Berkshire Museum
There is so much to see here including paintings from the revered "Hudson River School", 19th-and 20th-century sculptures, artifacts of ancient history and natural science, a143-pound meteorite, shards of Babylonian cuneiform tablets, samplings of early Mediterranean jewelry, and representations of the Berkshire's ecosystems including local mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, insects, plants, and minerals. TheFeigenbaum Hall of Innovation is their latest addition and not to be missed.
- Contact Person:
- Address:
- 31 South Street
- Pittsfield MA, 01201
- Phone:
- (413) 443-7171
- Website:
- http://www.berkshiremuseum.org/index.html
166 BFA References to Berkshire Museum
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Boston’s Museums Shuttered Again Front Page
Mayor Marty Walsh Orders Rollback
By: - Dec 15th, 2020Faced with a spike in new cases of the coronavirus Mayor Marty Walsh has taken action to flatten the curve. Starting tomorrow categories of businesses and cultural institutions will be closed for the next three weeks. Even with vaccines it is too early to say if there will be business as usual for the arts this summer in the Berkshires.
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Brooklyn Museum Deaccessions 12 Works Front Page
AAMD Sanctions Corona Emergency Measures
By: - Sep 17th, 2020While Trump's billionaire golf buddies are begging for a bailout the arts in America are left twisting in the wind. Closed for months museums are depleting reserve funds to survive. That has meant furloughs, pay cuts and staff reductions. As a desparate measure, in a lapse from guidelines for deaccessioning, the Brooklyn Museum is selling twelve works to raise $40 million. It recalls when the Berkshire Museum gutted its collection to raise $50 million. This is never a good idea but we discuss crucial differences.
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Alan Shestack Two Front Page
In 1992 the MFA Had an Annual Deficit of $3 Million
By: - Jun 15th, 2020When I interviewed Alan Shestack in 1992 he had been MFA director for five years. It was a time of economic downturn and the museum faced an annual deficit of $3 million. We discussed ways in which the museum might meet this challenge including a relationship with a museum in Nagoya, Japan which it helped to launch and program. He spoke adamantly that selling works to cover costs violated the mission and covenant of museums and their donors.
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Patricia Hills on American Art Front Page
Whitney Museum Curator and Boston University Professor
By: - Jun 25th, 2019A leading scholar of American Art, Patricia Hills curated major exhibitions for the Whitney Museum including "John Singer Sargent."Her books and catalogues range from Eastman Johnson, to Alice Neel and Jacob Lawrence. At Boston University she trained a generation of scholars and curators. As a Marxist she has been particularly involved in social justice projects.
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Spring Awakening at Hancock Shaker Village Front Page
Borrowed Light Watercolors by Barbara Ernst Prey
By: - May 24th, 2019Working "24/7" over several months the renowned, Williamstown-based artist, Barbara Ernst Prey, created Borrowed Light. The suite of watercolor renderings of interiors is on view in a converted chicken coop of Hancock Shaker Village. It is a part of expanded contemporary programming under the director Jennifer Trainer Thompson. She was a founding member of the MASS MoCA team. They have been neighbors and friends for many years. It was intuitive for them to undertake this remarkable project.
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Henry Moore Sculpture Centre Front Page
900 Works at Art Gallery of Ontario
By: - May 13th, 2019The Art Gallery of Ontario owns 900 works by Henry Moore including large plasters for bronzes, maquettes, drawings and related materials. The 1,200 square foot gallery and its ancillary displays comprise the largest public collection of the artist's work. Simply put, it is one of the most magnificent experiences of 20th century sculpture on a global level.
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Golden Parachute for Van Shields Front Page
Soft Landing for Berkshire Museum Director
By: - Dec 09th, 2018Recent IRS filing reveals that when former Berkshire Museum director, Van Shields, abruptly departed he was given $92,000 in two payments. The second is due in January. There are also figures for the costly legal battles that resulted in selling 22 works of art to raise $53.25 million. From July 1 to Dec. 31, 2017, the museum incurred $1.6 million in legal costs. In April it paid off the full $1,852,426 outstanding balance on a $2 million line of credit.
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Norman Rockwell for Mass Attorney General Front Page
Send a Message to Maura Healey
By: - Aug 30th, 2018Initially, Attorney General Maura Healey opposed the fire sale of Berkshire Museum treasures proposed by now long gone and hardly missed director Van Shields. Those who protested gutting the collection were shocked and dismayed that Healey folded. Commentator Steve Nelson suggests that you send the AG a message. He suggests Norman Rockwell as a write in candidate during the primary on Tuesday, September 4. Nelson is an Op Ed contributor to the Berkhire Eagle.
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Enrichment At Hancock Shaker Village Front Page
Food For Thought
By: - Jul 22nd, 2018A great day trip that enlightens and enriches the soul is as close as Berkshire county, home of Hancock Shaker Village. Spending a day learning about the Shakers, sharing dinner and thought with Peter Jennings son, Chris Jennings, and attending a concert with members of WILCO and transplanted local troubadour, Johnny Irion, can turn any day into sunshine.
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Van, Van the Used Up Man Front Page
Berkshire Museum Director Shields Retires
By: - Jun 28th, 2018In a tersely worded press release, offering no explanation, the Berkshire Museum announces parting ways with its controversial director, Van Shields. He was hired in 2011 and presided over the decline and potential extincton of the museum. His strategy to sell key works from the permanent collection and launch his New Vision was met with protest and global media attention. Some will praise him for "saving" the museum and endowing its future. For others he leaves behind a pariah shunned by other museums. His departure and potenial board restructuring are essential as the museum mends fences and fine tunes drastic plans for renovations and gimmicky reinstallatons.
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Director Laurie Norton Moffatt of Rockwell Museum Front Page
What His Legacy Means to the Berkshires
By: - Jun 12th, 2018The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge has just launched “Keepers of the Flame: Parrish, Wyeth, Rockwell and the Narrative Tradition.” During a recent press preview we enjoyed an unencumbered view of the scholarly and superbly installed exhibition. Founding director, Laurie Norton Moffatt, discussed what the Rockwell legacy means in light of the controversy of the sale of two of his works by the Berkshire Museum. One of those works "Shuffleton's Barber Shop" was acquired by George Lucas who is loaning it to the Norman Rockwell Museum for the next 18 months.
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Berkshire Museum Plays Bait and Switch Front Page
Juried Show Art of the Hills Opens on June 2
By: - May 22nd, 2018On Sunday, June 2, the Berkshire Museum is hosting a festive opening for its summer-long juried exhibition Art of the Hills. Of 230 who applied works by 36 regional artists will be on view. I will not cross picket lines to attend the "celebration." There are no plans for Berkshire Fine Arts to view or review the exhibition.
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Berkshire Museum Decision Handed Down Front Page
Green Light to Sell Treasures and Gut the Building
By: - Apr 05th, 2018Pittsfield used to have a small, charming, eclectic regional museum. As of today that's no longer true.
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David Ricci’s Edge of Chaos Front Page
Studio Visit with a Berkshire Photographer
By: - Feb 14th, 2018For the past year the Berkshire based photographer, David Ricci, has been working on a large format, expensive and ambitious book. It has a working title of Edge of Chaos and surveys four decades of his oeuvre. During a studio visit we viewed the work and how it is evolving into a publication.
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Berkshire Museum: Monday Morning Quarterback Front Page
Sifting Through the Rubble
By: - Feb 12th, 2018The news of a "compromise" that really wasn't on Friday sent shock waves through the local, national and global art world. Other than the sale of Rockwell's "Shuffleton's Barber Shop" to an undisclosed museum, the Berkshire Museum got a green light to sell the 39 other works at Sotheby's. While morally and ethically flawed director, Van Shields, and board chair, Elizabeth McGraw, will proceed with catastrophic plans to gut the collection to raise $50 million. They will trash and rebuilid the museum creating its populist/ vulgarian New Vision.
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Berkshire Museum Will Gut Its Collection Front Page
Matter to be Settled with Supreme Judicial Court
By: - Feb 10th, 2018A compromise is a deal that neither side is happy with. Other than a few hard fought concessions the Berkshire Museum will now gut the museum and its collection in pursuit of its vulgarian, populist New Vision. It's tarnished leadership, including director, Van Shields and board president, Elizabeth McGraw, will have a tough job earning back the trust and support of a community which they so adroitly alienated.
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Jimmie Durham: At the Center of the World Front Page
Controversial Traveling Retrospective
By: - Jan 27th, 2018In 1993 I was intrigued by ersatz weapons fabricated from funky materials by Jimmie Durham in the Whitney Biennial. To explore creative freedom the artist left America in 1987 never to return. While acquiring a global reputation it is only now that the work is again being seen and debated in the States. A long overdue retrospective "Jimmie Durham: At the Center of the World" organized by the Hammer Museum traveled to the Walker Arts Center and is finishing its run at the Whitney Museum. It states a case for Durham as one of the formost American artists of his generation.
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Vermont’s Eclectic Shelburne Museum Front Page
How Sweet It Is
By: - Jan 12th, 2018Electra Havemeyer Webb (1888-1960) founded the Shelburne Museum which has 150,000 objects and 39 buildings on 45 acres. Her father Henry Osborne Havemeyer was known as The Sugar King. With his wife Louisne they created a vast collection donating 2,000 objects, including French Impressionist masterpieces, to the Met. Electra married polo champion James Watson Webb II of the Vanderbilt family. Well before the controversies of the Berkshire Museum, in 1996, the Shelburne Museum sold $30 million of its art to pay expenses. During the winter just five buildings are open. We viewed two special exhibitions in the Pizzagalli Center for Art and Education which opened in 2013. It was a lively and intriguing experience.
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Barrington Stage Company 2018 Front Page
Three World Premieres and West Side Story
By: - Jan 11th, 2018The 2018 season of Barrington Stage Company which will feature three world premieres, including a major new musical from Tony Awards winners William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin, a new play from Off Broadway Alliance Award winner Lloyd Suh, and the first major production from playwright, Rachel Lynett. The season starts with Typhpid Mary by Mark St. Germain in the theatre named for him.
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Berkshire Museum Top Arts Story of 2017 Front Page
Coverage Morphed from Local to National News
By: - Dec 26th, 2017A decision on an appeal by Attorney General of Massachusetts, Maura Healey, to halt the sale of 40 key works of art at Sothebys on behalf of the Berkshire Museum will be decided by the end of January. Van Shields, now on medical leave as director of the museum, and board president, Elizabeth "Buzz" McGraw, announced their $60 million plans for a New Vision in July. What started as a local story has morphed into national and global coverage. The outcome of this unethical attempt at deaccessioning by a pariah museum may have a game changing impact on the mandate of all American museums' commitment to preserve and conserve collections for future generations.
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Cape Cod Museum of Art Front Page
Promoting Regional Visual Arts Since 1980
By: - Oct 24th, 2017During our visit to the Cape Cod Museum of Art we viewed several special exhibitions: Salvatore Del Deo: A Storied History, extended through October 28, Discovering Cape Cod’s Museum Treasures, through November 26, and Judith Shahn Selections: A Tribute to Thomas Linxweiler through November 12. We met with Dr. Edith Tonelli who has been director for the past four years. She provided an overview of the museum and plans moving forward. We also learned why the museum and adjacent Cape Playhouse prove to have been uniquely moving experiences.
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Group Fundraises to Block Berkshire Museum Sale Front Page
Save the Save
By: - Oct 13th, 2017“This is a classic case of confronting a well-organized, well-financed, misguided inside group, hoping to lead them to their better angels,” said Leslie Ferrin, founder of Save the Art. “That’s why we’re crowd-sourcing Save the Art’s legal action fund. We want to invite people to step up at whatever level they can, and say, “we support finding a better solution.”
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The Odd Couple Warhol and Rockwell Front Page
Populism as Commonality Explored at Rockwell Museum
By: - Oct 12th, 2017The artists Norman Rockwell and Andy Warhol became rich and famous for giving the public what it wanted. It is this shared populism which is explored in an evocative exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum. Not surprisingly the exhibition has been mobbed with visitors.
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Morgan Bulkeley Retrospective at Berkshire Museum Front Page
Last of the Mohicans
By: - Oct 08th, 2017It was thrilling, poignant and terribly sad last night when many artists, friends and community packed the Berkshire Museum for a vernissage of the sprawling, eclectic, and dazzling retrospective Morgan Bulkeley: Nature Culture Clash. It may be the last such project focused on a Berkshire based artist. As a part of its New Vision the museum is dumping 40 works of art and reconfiguring. Van Shields and the board refuse to discuss the fate of the remaining collection of 40,000 objects and the role if any of the fine arts in its plans.
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Berkshire Museum Stonewalls New Yorker Front Page
Van and Buzz Clam Up to Fake News Requests
By: - Oct 05th, 2017Relying primarily on published sources Felix Salmon in the New Yorker has reported on the deaccessioning and New Vision of the Berkshire Museum. As Solomon states “The story of the Berkshire Museum is more than one about a second-tier local institution selling off some art. It’s a story about how fragile museum-industry norms are, how unaccountable a museum director can be, and how much destruction can be wrought during a single secret trustee meeting. (The museum’s new P.R. representative, Carol Bosco Baumann, declined repeated requests to make anyone from the museum available for an interview.)” This is consistent with the museum's bunker mentality of playing hard ball with the media.
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