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Paul and Harriet Levine Weissman '58 |
Footprint of expanded Mount Holyoke College Art Museum. |
Thanks to the generosity of
donors to the Campaign for Mount Holyoke College, the MHC community
will soon enjoy an invigorated environment in which to create, learn
about, and view art. The art building renovation and new construction
project, slated to get under way in fall 2000, includes new
classrooms, studio space, and advanced imaging, design, and research
technology, as well as expanded exhibition space for the Mount
Holyoke College Art Museum. On the first floor, new
construction will add 2,800 square feet of additional gallery space
to the art museum. A fundraising challenge initiated by Harriet
Levine Weissman '58 and her husband, Paul M. Weissman, has enabled
this new addition to increase significantly--from its original design
of 1,800 square feet to 2,800 square feet. The ability to showcase
more of the museum's outstanding collection of 13,000 objects is
critical to carrying out its primary mission to support the College
curriculum and enrich the extracurricular life of students. The
museum's storage area will also be renovated and expanded to relieve
serious congestion in its current space in addition to making the
collection more accessible. As a result of new
construction and the reconfiguration of some of the current
galleries, new spaces will be provided for seventeenth-, eighteenth-,
and nineteenth-century art in addition to modern and contemporary
art, much of which has remained in storage for the last decade
because of limited exhibition space. Space will also be dedicated to
a study gallery/classroom to be used primarily by students and
programmed collaboratively by the museum staff and art department
faculty. On the second and third
floors of the building, the art department will gain a total of
22,000 square feet of renovated space. The second floor will be
reconfigured to accommodate a visual studies lab, expanded space for
the slide collection (150,000 slides) that will incorporate
state-of-the-art image preparation, a reference library, and two new
mediated classrooms. Art history classes will benefit from improved
access to digitized imagery and a variety of online resources. A
section of the area that currently houses the art library will be
developed for studio majors to work on their senior projects in
preparation for the senior art majors' exhibition. The art library
will be moved from the second floor to Williston Library so that the
entire art library can be consolidated. The film studies program will
also relocate to the library. On the third floor, the
sculpture classrooms will be completely reconfigured to complement
the existing three studios, providing for greater flexibility as well
as space and equipment for work on large-scale projects. A new
elevator and central stairway will connect all floors of the art
building, making it possible to move effortlessly between the art
museum and the art department. The Campaign for Mount
Holyoke College has had a goal to raise $2 million to assist in the
improvement and renovation of the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum
and art building. In early January, the trustees increased this goal
to $3 million. The additional $1 million will allow the museum to add
a significant addition of 2,800 square feet. The possibility of this
important improvement to the museum was the result of a challenge
gift from the Weissmans. Harriet Levine Weissman '58 has been a
longtime patron of the art museum and a member of its advisory board.
As of January 31, 2000, the
campaign had received $1.1 million in gifts and pledges to the art
facility project. The Weissman challenge is a "one for two"
challenge. The campaign must raise an additional $1.2 million for the
renovation and addition by June 30, 2000, at which time the Weissmans
will give $650,000 to complete the necessary funding of the building
addition and an endowment for the ongoing maintenance of the museum.
About the
Project
The Weissman
Challenge
Frederic Leighton's The Sluggard (1890) appears to have been asleep in the Mount Holyoke Art Museum's storage area, where it has spent virtually all its time since its purchase by the College in 1985. In fact, this piece has only been shown once at MHC. Due to a lack of exhibition space, the museum's nineteenth-century objects are rarely brought out of storage. That will change with the completion of the art building renovation and new construction project, which will provide space for objects such as this one to be on view for all to see. The Sluggard, one of the finest examples of nineteenth-century avant-garde sculpture, was created by British painter and sculptor Frederic Leighton (1830 - 96). The sculpture takes its inspiration from Rodin's Age of Bronze and also alludes to Michelangelo's Dying Slaves. It will be great to see what we've been missing.
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