A Stately New Exhibition Space For New Britain Museum Of American Art

NEW BRITAIN, CONN.

:As if transformed from a diamond in the rough to a sparkling jewel, the New Britain Museum of American Art (NBMAA) has undergone a monumental metamorphosis with the opening of a new spacious and state-of-the-art building where it will show off its impressive collections from this day forward. Acknowledged as the first museum in the country to have been dedicated to solely collecting American art, NBMAA has long been regarded as a preeminent cache for artworks that span the past 300 years of American history.

This gem of a museum was hindered by its cramped confines in the Landers House, a Victorian home donated by the late Grace Judd Landers in 1937, for most of the past century. The museum was founded in 1903 when a group of private citizens began compiling an art collection for the enjoyment and education of the public. Although quaint and appealing, the setting subjected the museum to limited gallery space, as well as presenting environmental and preservation concerns.

Many of the most prestigious works in New Britain's collection are well known by art enthusiasts from around the world, although rarely have they been on display at the museum itself. Odds are that those familiar with the museum's stellar works of art by the likes of Thomas Hart Benton, Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth have viewed them elsewhere, more than likely as part of major exhibitions touring the United States.

"We have this really great art collection, and people would come from California or Washington, D.C., and ask 'Where is the Bierstadt? Where is the Church?'" stated museum director Douglas Hyland. "We kept rotating our best things through the collection, but almost always people were disappointed that something they expected to be on display was not."

NBMAA houses one of the most distinguished and comprehensive collections of American paintings, sculpture and works on paper in the country. Liberated from the cramped setting it had grown accustomed to over the past century, the museum now has on display the core of its impressive collection. No longer will patrons who have traveled from afar to see the cornerstones of its collection be disappointed by being told that the pieces they wish to see are either traveling or not currently on view.

When Hyland arrived at NBMAA in 1999, there was a recognized need for expansion. He went about outlining the project and setting it into motion almost immediately. Amenities such as an auditorium, parking and a restaurant were lacking. Public programs also suffered, according to Hyland. "When children were doing finger painting, it was right next to a $5 million Mary Cassatt painting," he said, "so the time had come for us to make some changes."