Trenton, NJ—The Discoverer Blog recently published its list of the coolest museum in each state in the country. The Old Barracks Museum is pleased to be named the Coolest Museum in New Jersey, named alongside the Getty Museum in California, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Pennsylvania. This prestigious honor is wonderful news that the Old Barracks Museum is proud to share! The entire list can be seen here: https://blog.thediscoverer.com/the-coolest-museum-in-each-state/

Built in 1758 to house British soldiers sent to protect the colonial borders in the French and Indian War, the Trenton barracks were once the largest building in Trenton. During the American Revolution, the building stood witness to the Battle of Trenton, where General George Washington defeated Colonel Rall and his Hessian troops. After this battle, Washington ordered the building be used as a military hospital specializing in smallpox inoculations – the first of its kind in North America! Visitors take a guided tour of the portion of the barracks that has been restored to interpret this 18th century history, and are invited to view galleries on NJ’s involvement in the French and Indian War, the Battle of Trenton, and the Trenton women who saved the Barracks from being forgotten in the early 20th century.

Special events occur throughout the year. Highlights are the Battle of Trenton reenactments held every December during Patriots Week (www.patriotsweek.com), Colonial Summer Day Camp, Tavern Night Fundraiser in September, the Beulah Oliphant Award in March, “America, We Served!”: Three Centuries of African American Soldiers in February, frequent lectures and author discussions, and more.

General visitation is $10 for adults, $8 for students and seniors. Active duty military personnel are free of charge, and the Old Barracks Museum is a proud Blue Star Museum. Special events have various prices, visit www.barracks.org for more information.

ABOUT THE OLD BARRACKS MUSEUM: The Old Barracks Museum preserves the history of a building that was built as a French and Indian War military barracks and used as a Revolutionary War hospital. It also stood witness to Washington’s crucial victory at the Battle of Trenton. At the beginning of the 20th century, members of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Colonial Dames organized The Old Barracks Association and spearheaded a campaign to purchase the building. The building has been used as a museum for over a century, and has frequently been used as a symbol for the state of New Jersey. The Old Barracks Museum welcomes visitors from across the state as well as around the world.

Contact:
Lauren Ronaghan/Old Barracks Museum
101 Barracks Street
Trenton, NJ  08608
609 396-1776
lronaghan@barracks.org

The wait is over. This past weekend, after more than seven years of planning and three years of construction, Dartmouth celebrated the dedication of the expanded Hood Museum of Art—and opened its doors to the public.
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“Today the Hood once again commits to sharing its art generously,” John Stomberg, the Virginia Rice Kelsey 1961s Director of the Hood, told a standing-room only crowd of 350 friends and contributors to the $50 million project at the formal dedication ceremony in Alumni Hall on Friday afternoon.

​The Baltimore Museum of Art has received a $3.5 million donation to support the position of chief curator, one of the largest endowment gifts the museum has seen since its founding in 1914.

The role will be renamed after the donors, the Baltimore-based philanthropists Eddie C. and C. Sylvia Brown. It is held by Asma Naeem, a specialist in American art and contemporary Islamic art who was appointed last August.
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“We see this endowment for chief curator as being a very significant statement, especially naming a person of color,” Mr. Brown, the founder and chief executive of Brown Capital Management, said. “That really appealed to us.”

The last museum-board leadership survey conducted by the American Alliance of Museums uncovered a staggering statistic: About 46 percent of American museums have all-white boards of directors.

But the alliance hopes that figure will change for the better soon. Over the next three years, the alliance will receive $4 million to bolster board diversity in a push to make museums more accessible and inclusive. The Ford, Andrew W. Mellon, and Alice L. Walton foundations joined forces to award the grant.

In the more than 20 years that museums talked about the importance of diversity and inclusion, the number of people of color serving on boards has barely budged, says Laura Lott, the alliance’s chief executive. She says that’s a real problem.

Making good on its mission to “create transformative experiences through art, for the benefit of all the people forever,” CMA has opened its digital archives to the public through a partnership with Creative Commons Zero (CC0), a global nonprofit dedicated to the free distribution of otherwise copyrighted images.

30,000 artwork images — nearly half of the museum’s entire collection — are now available for digital users to remix, research, merchandise, print, and explore. Better yet, released metadata for more than 61,000 works will allow scholars to more easily investigate conduct research into provenance and object histories. 

Earlier this month, presiding over his first press conference as the newly installed director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Max Hollein stood at the spotlit entrance to tenebrous galleries and spoke about the artist being surveyed within. “Delacroix is a defining figure in European art in the 19th century,” he said. “He is one of the great colorists in art history. But his work is always about human nature in all its complexities.”
Such a trajectory of thinking—to begin with the wide-angle historical view, take in the surface allure, and then drill down into the more philosophical implications—is a hallmark of the Austrian-born museum prodigy’s approach to art, and one of the reasons why his arrival at the institution widely viewed as the greatest encyclopedic museum in the world has been cause for such excitement among those in the field.

Last Friday, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that it was planning to vacate the so-called Met Breuer three years early, handing the Brutalist building over the the Frick in 2020, it was clear that a decision was finally taking shape around one of the most vexing quandaries facing the Met: How can the venerable encyclopedic institution, with works stretching back to the earliest recorded human creations, meaningfully embrace contemporary art without giving off the vibe of a graying relative desperately trying to act cool?
The answer to that question comes in the shape of the museum’s 49-years-young new director, Max Hollein, whose vision for the Met’s embrace of the recent and the now ranges far beyond headline-grabbing shows of evening-sale artists, or even the more sensitive hybrid exhibitions that have been piloted at the Met Breuer since the experiment began in 2016. “Holistic” is a word for his path forward for the museum, and it’s one Hollein uses frequently.

​PITTSFIELD, MASS.- The Board of Trustees of the Berkshire Museum will work with the executive search firm Brent D. Glass, LLC, to identify candidates for Executive Director of the Museum. 

The firm, led by Dr. Brent D. Glass, provides management consulting to museums, historic sites, and other cultural organizations, working with more than 60 cultural, historical, and educational organizations around the world. Dr. Glass is Director Emeritus of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, which he led for nearly a decade. He is an author, television presence, and international speaker on cultural diplomacy and museum management. 

​OGUNQUIT, ME.- The Ogunquit Museum of American Art debuted three new exhibitions in mid-July that celebrate creativity across media. 

On view in the Little Gallery, Bill Viola: The Fall Into Paradise is a digital cinema installation that renders the human experience in a dramatic wash of water, light, and sound. Viola’s work offers a meditation on the instance of transcendental and spiritual breakthrough, tracing the artist’s continuing search for consciousness and empirical knowledge through art. Viola is a leading American artist and pioneering figure in video and the moving image. This installation marks the artist’s first exhibition in Maine and its presentation – immediately next to the sea – promises a compelling and profound experience. The show, organized by the Ogunquit Museum of American Art with the important assistance of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is generously supported by the Cliff House

​CLEVELAND, OH.- The Cleveland Museum of Art has collected exceptional Chinese paintings since its earliest days and has one of the most distinguished collections in the West. As responsible stewards of these important holdings, the museum has sought to increase the level of Chinese painting conservation expertise within the institution, and in turn throughout the United States. Today, the museum announces a transformative $1.5 million gift from June and Simon K.C. Li to establish a Center for Chinese Paintings Conservation. The Li gift matches a $1.5 million endowment challenge grant awarded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. 

“Chinese paintings are a special strength of our collection,” said William Griswold, director of the Cleveland Museum of Art. “While these superb works occupy a critical place in Chinese art history, they also represent a major conservation challenge given the fragile nature of the materials used to create them. The shortage of qualified Chinese paintings conservators is a widespread dilemma faced by museums across the country. The generous gift by June and Simon K.C. Li and challenge grant from the Mellon Foundation will enable solutions that will effect great change in the industry and ensure the care of Chinese paintings for generations to come.”