Please join us on Thursday, September 10th at 6 p.m. that celebrates the completion of the reinstallation of the Museum's permanent collection with a gallery walk hosted by Curator of Collections and Exhibitions Kristen Miller Zohn.

The Columbus Museum is pleased to announce a new installation of American art: By the People, For the People: 300 Years of American Art from the Permanent Collection can be found in the Hardaway and Bradley House Galleries on the main level of the Museum.  Our collection of fine and decorative art is a record of the changing artistic tastes of American culture from Colonial times to the present.  Works include portraits, still lifes, everyday scenes and landscapes, as well as furniture and other decorative art. 
 
The new installation of artwork created before 1945 is displayed in a succession of galleries that highlight particular time periods in American art history. These are interspersed with galleries that focus on a particular style, theme or artist.  For instance, the “Portraiture in Columbus” gallery in the 1830-1880 section highlights the various itinerant painters that visited our city in the mid-19th century.  Objects from our history collection, as well as art objects that have ties to local history, have been integrated into the installation; these are marked with a special “Columbus Connection” logo. 

The Shutze Room has been renovated, and an extended room divider allows visitors to walk further into the room than was previously possible.  The room is installed and furnished to evoke the taste that architect Philip Trammell Shutze helped to establish among affluent Southerners of his day.  The room also now serves as the Founders’ Gallery, in which the Museum highlights the people and objects that are important to the history of the Columbus Museum.

Many decorative art pieces, such as George Ohr’s Teapot that is featured on the cover of this publication, are included in the installation. In celebration of this new installation, the Museum is hosting a decorative arts symposium in April.  Please see page 13 for more information on the symposium.

Currently, artworks from the permanent collection dating from 1945 through the present are found on the upper level of the Museum.  Beginning in September of 2009, these later works will be displayed in the Shorter and Leebern Galleries on the main floor.

The second phase of the Museum’s permanent collection reinstallation will open to the public on Sunday, September 13, 2009.  The first phase of By the People, For the People: 300 Years of American Art from the Permanent Collection, showcasing artworks from 1700 through 1945, opened last fall in the Hardaway and Bradley House galleries.  The Shorter and Leebern galleries will now feature artworks from 1945 through the present.  As in the first phase, galleries that highlight particular time periods in American art history are interspersed with those that have a thematic focus; folk art and contemporary realism will be explored in the new installation.  Artworks that have ties to local history are integrated into the installation; these are marked with a special "Columbus Connection” logo. 

A 32-page, full-color gallery guide has been published in conjunction with the reinstallation.