Displaying items by tag: chrysler museum of art

When the first American Impressionists began returning from Europe in the mid-1880s, they soon found themselves embracing a familiar yet unexpectedly rich and rewarding subject.

Newly trained by their French mentors to paint out of doors — where they could revel in the mysteries of shifting light and color — they set out looking for American settings just as the nation's late-19th-century garden movement was taking off.

The Chrysler Museum of Art Board of Trustees is pleased to announce the selection of Dr. Erik H. Neil as its next director and president. The board unanimously approved his appointment on June 26, 2014. Neil, 50, is director of the Academy Art Museum in Easton, Maryland, where he has served since 2010.

“Erik Neil comes to us with a strong sense of the essential role a museum plays in its community and a history of deep personal engagement in each place he has served,” outgoing board chair Peter Meredith said. “He is a perfect fit for the Chrysler, given our focus on serving the Hampton Roads area.”

“Through our incredible collection, curators and staff, board, and donors, the Chrysler Museum has always been an active participant and leader in the national conversation about art and museums,” said Lewis Webb, head of the Museum’s executive search committee who now chairs the board. “Erik Neil is a leader who loves art. He is the just the right person to continue to nurture and coordinate our efforts for even more impact,” Webb said.

Situated prominently at the eastern end of The Hague—not the city in the Netherlands, but a crescent-shaped inlet that feeds into the Elizabeth River as it passes through Norfolk, Virginia—the Chrysler Museum of Art’s newly renovated and expanded Italianate pile opened to the public again last week after 17 months of construction. Local firm H&A Architects designed identical, two-story porticoed gallery wings that flank the main entrance and added 10,000 square feet of exhibition space for American and European painting and sculpture and the museum’s renowned glass collection. The addition—which brings the total programmable space to 220,000 square feet—mimics the classical style of the original 1933 structure and a 1989 building project that unified the exteriors by removing asymmetrical and Brutalist additions completed in 1965 and 1974. “We wanted to maintain the balanced, palazzo house quality of the exterior,” explains museum director Bill Hennessey.

While the architecture may be conservative, not much else about the institution is, starting with its namesake, Walter Chrysler, Jr. The eldest son of the auto tycoon, Chrysler began amassing what would become a world-class art collection while still a student at Dartmouth in the early 1930s. Controversial dealings would eventually run the scion out of New York City, where he once served as the first chairman of the fledgling Museum of Modern Art’s library committee, and later the artists’ colony in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he maintained a museum in a former church building during the 1960s.

A line of people snaked along the walkway to the Chrysler Museum of Art on Friday evening.

"It's exciting," said Kathie Moore of Norfolk. She was among those in line for a members preview event. She hadn't been inside yet, but she already appreciated the new landscaping and outdoor sculptures.

"I've missed it terribly," she said.

The Chrysler Museum of Art reopens today to the public after being closed for just over 16 months during a $24 million expansion and renovation project.

Friday evening, more than a thousand members, out of about 3,000, flooded the museum for a reopening party.

The Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute’s Museum of Art in Utica, New York is sending a collection of Thomas Cole paintings on an 18-month tour to four major art museums. “The Voyage of Life,” a series of four allegorical paintings depicting the different stages of life including “Childhood,” “Youth,” “Manhood,” and “Old Age,” will go to the Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, the Saint Louis Art Museum in St. Louis, Missouri, and the Dickson Gallery & Gardens in Memphis, Tennessee. The works will remain at the MWPAI until March 2, 2014.

Cole, the English-born American artist who founded the Hudson River School, was commissioned to paint “The Voyage of Life” by banker Samuel Ward between 1839 and 1840. When Ward passed away, Cole argued with Ward’s heirs over who had custody of the art. Ultimately, the heirs won and Cole painted another version of “The Voyage of Life” for himself. Cole’s second rendition of the series resides in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

The MWPAI is producing a catalog to tour with the collection, which will include essays and notes as well as never-before-published material and research about the paintings.

The Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, VA is leaving the curation an upcoming exhibition up to the public. The museum is asking community members to vote for the works they would like to see on view in its new Waitzer Community Gallery upon the institution’s reopening on May 10. It is currently closed for a major expansion.

‘Popular by Demand’ will featured works pulled from the Chrysler Museum’s archives a a complement to the other collections exhibited through the institution. Voters can select up to 10 works through the museum’s website. Voting ends on February 26.

The Chrysler Museum of Art was founded in 1933 as the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences. In 1971, the automotive heir, Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., donated most of his art collection to the museum, greatly expanding its holdings. The Chrysler Museum’s collection is comprised of over 30,000 works and spans over 5,000 years. Its holdings include works by Tintoretto, Peter Paul Rubens, Diego Velazquez, Edouard Manet, Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Edward Hopper, Jackson Pollock, and Andy Warhol.