New Britain Museum of American Art facts for kids
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The Chase Family Building at the New Britain Museum of American Art.
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| Established | 1903 |
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| Location | 56 Lexington Street New Britain, Connecticut, Connecticut, United States |
| Type | Art museum |
The New Britain Museum of American Art is a special art museum located in New Britain, Connecticut. When it was founded in 1903, it became the very first museum in the United States created just for American art.
The museum is a popular place to visit. It is located right next to Walnut Hill Park, a beautiful park designed by the famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.
Contents
The Museum's Story
How It All Began
The museum started from an organization called the "New Britain Institute," which was created in 1853. Its goal was to help educate the people of the city, including new immigrants.
In 1903, a man named John Butler Talcott left the museum $20,000 in his will. This was a lot of money back then! He wanted the museum to buy "original modern oil paintings." An expert from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York suggested that they focus on buying art made by Americans. This was great advice because it allowed them to build an amazing collection without spending too much money on any single piece.
In 1934, a woman named Grace Judd Landers gave her house to be used as the museum. She had planned to give a lot of money, but she lost it during the Great Depression, so she gave her home instead.
Growing the Collection
The museum's first director was Sanford B. D. Low. He was good friends with the famous artist Thomas Hart Benton. Thanks to their friendship, the museum was able to get some of Benton's most important works.
One of the best stories is about a series of murals called "The Arts of Life in America." In the 1940s, the Whitney Museum in New York was thinking about selling them. Low found out and arranged for the New Britain museum to buy them for only $500! That was less than it cost to rent a crane and truck to move the giant paintings.
In 1964, the museum started the Sanford B. D. Low Memorial Illustration Collection. It was the first collection of its kind in the country and now has over 1,700 illustrations.
The Museum Today
When Douglas Hyland became the director in 1999, he helped the museum grow even more. He raised money to build the Chase Family Building in 2003, which doubled the museum's size. Under his leadership, the museum's collection grew to over 10,000 artworks.
What You Can See at the Museum
The museum's collection is like a journey through American history, told through art. You can see paintings from the time when America was just beginning, all the way to art being made today.
Early American Art
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The museum has many portraits of people from the colonial era. These paintings were done by some of America's first great artists, like John Singleton Copley, Gilbert Stuart, and Charles Willson Peale.
You can also see amazing landscape paintings from a group of artists known as the Hudson River School. These artists, like Thomas Cole and Frederic Church, painted huge, breathtaking scenes of the American wilderness.
Art from the 1800s and 1900s
The collection includes beautiful still life paintings, which are detailed pictures of objects like flowers or food. It also features works by American Impressionists, who used bright colors and quick brushstrokes to capture a moment in time. Famous Impressionists like Mary Cassatt and Childe Hassam have art here.
The museum is also home to the Ash Can School artists, who painted scenes of everyday city life in the early 20th century.
Modern and Contemporary Art
One of the most famous works in the museum is the mural series "The Arts of Life in America" by Thomas Hart Benton. These five large paintings show energetic scenes of American life, from the city to the countryside.
The museum also has a strong collection of contemporary art, which is art made in recent times. This includes works by famous artists like Georgia O'Keeffe, Andrew Wyeth, and Sol LeWitt.
A very powerful piece in the collection is The Cycle of Terror and Tragedy by Graydon Parrish. This enormous painting is a tribute to the people who were lost in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
