The New Britain Museum of American Art's founding in 1903 entitles the institution to be designated the first museum of strictly American art in the country. That year, a $20,000 gift of gold bonds to the museum's former parent, the New Britain Institute, from industrialist John Butler Talcott, created funds to purchase "modern oil paintings." Subsequent purchases, with advice from New York museums and galleries, further defined "modern" to mean American works of art, now numbering more than 10,236. With particular strengths in colonial portraiture, the Hudson River School, American Impressionism, and the Ash Can School, not to mention the important mural series The Arts of Life in America by Thomas Hart Benton, the museum relies heavily on its permanent collection for exhibitions and programming, yet also displays a significant number of borrowed shows and work by emerging artists. The singular focus on American art and its panoramic view of American artistic achievement make the New Britain Museum of American Art a significant teaching resource available to the local, regional, and national public.
MISSION STATEMENT
“Erected By the People for the Use of the People,” the New Britain Museum of American Art is dedicated to serving all people by pursuing excellence in art through collections, exhibitions, and education.
Dedication to serving all people: To be one of the nation’s most welcoming art museums by ensuring that the Museum’s facilities, collections, exhibitions, and education programs create optimal conditions for first-hand experiences with art; by broadening and deepening the Museum’s audience through outreach, education, and marketing; and by establishing the NBMAA as a vital force in the cultural and educational life of central Connecticut.
Collection: To be one of the nation’s most distinguished art museums by forming, conserving, and researching an encyclopedic collection of the best works in all artistic media by American artists.
Exhibitions: To be one of the nation’s most dynamic art museums by exhibiting the permanent collection and special exhibitions on widely diverse subjects in ways that combine the highest aesthetic standards with engaging and intellectually accessible presentations.
Education: To be one of the nation’s most effective centers for learning about art by creating an optimal learning environment for the Museum’s diverse audiences, and by understanding that education is at the center of its public service role.
The New Britain Museum of American Art will be known as one of America’s most welcoming, distinguished, dynamic, and educationally ambitious art museums.
MUSEUM HISTORY
The New Britain Museum of American Art, with its new state-of-the-art Chase Family Building, is a cultural gem located next to historic Walnut Hill Park, designed by nationally known landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted.
The Museum traces its beginnings to the New Britain Institute, which was chartered in 1853 to foster learning by a community of newly arrived immigrants who worked in the city’s numerous factories. In 1901 the Institute moved from rented spaces to a new building in town that accommodated 75,000 volumes, a children’s room, and a history room. The site also included a windowless “art room” in which portraits of prominent figures—both national and local—were displayed.
In 1903 John Butler Talcott, former New Britain mayor and chairman of the Institute’s building committee, established the first purchase fund for “original modern oil paintings either by native or foreign artists…in the departments of art known as figure, landscape and genre subjects.” Charged with making art acquisitions, the Library Committee sought advice from New York gallery owner William Macbeth, whose gallery would be the site of the controversial urban realist exhibition of The Eight in 1908. Macbeth suggested that the committee begin by collecting “backward and forward” (from colonial to contemporary), using the John Butler Talcott Fund, which yielded $875 annually.
In 1928, the art room’s first curator, Fanny J. Brown, began expanding the exhibition program to include current international art trends—such as a display of contemporary French work—to mixed critical review. As one local editorial read, the controversy of such exhibitions “will do yeoman’s service in arousing the populace to a realization that we have art exhibits of such caliber in town that they are worth a clash of opinion…. Miss Brown is holding high the torch of art interest in New Britain and we intend to encourage her.” Further encouragement came in 1934 when a New Britain philanthropist left the Institute an endowment and a stone mansion to the Institute. There, the Art Museum of the New Britain Institute opened to the public on July 1, 1937.
“A Worthwhile Gallery of American Art”
In 1937 with its new, inherited space for its collection, the New Britain Institute further refined its collecting mission under the guidance of Robert Macbeth, the son of its first art advisor. Macbeth remarked that “New Britain already has more art interest than most cities of its size” and suggested a plan that would make “the Institute not a one-room collection of beautiful pictures, but a worthwhile Gallery of American Art.”
In addition to bolstering the collection with acquisitions of historical and educational significance, the Museum reinstated its ambitious loan exhibition program (which had lapsed during the years of the Great Depression). The Museum also remained committed to local, emerging talent, annually exhibiting the work of artists in and from the area. The 1949 exhibition “Young Talent” showcased the work of Sol LeWitt, who was raised in New Britain. Less than a decade later, the 1957 show “Five Decades of Your Museum’s Progress” highlighted the Museum’s active exhibition program and burgeoning collection. As the Museum’s director remarked, “It is felt that this exhibition in its entirety represents a great stride forward since the first painting was bought in 1908.” In apparent agreement with this assessment of success, the trustees were confident enough to give the Museum a separate identity from the Institute, naming it the New Britain Museum of American Art.
The New Britain Museum of American Art continues to build on its successes. Its collection dates from 1739 to the present and has grown to approximately 10,236 works of art as a result of purchases and donations. It includes oil paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, photographs and illustrations. Exhibitions continue to strike a balance between the historic and the contemporary, emphasizing the importance of art’s past and its relevance to the present. As one of the first institutions dedicated solely to American art, the New Britain Museum of American Art continues to play a vital role in shaping our understanding of the rich history of the nation’s art and the art's dynamic relationship with community.
The visitor can experience an entire survey of our nation’s artists ranging from John Singleton Copley, Frederic Church, and Thomas Cole, to Georgia O’Keeffe, Thomas Hart Benton and Sol LeWitt. The collection is especially rich in American Impressionism; Mary Cassatt, William Merritt Chase, Theodore Robinson, Childe Hassam, John Henry Twachtman, Julian Alden Weir, Willard Metcalf, Frank Benson, Frederick Frieseke, Richard Miller, Arthur Clifton Goodwin, Ernest Lawson, Maurice Prendergast, and Guy Wiggins are all well represented.
Also of special interest to visitors is the Sanford B. D. Low Memorial Illustration Collection. Begun in 1964 and comprising more than 1,700 works, the Low Illustration Collection is the nation’s first museum-based collection covering the history of American illustration from the 19th century to the present.
As it began its second century in 2003, the New Britain Museum of American Art faced two extraordinary challenges: to teach the next generation of Americans to appreciate and preserve the heritage that the collection represents and to create a facility worthy of the renowned collection. In response to their challenges, the Trustees embarked on a capital fund drive for the future of the Museum: expansion and renovation of our facility; developing formal education programs for children, adults and families; conservation of our priceless collection; enhancing our operations; and building our endowment.
In 2000, Ann Beha Architects of Boston completed a master plan for the expansion of the Museum. Our new Chase Family Building, a 43,000-square-foot building with 10 new galleries, opened in April, 2006. It is part of a $26.2 million project that has made the New Britain Museum of American Art one of New England’s largest museums.
The expanded Museum is now better positioned to carry out its mission of drawing diverse segments of the community together in appreciating and understanding their common humanity through art.
