Worcester Art Museum facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Worcester Art Museum

Salisbury Street facade
Established	1898 (1898)
Location	55 Salisbury Street Worcester, Massachusetts
Type	Art museum
Architect	Stephen C. Earle
Public transit access	MBTA   Framingham/​Worcester Line Worcester

The Worcester Art Museum is a cool place in Worcester, Massachusetts, filled with over 38,000 amazing artworks! These artworks come from all over the world and from different times, from ancient days to now. The museum first opened its doors in 1898.

You can see many types of art here, like ancient Roman mosaics, European and American paintings, and a huge collection of Japanese prints. Since 2013, the museum also has the second largest collection of arms and armor in North and South America! This came from the John Woodman Higgins Armory Collection.

The museum has even moved entire buildings, like the Chapter House in 1932. It also bought famous paintings by artists like Monet and Gauguin. Plus, it was one of the first museums to show photography as a true art form back in 1904. The Worcester Art Museum also has a special lab to fix old artworks and offers art classes for all ages.

Discovering the Museum's History

The Worcester Art Museum started thanks to Stephen Salisbury III and his friends. In September 1896, they created the Art Museum Corporation. Their goal was to build an art place "for the benefit of all." Salisbury gave a piece of land, which used to be his family's farm, and $100,000 to build the museum. A local architect named Stephen C. Earle designed the building.

The museum officially opened in 1898. Its first president was Rev. Daniel Merriman. At first, the museum mainly had plaster copies of old Greek and Roman sculptures. It also had 5,000 Japanese prints, drawings, and books. These were given to the museum by John Chandler Bancroft.

In 1905, Stephen Salisbury passed away. He left most of his large fortune, about five million dollars, to the museum. This helped the museum grow a lot. Other important early artworks were given or loaned by artist and collector Helen Bigelow Merriman.

Amazing Finds: The Antioch Mosaics

Between 1932 and 1939, the Worcester Art Museum joined a group of other museums. They worked together to dig up ancient sites where the city of Antioch once stood. This group included famous places like Princeton University and the Musée du Louvre.

They found hundreds of beautiful floor mosaics! These are now known as the Antioch mosaics. The museums shared the mosaics they found. The Worcester Art Museum received many, including a famous one called the Worcester Hunt. You can see it on the floor in the museum's Renaissance Court today.

A Big Collection of Arms and Armor

In 2013, another museum in Worcester, the Higgins Armory Museum, closed down. Its amazing collection of arms and armor was then moved to the Worcester Art Museum. This made the museum's collection of historical weapons and armor much bigger!

Now, you can see many important pieces from the Higgins collection throughout the museum. They are displayed alongside ancient Greek, Roman, Asian, and European artworks. A special gallery just for arms and armor is planned to open by 2023.

The Museum's Buildings and Design

Museum interior with mosaics

The Worcester Art Museum started as a small, three-story building. Stephen C. Earle designed it, and it was built in 1897–98. You can't see much of this first building from the outside anymore. That's because the museum has been expanded many times!

The first expansion was a wing added to the back in 1920–21. Then, a very special part was added between 1931 and 1933. This was a large wing facing Salisbury Street. It was designed by William Truman Aldrich and includes the Chapter House and the grand Renaissance Court. Later, a fourth floor was added to the original building in 1939-40.

More additions came later, like the Higgins Education Wing in 1970. This wing added art studios, classrooms, and new exhibit spaces. The most recent big addition was the Frances L. Hiatt Wing in 1983. This part is used for special art shows. Even though these newer buildings look different, their materials and colors match the older parts of the museum.

In 2015, the museum added a new walkway ramp at the Salisbury Street entrance. This modern bridge-like structure makes the main entrance easy to access for everyone.

A Medieval Chapter House in America

In 1927, the museum bought a very old building from France! It was a 12th-century chapter house. A chapter house is a special meeting room that was part of a Benedictine monastery called the Priory of St. John. This monastery was in a French town called Berrie, Vienne.

The chapter house was brought to the museum and put back together in 1932. It was connected to the museum in 1933 through the beautiful Renaissance Court. This was the first time a medieval building was ever moved from Europe to America! The rest of the old monastery in France was made a protected historical site in 1988.

Exploring the Art Collection

Monhegan Island by George Wesley Bellows, 1913

Besides the Roman mosaics in the Renaissance Court and the French chapter house, the museum has many other amazing artworks. These include:

• European and North American paintings
• Prints, photographs, and drawings
• Asian art
• Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures and mosaics
• Modern art

European and American Masterpieces

The European painting collection includes works by famous artists like El Greco, Rembrandt, and Edward Burne-Jones. There's also a room with Impressionist and 20th-century art by Monet, Matisse, Renoir, Gauguin, and Kandinsky.

Unfinished portrait of his muse Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton by Gilbert Stuart

The American painting collection features art by Thomas Cole, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, and William Morris Hunt. You can also see works by Elizabeth Goodridge. In the 20th-century gallery, the museum shows art by Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, and Joan Mitchell.

In 1901, a wealthy person from Boston named John Chandler Bancroft gave over 3,000 Japanese prints to the museum. This collection shows the history of woodcut printmaking in Japan. It has many rare, early prints from the late 1600s and 1700s.

Stephen Salisbury's family also donated many portraits they had ordered. These included sculptures, furniture, and silver. These works, by artists like Gilbert Stuart and Samuel F.B. Morse, and craftsmen like Paul Revere, became the start of the museum's American art collection.

American Art Highlights

• 

  Freake-Gibbs Painter, Elizabeth Clarke Freake (Mrs. John Freake) and Baby Mary, 1671–1674

• 

  Freake-Gibbs Painter, John Freake, 1671–1674

• 

  Winslow Homer, The Gale, 1883–1893

• 

  John La Farge, Peacock Window, 1892–1908

• 

  Paul Revere, Paine Service, 1773

European Art Highlights

• 

  Piero di Cosimo, The Discovery of Honey by Bacchus, about 1499

• 

  Attributed to Leonardo da Vinci and Lorenzo di Credi, A Miracle of Saint Donatus of Arezzo, about 1479

• 

  Thomas Gainsborough, Portrait of the Artist's Daughters, 1763–64

• 

  Paul Gauguin, Te Faaturuma (The Brooding Woman), 1891

Asian Art Highlights

• 

  Torii Kiyonobu I, Actor Sawamura Kodenji I as Tsuyu-no-Mae, 1698

• 

  Mughal (Basawan), Birth of Ghazan Khan, about 1596

• 

  Chinese, Northern Wei Dynasty, Head of a Buddha, 550–770

Arms and Armor Highlights

• 

  Nagasone Tojiro Mitsumasa, Helmet in the form of a Sea Conch Shell, 1618

• 

  Stefan Rormoser, Armor for Field and Tilt, 1554

• 

  Workshop of Hans Sumersperger, "Gothic" Hunting Sword, about 1490–1500

Museum Directors

The museum has had several directors over the years. The current director is Matthias Waschek, who started in 2011.

Special Exhibitions

The museum often has special art shows. One recent exhibition was:

• April 10, 2021 – January 16, 2022 What the Nazis Stole from Richard Neumann (and the search to get it back)

See also

In Spanish: Museo de Arte de Worcester para niños