Rhode Island School of Design Museum

The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design is an art museum integrated with the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, Rhode Island, US. The museum was co-founded with the school in 1877. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the United States, and has seven curatorial departments.

History and architectural development

The RISD Museum was an integral part of the college from the inception of both in 1877. It serves as an art museum open to the public and a teaching facility for RISD students.
After the Civil War, Rhode Island had emerged as one of the most heavily industrialized states in the country. Local manufacturers became interested in improving the sales of their products through better design and began to seek out employees with expertise combining artistic and practical knowledge. Earlier, in 1854, the Rhode Island Art Association had been chartered "to establish in Providence a permanent Art Museum and Gallery of the Arts and Design". However, there were insufficient funds to accomplish this goal until 1877, when the Rhode Island Women's Centennial Commission allocated $1,675 to start the school and its associated museum.
The RISD Museum collection began with etchings and plaster casts of sculptures and architectural elements. The first public galleries were opened in 1893 in the structure now known as the Waterman Building, named after the street it resides on. In 1897, five additional galleries were constructed across the rear of the building, as a memorial to one of RISD’s founders, Helen Metcalf. Various members of the Metcalf family donated to the collection of plaster casts, which rapidly grew to almost 500 by the time the collection was dismantled in 1937. Artworks in other media gradually joined the collection, mostly from donations, since there was little funding for acquisitions.
In 1904, the museum received a major bequest from Charles Pendleton, a collector and dealer in English and American furniture, ceramics, and carpets. Pendleton House was constructed as a fireproof expansion of the museum, designed to appear as a residential home, and modeled on the donor's actual Federal-era home on Waterman Street. RISD became the first art museum in the country to devote an entire wing to decorative arts.
The RISD collections expanded greatly during the 1920s, when gifts and the growing endowment could fund the purchase of major artworks, as well as physical expansion. In 1924, the Metcalf Building was added, and in 1926 the Radeke Building was opened. Fronted by a modest-looking street level entry on Benefit Street, the latter new addition was a large 6-story structure built onto the side of the steep slope of College Hill. A central garden court, later named after Eliza Greene Metcalf Radeke, provided natural light and a view from the art galleries enclosing it on three sides.
During a brief but intense tenure from 1938 to 1941, German refugee directed the museum in a transformation from a classics orientation to a more-contemporary focus. He also sought to emphasize unity and multiple cross-connections among the different nationally focused collections, along with a unified presentation of art and design across different media. An influx of European émigrés during, and after, World War II strengthened and deepened both curatorial expertise and the growth of the collections.
In the mid-1960s and early 1970s, the collecting of contemporary 20th century art accelerated, aided by funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. Another symbolic landmark event was the 1970 Raid the Icebox exhibition, curated by visiting artist Andy Warhol from the museum's extensive storerooms and archives. A number of significant art and design collections were added to the museum collections, requiring major expansion of physical facilities, as well as visitor accommodations.
In 1993, the Daphne Farago Wing, designed by Tony Atkin and Associates, added two new galleries for contemporary art, the first major expansion of exhibition space since 1926. Its new entrance, relocated near the historic Benefit Street entrance, continued traditional upslope access from College Hill, even as the main library, undergrad dormitories, and graduate studios of the college were relocated downslope nearer to the river or in downtown Providence. The new building also contains a small coffee shop/cafe.
In September 2008, a substantial new addition to the RISD Museum and the college was opened to the public. Designed by architect José Rafael Moneo of Spain, the Chace Center connects to the third floor of the Radeke Building and the other three older buildings of the museum, via a short glassed-in bridge. A long, segmented outdoor stairway cuts a perpendicular straight line from Benefit Street to the lower campus, passing directly under the bridge. The $34 million center was built on a former parking lot in one of the few remaining open spaces near RISD, and it was named in honor of the late Malcolm and Beatrice "Happy" Oenslager Chace, a preservationist who worked to save historic buildings on Benefit Street. The Chace Center serves as the main entrance to the museum, facing a revitalized riverfront and downtown.
The building initially included a retail shop, as well as an auditorium and exhibition and classroom spaces. The retail shop was later converted into a staff lounge; the RISD Store is now located on the first floor of the Design Center at 30 North Main Street, just north of the museum entrance. The second floor of the Chace Center contains temporary galleries dedicated to exhibiting artworks by RISD students.
Many of RISD Museum's traditional exhibition spaces are still threaded on a linear axis though the four older buildings, and are reportedly confusing to navigate. Window openings have been bricked over, to better control lighting and increase display space. There are six levels of exhibition spaces, but no single building has more than four levels open to the public. A simplified schematic map is available for visitors to help them with orientation. There are multiple changes of floor level between buildings, but ramps and elevators have been installed to improve accessibility. Both museum entrances and galleries are wheelchair-accessible.

Collections

General overview

The RISD Museum's collection of about 100,000 objects contains a broad range of works from around the world, including ancient Egypt, Asia, Africa, ancient Greece and Rome, Europe, and the Americas. Over 2,000 of these artworks are typically on display at any time. The RISD Museum has a comprehensive online catalog of almost all of its collection, and offers free access to digital images of its public domain materials. The collection is managed by seven curatorial departments.
Among the prominent international and American artists represented are Picasso, Monet, Manet, Paul Revere, Chanel, Andy Warhol, and Kara Walker. The collection also features notable works by Rhode Island artists and designers, including 18th-century Newport furniture makers Goddard and Townsend, and 19th-century Rhode Island painters such as Anglo-American impressionist John Noble Barlow and portraitist Gilbert Stuart.

Ancient art

The department of Ancient Art includes bronze figural sculpture and vessels, a notable collection of Greek coins, stone sculpture, Greek vases, paintings, and mosaics, a fine collection of Roman jewelry and glass, and teaching examples of terracottas. A number of objects are excellent examples in their categories. Among these virtually unique works of art are an Etruscan bronze situla, a fifth-century BCE Greek female head in marble, and a rare Hellenistic bronze Aphrodite. Among the Greek vases are works by some of the major Attic painters, including Nikosthenes; the Brygos Painter; the Providence Painter; and the Pan, Lewis, and Reed Painters.
The cornerstone of the museum's Egyptian collection is the Ptolemaic period coffin and mummy of the priest Nesmin. Among other highlights of the Egyptian collection are a rare New Kingdom ceramic paint box, a relief fragment from the temple complex at Karnak, and a first-class collection of faience.

Asian art

The RISD Museum's Asian Art collection contains ceramics, costume, prints, painting, sculpture, and textiles. One of the highlights of the collection is the peerless group of more than 700 19th-century Japanese prints which were collected by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, considered among the finest assemblages of such work held outside Japan. The Japanese prints are shown, in rotation, in a gallery dedicated to their exhibition. A major attraction is the important 12th-century wooden Buddha Dainich Nyorai, the largest historic Japanese wooden sculpture in the United States. The Buddha is on permanent exhibition in its own gallery.
The Japanese textiles are the core and glory of the Asian textile collection. The kesa, or Buddhist priests' robes, are the most numerous, with 104 examples. The 47 Japanese Noh robes, meticulously documented, form a comprehensive collection of nearly every type of costume in use in the Noh drama of 18th- and 19th-century Japan. Their vivid colors and patterns, embellished with gold and silver, express perfectly the splendor of the traditional and highly stylized Noh theater. The museum also has a collection of Indian saris and Chinese ceremonial robes. The Islamic and Indian collections include works of art in all media that celebrate the artistic heritage of the Arab, Indian, Persian, and Turkish cultures.

Contemporary art

Created in 2000, the Department of Contemporary Art oversees a collection of painting, sculpture, video, mixed media, and interdisciplinary work, dating from 1960 to the present. It is also responsible for the development of solo artist exhibitions and projects as well as thematic group presentations exploring key issues and trends in recent art, culture, and history. Represented in the collection are significant paintings by Emma Amos, Peter Doig, Carroll Dunham, Nicole Eisenman, David Hockney, Ellsworth Kelly, Karen Kilimnik, Agnes Martin, Joan Mitchell, Marina Perez Simão, Salman Toor, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol and Karl Wirsum, among others. The collection also includes important sculptural work by Lynda Benglis, Louise Bourgeois, Nick Cave, Jeffrey Gibson, David Hammons, Simone Leigh, Rose B. Simpson, Sarah Sze, Robert Wilson, and Chen Zhen. The museum's video collection features works by such pioneers in the field as Vito Acconci, Lynda Benglis, Xavier Cha, Tony Cokes, Arthur Jafa, Bruce Nauman, Martha Rosler, Richard Serra, and William Wegman.
The Nancy Sayles Day Collection of Latin American Art includes works by such important artists as Luís Cruz Azaceta, Fernando Botero, José Bedia, Jesús Rafael Soto, Joaquín Torres-García, and Roberto Matta Echuarren. The Richard Brown Baker Collection of Contemporary British Art features paintings, sculptures, and installations by Martin Boyce, Karla Black, Liam Gillick, Lucy McKenzie, Susan Philipsz, Yinka Shonibare, and Cathy Wilkes, among others.
The department has a natural and strong connection with Providence's contemporary art community, and numerous RISD faculty and alumni and local artists are represented in the collection. Among them are Howard Ben Tré, Jonathan Bonner, Bob Dilworth, Jim Drain, Richard Fleischner, Ruth Dealy, Richard Merkin, Jordan Seaberry and Duane Slick.