The Brattleboro Museum and Art Center (BMAC), a non-collecting museum, was founded in 1972 and is located in the former Central Vermont & Boston & Maine Union Station building in downtown

Brattleboro, Vermont Brattleboro (), originally Brattleborough, is a town in Windham County, Vermont, United States. The most populous municipality abutting Vermont's eastern border with New Hampshire, which is the Connecticut River, Brattleboro is located about ...

. New exhibits by regional and international artists are shown each season. The aim of BMAC is to present art and ideas in ways that inspire, educate, and engage people of all ages. Some of BMAC's notable exhibiting artists have included

Jennifer Bartlett Jennifer Bartlett ( Losch; March 14, 1941 – July 25, 2022) was an American artist. She was known for paintings and prints that combine the system-based aesthetic of conceptual art with the painterly approach of Neo-Expressionism. Many of her ...

Chuck Close Charles Thomas Close (July 5, 1940 – August 19, 2021) was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits using a very l ...

Janet Fish Janet Fish (born May 18, 1938) is a contemporary American realist artist. Through oil painting, lithography, and screenprinting, she explores the interaction of light with everyday objects in the still life genre. Many of her paintings include ...

, Emily Mason, Wolf Kahn,

Chris Van Allsburg Chris Van Allsburg (born June 18, 1949) is an American illustrator and writer of children's books. He has won two Caldecott Medals for U.S. picture book illustration, for ''Jumanji'' (1981) and ''The Polar Express'' (1985), both of which he a ...

and

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...

. The BMAC's space also serves as community center.

History

During the 1970s, the museum was run by a group of volunteers, but in 1981 the first professional director, W. Ron Foulds was hired to run the museum. The museum curates various exhibitions aimed at the general public as well as local school groups and other community organizations. Educational programs for lifelong learning and significant school programs are also conducted by museum staff and volunteers. Brattleboro Museum and Art Center participates in Brattleboro's Gallery Walk on the first Friday of every month.

Building

The building was constructed in 1915 out of

quartzite Quartzite is a hard, non- foliated metamorphic rock which was originally pure quartz sandstone.Essentials of Geology, 3rd Edition, Stephen Marshak, p 182 Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tec ...

rubble which was mined locally from across the Connecticut River in

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...

. The original train station, built in 1849, was located across the tracks on the east side, just west of the river. The upper floor and former baggage area of the station converted into a museum in the 1970s. A small room on the lower level of the building currently functions as a waiting room for the Brattleboro station, which is located behind the building. In 2019, the museum announced a 30 million dollar expansion project that would construct a second, larger exhibition space on an adjacent property.

References

External links

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Brattleboro, Vermont National Register of Historic Places in Windham County, Vermont Art museums and galleries in Vermont Museums in Windham County, Vermont Art museums established in 1972 1972 establishments in Vermont {{Vermont-NRHP-stub