Nassau County Museum of Art facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Nassau County Museum of Art

Established	1969
Location	Roslyn Harbor, NY, United States
Type	Art
Visitors	200,000

The Nassau County Museum of Art (NCMA) is a cool place to explore art and nature. It's located in Roslyn Harbor, New York, on a huge property that used to be a fancy estate. This property is 145 acres, which is about the size of 100 football fields! It's part of the beautiful Gold Coast area of Long Island.

The main building of the museum is a grand, three-story mansion. It's built in the Georgian style, which was popular in the late 1800s. This mansion shows off the amazing architecture of the Gold Coast. Every year, almost 200,000 people visit NCMA. Besides the mansion, the museum has a special art and education center called The Manes Family Art & Education Center, which opened in 2017. There's also a big Sculpture Park, a beautiful Formal Garden, unique trees, and walking trails to explore.

Discovering Art at NCMA

The Nassau County Museum of Art always has new and exciting art shows. Many of these shows are created by the museum's own art experts. These exhibitions cover many different types of art. You can see art from Europe and America, learn about different times in history, and discover how various art forms influence each other. They also highlight artists from Long Island. The Manes Center gallery often features art by modern artists.

The Museum's Art Collection

NCMA has a collection of over 600 art pieces. These artworks are from the 1800s and 1900s, both American and European. The collection includes all kinds of art, like paintings, sculptures, and more. You might see works by famous artists such as Auguste Rodin, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, and Alex Katz.

Exploring the Sculpture Park

The museum's 145 acres are home to one of the biggest outdoor sculpture gardens on the East Coast. There are more than 30 sculptures placed around the property. They are set up to interact with the natural environment. You can find amazing sculptures by artists like Tom Otterness, Fernando Botero, and Richard Serra.

Beautiful Gardens and Nature Trails

The museum's gardens and walking paths are also very special. In 1925, Frances Frick, who loved gardening, asked a famous landscape architect named Marian Cruger Coffin to design the Formal Gardens. Coffin thought these gardens were some of her best work. Recently, the old garden trellis and water tower have been fixed up to look like they did originally. Many paths across the 145-acre property are now marked as nature trails, so you can easily explore the beautiful surroundings.

A Look at the Museum's History

The land where the museum now stands was once part of Cedarmere. This was the quiet retreat of poet William Cullen Bryant. In the 1890s, Bryant's family sold most of the land to a former congressman named Lloyd Bryce. He then hired Ogden Codman, Jr. to build a large Georgian Revival mansion on a high spot, looking over Hempstead Harbor.

The Frick Family's Home

In 1919, the land was sold to Henry Clay Frick, who helped start U.S. Steel. He bought it for his son, Childs Frick. An architect named Sir Charles Carrick Allom was hired to redesign the outside and much of the inside of the mansion. The Frick family named their new home "Clayton."

Childs Frick, his wife Frances, and their four children lived at Clayton for almost 50 years. After Childs Frick passed away in 1965, the county bought the estate four years later. They turned it into a museum, which became the Nassau County Museum of Art. In 1989, NCMA became a private, non-profit organization. Since then, it has been run and funded by a private board of trustees.

Past Art Exhibitions

The museum has hosted many interesting art shows over the years. Here are some of them: