 The original main entrance doors are now part of the view in the Winter Garden cafe. (Photos by TOM ROY/Union Leader) |
The 33,000 square feet of added space — 12,000 square feet of it in gallery space — has radically changed the layout of the original 1929 building and two pavilions added in 1982, bringing the total space to around 90,000 square feet.
The expansion designed by Ana Beha Architects of Boston allows the showing of many works from the collections that have not been seen in years. It has also resulted in a new 180-seat auditorium, office and studio space and the crown jewel of the project, a winter garden cafe in the center of the buildings that draws together the new with the old, making use of natural light and the original building facade complete with columns and mosaics framing the impressive entrance door.
Many of the artworks that surround visitors inside these walls represent the genius of masters known to all: Picasso, Monet, Matisse, and O'Keeffe. Their work is accompanied by a collection that dates back centuries, along with more modern work and a substantial selection of New Hampshire pieces scattered throughout the galleries.
Visitors will be impressed by the skill of the masters and the quality of the collections. The exhibits produce a profound reverence for the magnificence of many of the works, of the restorations, simply for the fact that these materials have survived for so long and that we may continue to enjoy them. Each work on its own can be savored, studied, and admired, but as a whole, the place is magical, now more so than ever. It's large, it's new, and around each corner, through each gallery door, awaits a surprise.
The colors on the walls of each gallery, the natural light streaming in through the many windows and skylights, augmented by the directional lighting in each gallery, elevates many of the works to a greatness that builds to a crescendo as visitors work their way from room to room. A few hours here is a fantastical trip through art history — both of the world and of our state — and visitors are led through the ages in a sort of art narrative that explores the great stories of each century: It's like being a part of a great classical composition, and we can see how we have evolved from well over 500 years ago to now.
 Cindy Macken, assistant registrar at the Currier Museum of Art, places art glass in one of the first areas that visitors will see when they enter the galleries. |
Planning for all that added space is more than picking the right spot for each painting. Staff developed a "narrative" — a path that shows a progression of art through the years, and they hired an exhibition designer who worked with the staff, creating the "broad brush strokes" for the spaces, with the museum staff choosing the color palettes and other functional aspects of the spaces.
The designer and staff also worked together to look at the museum as a whole, from the museum shop to the Web site, signage and beyond.
"We're continually improving with what the staff has thought about in terms of the visitor experience," said Strickler.
New computer databases installed by the museum will allow staff to track certain aspects of a visitor's experience by way of membership cards. Not only will staff be able to determine what people are buying in the gift shop, but also what they're buying in the cafe and which programs they're attending. That offers a myriad of opportunities from a marketing standpoint, according to Karen Tebbenhoff, the public relations and marketing manager. Mailings and other communications can be targeted to visitors based on their areas of interest. "We're jumping with both feet into the 21st century," she said.
The grand reopening on Sunday, March 30, will begin at 11 a.m. with a ribbon cutting presided over by Gov. John Lynch and Dr. Susan Lynch along with Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta and will include music, art-making and other special activities all day. A schedule is published elsewhere in this special edition.
Admission is free opening week to the museum and several events are planned to celebrate the reopening. Again, a separate story contained inside this edition has details of those events.
As visitors enter the museum, they are greeted by a gallery dedicated to glass, ceramics and the museum's vast paperweight collection, on display in its majority for the first time.
The entire second floor is devoted to 18th- and 19th-century American art. These upper-level galleries feature paintings by Hudson River School artists like Thomas Cole, Jasper Cropsey, and Martin Johnson Heade; still-life compositions by John Francis, Severin Roesen, and William M. Harnett; sculpture by Thomas Ball, Randolph Rogers, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens; and Impressionist canvases by Childe Hassam, Edmund Tarbell, and William Metcalf, among others.
The Currier's decorative arts collection features a range of 18th- and 19th-century New Hampshire furniture, as well as glass, pewter and silver.
The remaining first-floor galleries offer up 20th-century and contemporary art. Modernist paintings and sculptures — works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Georges Rouault, as well as Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, Gaston Lachaise, and Charles Sheeler — are the focus of one gallery.
Several new acquisitions, including works by Marisol Escobar, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, and Robert Longo, now hang with abstract work by Adolph Gottlieb, Joan Mitchell, Theodore Roszak, Michael Mazur, and realist paintings by Neil Welliver, Tom Blackwell and Jane Freilicher.
One new gallery also features work by important regional artists, including ceramics by Ed and Mary Scheier and Otto and Vivika Heino, enamels by Karl Drerup, as well as prints and paintings by John Hatch, Peter Milton, and James Aponovich, and photographs by Carl Austin Hyatt and Shelburne Thurber.
The museum has a climate-control system that maintains a constant humidity. This idea of protecting the treasures within these walls evolved from discoveries made during the second world war, Strickler said. To protect their priceless works of art, galleries in England would store paintings in caves, and soon people noticed the benefits of the higher humidity. It wasn't long before curators figured out it wasn't so much the level of humidity that was maintained, but that it remain consistent. Visitors will notice at the Currier that many of the galleries have doors, and display cases are built in such a way that air can circulate within.
The main entrance, located on Ash Street, faces the courtyard newly named for local attorney Kimon Zachos and his wife, Ann. Zachos has been a trustee of the museum for more than 40 years and served as president of the board for 23 years. "He and his wife have been lifelong, generous donors to the museum, and they took on a leadership role in three of our capital campaigns. They have given generously of their finances, time and resources, and the board wanted to recognize their strong leadership of the museum," said Strickler.
 Visitors to the Currier Museum of Art will be greeted outside the main entrance by the 35-foot high colorful sculpture "Origins," created by Mark di Suvero. |
di Suvero began work on the piece in 2001 in his California studio and completed it in 2004 in New York. He is known for his grand scale, minimal and abstract form, and use of non-traditional materials, including industrial steel, seen in the "Origins" piece most notably in the tri-pod frame that is topped by a central knot and a unique curving element that spins with the wind.
Walking in the new set of main doors, the spacious area that greets patrons is known as the Charlotte and Ruth Anderson Lobby. The two Manchester-born sisters, the last of whom died in 2001, bequeathed an unrestricted gift to the museum. Charlotte, a librarian at UNH, was actually present at the museum's grand opening in 1929 and was "very enthusiastic about the expansion," Strickler said. Her younger sister Ruth, who died in 1996, lived in Los Angeles and during World War II was one of the first female computer programmers. The lobby named in their honor will include benches for sitting and pondering the courtyard and sculpture. The floor is a stained and polished concrete designed by a local artist. To the right of the entrance doors is the main desk, with rest rooms, lockers and a coat room located behind.
To the left, before entering the doors to the galleries is a much larger gift shop. The expansion allows the gift shop to be anchored just off the main lobby. "The gift shop has been parked in various places the last 12 years that I've been here," said Strickler. "Now we have a real shop that we can get both the staff and customers in at the same time."
Walking through what was once the main doors, visitors are immediately greeted by a sea of color. The museum's glass collection, much of which has been under wraps for many years, gives an initial glimpse of what awaits beyond: a "visually colorful, exciting, aesthetic experience," Strickler said.
Many of the stunning vases and bowls were crafted from the early 1800s to the mid-20th century and sit in display cases in two areas that have reverted back to gallery space with the expansion.
The gallery includes about 120 American and European paperweights from the collection of stock broker Henry Melville Fuller, a Currier trustee who gave the museum about 350 paperweights from his collection and bequeathed $43 million to the Currier. Fuller, who died in 2001, would visit a gallery on Madison Avenue in New York between business dealings and, according to Strickler, would buy something for his collection from time to time, and "luckily for us, his tastes always tended to the high end." His gift is considered a "semi-permanent exhibit," with the collection rotated to include other pieces from the collection.
Continuing into the first large gallery of the museum in what has been renamed the Henry Melville Fuller Pavilion, stunning works of European art, many from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, sit in dramatically lighted space partitioned by walls.
In here also is 19th century impressionist painter Claude Monet's "The Seine at Bougival," surrounded by works by masters such as Joos van Cleve, Jacob van Ruisdael, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, and John Constable. Newly acquired paintings by early 17th-century Dutch artists Balthasaar van der Ast and Hendrick Goltzius are also on view.
On the far wall is one of the largest pieces in the museum's collection, a Franco-Flemish tapestry created in 1510, which hasn't been on view the past four or five years. It was bought by the Currier in 1937, one of the museum's early major purchases, and depicts "The Visit of the Gypsies."
 Kurt Sandstrom, associate curator at the Currier Museum of Art, is shown with an original plaster relief of "Madonna and Child" created in 1475 by Italian artist Antonio Rossellino. The piece has languished in storage for more than 50 years, partly because it was once thought to be a fake. (TOM ROY photos/Union Leader) |
Museum associate curator Kurt Sundstrom said the piece has languished in storage for more than 50 years, partly because it was once thought to be a fake.
Rossellino created his work before Michelangelo came on the scene, and the plaster relief owned by the Currier is important because it is one of only three known to exist in the world. It is authentic in every detail: from the iron ring on the back used to hang it 500 years ago, to the worm-eaten frame and the small metal brackets that would have at one time held a curtain rod, allowing the Italian family that owned it to keep it covered until it was time to say their prayers before it in the evening. Sundstrom said the piece would have been created for an Italian family who probably kept it in a special room of their house.
From a historical point of view, it is also a good example of the way religious artifacts were depicted during the Renaissance, stressing the humanity of the Christ child rather than his God-like qualities.
This gallery also features a terracotta cast of "Madonna and Child" by Benedetto da Maiano, created about 1480, and just recently conserved and returned to the museum, Sundstrom said. It is only one or two known to exist and was last exhibited with the niche that surrounds it in 1939 at the World's Fair in New York. The museum's Madonna is a modello, which was created in a studio in Florence, Italy, and finished only on the front, suggesting it was originally created to be displayed in a niche. The Christ child is depicted nude with one hand raised, referring to his dual nature as human and the son of God.
Also in this gallery, visitors are advised to study the striking realism of Baroque period artist Mattia Preti's "The Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew," created around 1660. The canvas is more than six feet square and depicts the tortured Bartholomew, one of Christ's 12 apostles, prior to his death by flaying and crucifixion in Armenia. Preti's dramatic masterpiece strongly contrasts light and dark as Bartholomew looks toward heaven prior to his death. The violent scene is a prime representation of the style prevalent during the Italian Baroque period.
 Museum director Susan Strickler with "Mercie Cutting Flowers," a 1912 oil on canvas by Edmund Charles Tarbell. (Currier Museum of Art photo) |
Stepping from this gallery and into the next area is a room that will be used to rotate the 3,000 to 4,000 works on paper that are in the Currier's collection. Strickler noted these works include various watercolors, photographs, prints and drawings, many from noted New Hampshire residents, including some of the current works on display by photographer Lotte Jacobi. Many of the objects will be rotated every three months or so, since they can't be in light for too long a period.
Further on the tour is one of the two Modern galleries where schoolchildren's favorite, "Woman Seated in a Chair" by Pablo Picasso, awaits in all her glory. The 1941 painting depicts the artist's mistress, Dora Maar, during the time of the Nazi occupation of France and reflects the anxiety of war, particularly the rage and sorrow that Picasso felt over the horror of war. Picasso was the father of Cubism, an art movement that rendered subjects in three-dimensional forms, distorting time and space.
Also here is Henri Matisse's limited-edition bronze sculpture, "Seated Nude," created in 1922 and one of six casts that were made. It is considered one of his most important sculptures based loosely on Michelangelo's "Night" in the Medici Chapel in Florence.
Harlem Renaissance painter Charles Alston's work "Palaver No. 1," an oil on canvas painted in 1941, is also displayed. Alston died in 1977, but for more than 50 years, he was an influential figure in the New York City art world and in the late 1920s he organized, with author Alain Locke, one of the first exhibitions of African art in New York.
Moving along, visitors will come to a special exhibitions gallery which will feature rotating exhibits largely devoted to artists of New Hampshire and New England. Strickler said the works displayed here are of "the same quality as in major metropolitan museums," and some of the works to be found here for the reopening include "Styx Ladder-back Chairs" by Jon Brooks, a native of Manchester; photography by Portsmouth's Carl Hyatt; a writing desk and chair by Terry Moore of Newport; as well as works by glass artist Dan Dailey; and several works from Dunbarton's Gerry Williams, New Hampshire's first artist laureate: among them a piece called "Battle of Grant Park" (The Currier owns more than 20 of Williams' works.).
 The former exterior of the museum is incorporated into the new Winter Garden cafe. |
The 17-foot wide murals, located on either side of the entrance doors, are called "Wall Drawing No. 1255: Whirls and Twirls (Currier)" and were designed by LeWitt before his death last year. LeWitt is considered a "minimalist" artist, and the work, while designed by him, was supervised by his two assistants and painted by locally-hired artists from area high schools and colleges. Strickler said the colors are meant to reflect the mosaic located directly across the courtyard, created in 1930 by Salvatore Lascari. These mosaics have been largely ignored over the past few years, crafted around what was once the main entrance doors to the museum but abandoned as an entrance in 1982 when the two pavilions were built and the front door moved to the opposite side of the building.
Strickler said the cafe, complete with recently installed palm trees, will also be used for sitdown dinners, cocktail parties, and is the central location for reopening festivities. It seats 120 people, she said.
Continuing back out to the gallery space, visitors will be in the area of the expansion known as the Putnam Gallery, named for David and Rosamond Putnam and Thomas and Barbara Putnam of Keene, who made a leadership gift to the capital campaign. Strickler said the space is meant to have a "certain flexibility to it" and leads into the second special exhibitions gallery and beyond that, the second modern gallery. Works by Lakes Region artist Jules Olitski, who died last year, will greet visitors during the reopening as they enter this portion of the museum.
Pulling from its extensive collection of New Hampshire-based artists, the Currier will also display here works by photographer Shelburne Thurber, whose very large photographs are known for depicting empty and abandoned interior spaces. One of the prints is titled "Anna's House Stripped: the Blue Bedroom" and measures 40 by 50 inches. It is of an empty room in the Nashua home of the artist's recently deceased aunt, Anna Stearns, who died in 1989 and was a patron of the Currier. The bright sunlight streaming in through the window counteracts the tones of the blue wallpaper and curtains, with an open doorway leading to a brighter room beyond. Even though the owner is dead, her tastes and a little of her personality can be gleaned from the image.
Sol LeWitt's 12 framed aqua tints painted in 1990 reflecting on the nature of rectangles, named "Forms Derived from a Cubic Rectangle," are in the modern gallery, near a recent acquisition of the museum by Maxfield Parrish called "Freeman Farm: Winter" depicting a farmhouse in the snow painted in 1936 in the Cornish/Plainfield area of New Hampshire. Jack Hemenway, a neighbor of the artist, purchased the painting in the 1960s and donated it to the Currier recently.
The final gallery on this floor, contained in the west pavilion, is the contemporary gallery, where visitors will find an amusing 1963 sculpture by pop artist Marisol Escobar called "The Family." Featured on the cover of Time magazine in 1970, the work is a look at the post-war American family using several media and found objects, including a baby carriage, and was also recently acquired by the Currier. The piece has all manner of creative surprises, wit and social commentary, including a self-portrait of the artist on the doll's head. Marisol, as she prefers to be called, gained fame as part of the pop movement made famous by Andy Warhol (who will be the subject of an upcoming special exhibition) and Roy Lichtenstein.
Also in this gallery is a settee called "True Loves Blue" created by Currier Art Center graduate Jon Brooks of New Boston and bought by the Currier at the N.H. Furniture Masters auction in 2000. Brooks, whose ladder-back chairs are on exhibit in the first special exhibitions gallery, was born in Manchester and graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology. He has taught at St. Anselm College. "True Loves Blue" is made of maple and painted in bold colors of blue and black, with two standing figures serving as supports.
Also displayed in this room is a work by Hancock artist James Aponovich, a Nashua native who attended the N.H. Institute of Art and UNH. Several of Aponovich's still lifes, many of which are considered examples of surrealism, are part of the museum's collection.
With the expansion, the Currier's American collection gains more space on the upper level, with two galleries displaying spectacular examples of art, sculpture and furniture divided by years: the first gallery contains objects created from 1815 to 1915, and the second from 1680 to 1815, considered the colonial to the federal periods, Strickler said.
In these galleries, prime examples of the best furniture made during the periods, including, desks, highboys and ladderback chairs, are on display side by side with sculpture and paintings.
 Gay Myers, a conservator and Andrew Spahr, chief curator, look over some of the artwork in the upper-level Silver Gallery, with the paintings mounted on the wall in a fashion similar to a 19th century gallery display. |
When a Texas museum recently put up for auction a painting once displayed over a fireplace in Exeter, the Currier jumped at the chance and acquired the piece by an unknown, untrained artist who crafted his image of a seaport town right on the board mounted over the mantel. The example of an early, whimsical landscape was once inside the Gardner Gilman House in Exeter, Strickler said.
In the second American gallery are rare bronze sculptures by John Rogers, considered the Currier and Ives of late 19th century sculpture, who once worked as a machinist in the Amoskeag Millyard. His works were considered collectibles during the post-Civil War period, with roughly 85 to 90 figures he crafted in plaster for the mass market. Strickler said the bronze sculpture in the Currier's collection, depicting a photographer (actually a self-portrait of Rogers) and his subject is very rare and most likely would have been created to preserve a master copy of the work.
The expansion has allowed the museum to display more from its silver and pewter collections, with several examples found in this gallery.
Visitors can spend an hour or a day inside the newly expanded museum. There's lots to see, so much in fact that the museum staff are preparing shorter theme tours for patrons, which will be available in various brochures. They include tours that will focus on a particular theme, movement or some other aspect and will include topics such as "What color is your day?", "The Ultimate Hair Tour," and the "New England Vacation Tour."
