic Watershed ofCosta Rica. The collection includes works from 2500 BC to AD 1521. The core collection of 120 objects was given to the museum by Alan Wurtzburger in 1958, which significantly expanded the scope of the existing collection and provided momentum for a traveling exhibition of Peruvian ceramics titledMyths of Ancient Peru (1969).
The collection is particularly admired for its WestMexico ceramics, including an important Nayarit house model and an enthroned chief. Also on display is a unique assemblage of 23 figures in dance regalia which celebrates ancient performance and highlights the diversity of Colima art.[31]
Other notable pieces include a finely worked serpentine figure ofOlmec mastery, elegant portrayals of Maya and Aztec noblewomen showcasing the integral roles women played in the social, political, economic, and spiritual realms of society, and miniature gold votives in the Muisca tradition.
This exhibit includes artwork from several cultural traditions of the Pacific Islands, includingMelanesia andPolynesia. Works in collection include jewelry, ornaments, andtapa cloths.
Of notable interest is a finely carved lizard of dark wood and shell fromEaster Island, a battle pectoral created from hundreds of Nassa shells, which highlightMiddi art ofNew Britain; and an 18th-century royalHawaiian necklace.
Other highlights of the collection include a breast ornament embellished with small birds and stars that figured as insignia of prestige for theTonga of theFiji Islands. Featuring whale ivory and pearl shell design, it is recognized as one of the largest of its kind.
The museum'sAsian art collection includes works fromChina,Japan,India,Tibet,Southeast Asia, and theNear East. The collection is particularly known for itsChinese ceramics, with a particular depth in mortuary wares from theTang dynasty (618–907) and utilitarian stoneware from the 11th through the 13th centuries. Although more than 1,000 objects are comprised in this collection, because of limited space, only a portion of the pieces are on display at one time. Works are on view in rotating installations in the museum's Julius Levy Memorial Gallery.
Some notable works in the collection include the life-sized early-15th-century bronzeGuanyin, known widely as "Goddess of Mercy"; the robust figure of a horse from aHan dynasty tomb; a 39-piece mortuary retinue, a rare example of the quantities of clay figures that were placed in tombs during the early Tang dynasty; and an outstanding foliate-shaped brush washer that represents the mastery of Chinese blue-and-whiteporcelain. Asian art is also represented in other areas of the museum's collection, including 475 Japanese prints and 1,000 textiles from across Asia.
The European art collection at the BMA contains works from the 15th through 19th centuries. Most of the collection was formed through donations made by private citizens of the city of Baltimore, notably Mary Frick Jacobs, George A. Lucas, and Jacob Epstein. The collection contains a large selection of 19th-century French art, including more than 140 bronze animal sculptures byAntoine-Louis Barye and several paintings byBarbizon artists such asJean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and impressionistCamille Pissarro.
The collection includes a wide array of decorative arts, including jeweled snuff boxes, porcelain, and silver. The museum also exhibits a large collection of works on paper from the 15th through the 19th century.
Highlights of the European art exhibit includeSir Anthony van Dyck'sRinaldo and Armida (1629), which was commissioned by KingCharles I of England. It is considered one of the artist's finest paintings.[32] Other items of northern European and French art includeFrans Hals' portraitDorothea Berck (1644),Rembrandt van Rijn's painting of his sonTitus (1660),Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin's portrayal of a lovely maiden tossing a ball inThe Game of Knucklebones (c. 1734), and French court portraitistLouise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun's exoticPrincess Anna Alexandrovna Galitzin (c. 1797). Medieval and Renaissance works include a 14th-centuryBurgundian Virgin and Child carved of limestone andTitian'sPortrait of a Gentleman (1561). There are also late-medieval and Renaissance paintings by Giovanni dal Ponte, Biagio D'Antonio, Sandro Botticelli and Workshop, Bernardino Luini, Francesco Ubertini, and Master of View of Saint Gudule.[clarification needed]
In 2012,Paysage Bords de Seine, a Renoir stolen from the museum, resurfaced after being lost for 63 years. The painting then became the subject of a dramatic legal dispute involving the FBI, the woman who said she found the painting, an insurance company's rights to the artwork, and the intentions of Saidie May, an art collector who bought the painting in Paris in 1925 and lent it to the Baltimore museum. In 2014, a judge deemed it to be the property of the BMA after reviewing related documentation from its archives. At the time of the theft, Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. paid the museum about $2,500 for the loss. The company considered whether to make a claim for the painting when it resurfaced, but decided it "belonged" at the museum.[33]
Baltimore sisters Claribel and Etta Cone amassed one of the most important collections of modern art in the U.S. and gave it to the BMA in 1949. Etta Cone began the Cone Collection in 1898 with the purchase of five paintings by American Impressionist Theodore Robinson to decorate their Baltimore home. Soon after, the sisters began to make annual trips to Paris where they visited museums, salons, and the studios of emerging artists. In 1906, Etta purchased her first work by Henri Matisse during a visit with the artist arranged byGertrude Stein's sister-in-law,Sarah Stein. The Cone sisters were among the artist's first patrons and Etta, in particular, collected works throughout his entire career. Their collection of approximately 3,000 objects included 500 works by Matisse, as well as masterworks byPablo Picasso,Vincent van Gogh, andPaul Cézanne, which were displayed in their Baltimore apartments prior to coming to the museum.
The BMA's Contemporary Wing was built and opened in 1994, closed in January 2011 for renovations, and reopened in November 2012 with new wall and floor finishes; a gallery dedicated to light, sound, and moving image-based art; a dedicated gallery for prints, drawings and photographs; and BMA Go Mobile, a mobile website guide.
The renovated wing houses a two-part architectural intervention that made the BMA the first museum in the United States to commission and acquire a site-specific installation by artistSarah Oppenheimer. The collection features works byOlafur Eliasson,Jasper Johns,Robert Rauschenberg,Franz West,Yayoi Kusama,Donald Judd, and other eminent artists alongside new acquisitions from 21st-century artists such asJosephine Meckseper,Sarah Sze, andRirkrit Tiravanija. The works of American artistBruce Nauman, known for his work with neon lights, can be seen both in the contemporary collection and adorning the outside of the museum itself with his pieceViolins, Violence, Silence.[34] The BMA has the second largest collection of Andy Warhol's late work in the U.S.
The Contemporary Wing will be reinstalled again in summer 2019 with a new presentation of 20th- and 21st-century art that focuses on the creativity of black artists such asRoy DeCarava,David Driskell,Joyce J. Scott,Lorna Simpson, and Jack Whitten.[35]
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