Displaying items by tag: educational programs

The Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft announces a major renovation plan to be completed in Spring 2016. After 35 years of artist support, exhibitions, educational programs, and community building, the newly designed museum will increase public space and open opportunities for continued growth.

Renovation plans aim to meet ambitious 2016 goals to engage 10,000 more children in educational programs, double the average visitor duration, grow with downtown development and Museum Row expansion, and double capacity for events. The design includes redesigned education space, expanded MakerSpace, and a new café.

The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City is the only museum in the United States devoted exclusively to design. It was founded in 1897 by the Cooper/Hewitt family as part of the Cooper Union for the Advancement of the Science and Art and became a part of the Smithsonian in 1967. The institution has a collection of more than 200,000 items, houses an amazing design library, offers educational programs, and sponsors the National Design Awards. It is the foremost authority on design in the country but was long overdue for a makeover. Later this year, the museum will reopen with a new identity befitting the nation's preeminent repository of good design but their relaunch has already started online with a new website and a tailor-made typeface.

On Saturday, May 17, the 26th annual International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) will open at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan. This year’s fair will feature over 570 exhibitors offering everything from furniture and seating to carpet and flooring, lighting, outdoor furniture, wall coverings, accessories, and textiles. For the first three days of the fair, admission is exclusive to trade professionals, including interior designers, architects, retailers, developers, manufacturers, store designers, and visual merchandisers. On Tuesday, May 20, the show will open to the general public.

Widely regarded as one of world’s trendiest design fairs, the ICFF is the go-to venue for designers looking to unveil their latest creations to the public. This year’s show features exhibitors from 38 countries, including well-known design hubs such as Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. Around 30,000 attendees are expected to visit the Javits Center and browse the show’s encyclopedic offerings.

From April 25 through April 27, the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, will host its 33rd annual Fine Art & Flowers show. The event will feature around 50 floral arrangements, each inspired by a specific painting from the museum’s collection. Florists, garden clubs, and interior designers from all over New England will participate in the highly-anticipated event.

Paintings in this year’s show include everything from Baroque masterpieces to contemporary works. All proceeds from the Fine Art & Flowers event will benefit the Wadsworth’s special exhibitions, educational programs, and operating expenses. Visitors are invited to nominate their favorite floral display for the People’s Choice Award.

The Wadsworth Atheneum is the oldest public art museum in the United States and boasts one of the most extensive European art collections in the country, with exceptionally strong Old Master and Impressionist holdings. The museum is in the midst of a $33 million renovation and plans to reinstall its collection of European paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts before the restoration concludes in September 2015.

Los Angeles’ Hammer Museum will receive a $2-million gift from the Anthony and Jeanne Pritzker Family Foundation, which will be used to fund educational programs for families and children. Anthony Pritzker, a museum board member, will make the cash donation over a period of time.

Ann Philbin, director of the Hammer Museum, said, “This gift is a tremendously thoughtful investment in building and nurturing the next generation of arts audiences, advocates, and creative minds, which are essential to our community.” The Pritzker gift will allow the Hammer to expand its high school outreach program as well as its Family Day and Classroom-in-Residence initiatives, among other endeavors.

The Pritzkers’ donation is the largest to date in support of the museum’s educational programming.

Thanks to a generous gift from longtime museum donors, Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art added 37 new pieces, including vessel forms and sculpture, to their permanent glass collection. The acquisition includes works by notable glass artists such as Michael Glancy (b. 1950), Klaus Moje (b. 1936), Ann Warff Wolff (b. 1937), and Richard Marquis (b. 1945).

LACMA’s glass art collection, which focuses on studio glass from the mid-1960s to the late 1990s, contains more than 100 objects, most of which came from Greenberg and Steinhauser who started donating to the institution in 1984. The museum’s relationship with the couple is so strong that earlier this year Greenberg and Steinhauser invited LACMA officials to handpick works from their personal collection for the museum. Besides their substantial glass gift, Greenberg and Steinhauser made a monetary donation to LACMA to go towards educational programs about glass.

Greenberg and Steinhauser’s collection boasts 400 to 500 works and is considered among the top five studio glass collections in the United States. The couple began avidly collecting in the mid-1970s and slowed down around the mid-1990s when sculpture and nontraditional forms became more prominent than the vessel art they adored. The duo has since taken to collecting contemporary photography.

In celebration of the studio glass movement’s 50^th anniversary, Greenberg and Steinhauser decided to disperse most of their collection to a number of institutions across the country. The couple will keep 15 to 20 sentimental pieces for themselves and the rest of their works will go to LACMA, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, and the Corning Museum of Glass. Greenberg also hopes to donate works to the Smithsonian, New York’s Museum of Arts and Design, the Mint Museum, the Contemporary Museum in Honolulu, and the Racine Art Museum, although arrangements with those institutions still need to be made.

The renovated Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art opened to the public yesterday. The inaugural exhibition, Gods and Glamour, features 150 loans from both private collections and public institution as well as pieces from the museum’s collection. Objects such as marble sculptures, paintings, Greek pottery, jewelry, and silver come together to illustrate what life in the ancient and medieval Mediterranean world was like. A second inaugural exhibition of late Roman and early Byzantine art loaned by the British Museum is also on view through August 25, 2013.

Designed by the architectural firm, Why, the $10 million renovation was made possible by a gift from the Jaharis Family Foundation with some funds going to acquisitions and educational programs. The new 13,707 square-foot galleries include state-of-the-art display cases by Goppian Museum Workshop in Milan.

The updated Greek, Roman, and Byzantine galleries represent the final phase of the complete reinstallation of the Institute, which began in 2008 after the then new modern wing was constructed.