The Carnegie Museum of Art, is an

art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. Although primarily con ...

in the Oakland neighborhood of

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

. Originally known as the Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute and was at what is now the Main Branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. The museum's first gallery was opened for public use on November 5, 1895. Over the years the gallery vastly increased in size, with new a new building on Forbes Avenue in 1907. In 1963, the name was officially changed to Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute. The size of the gallery has tripled over time and it was officially renamed in 1986 to - Carnegies Museum of Art - to clearly indicate it as on the four Carnegie Museums.

History

The museum's origins can be traced to 1886, with

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans i ...

's initial concept:W. J. Holland, LL.D., "The Carnegie Museum", in ''Popular Science'', May 1901. "I am thinking of incorporating with the plan for a library that of an art-gallery in which shall be preserved a record of the progress and development of pictorial art in America." Dedicated on November 5, 1895, the art gallery was initially housed in the Carnegie Libraries of Pittsburgh Main Branch in Oakland. Carnegie envisioned a museum collection consisting of the " Old Masters of tomorrow".About Carnegie Museum of Art: History
The museum received a major expansion in 1907 with the addition of the Hall of Architecture, Hall of Sculpture, and Bruce Galleries, with funds again provided by Carnegie.Memorial of the celebration of the Carnegie Institute at Pittsburgh, Pa., April 11, 12, 13, 1907. Under the directorship of Leon Arkus, the Sarah Mellon Scaife Gallery (125,000 square feet) was built as an addition to the existing Carnegie Institute. Designed by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes, it first opened in 1974 and more than doubled the museum's exhibition space, plus added a children's studio, theater, offices, café, and bookstore.Ellen S. Wilson, "The Continuing History of the Scaife Galleries", in ''Carnegie Online'', July/August 2003 . ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' art critic John Russell described the gallery as an "unflawed paradise." The gallery has been renovated several times since its original creation, most recently in 2004. Today the museum continues Carnegie's love of contemporary art by staging the Carnegie International every few years. Numerous significant works from the Internationals have been acquired for museum's permanent collection including

Winslow Homer Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in ...

's ''The Wreck'' (1896) and

James A. McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...

's ''Arrangement in Black: Portrait of Señor Pablo de Sarasate'' (1884).

Collections and departments

The museum's curatorial departments include: Fine Arts (Contemporary Art, Works on Paper), Decorative Arts, Architecture, and Photography. The museum presents as many as 15 changing exhibitions annually. Its permanent collection comprises roughly 35,000 works and includes European and American decorative arts from the late seventeenth century to the present, works on paper, paintings, prints (notably Japanese prints), sculptures and installations. The museum has notably strong collections of both aluminum artifacts and chairs. Approximately 1,800 works are on view at any given time. The museum also maintains a large archive of negatives from African-American photographer Charles "Teenie" Harris. Heinz Architectural Center - The collection includes works in architecture, landscape design, engineering, and furniture and interior design. The center's facilities includes 4,000 square feet of exhibition space and a library housing several thousand books and journals. The Hillman Photography Initiative - The Initiative hosts a variety of projects including live public events, web-based projects, documentary videos, art projects, and writing. Yearly programming is determine by a group of five "agents" who plan and curate each 12-month cycle of works hosted. Collection Themes * Contemporary Glass * Teenie Harris Photographs: Erroll Garner and Jazz from the Hill * Carnegie International * Japanese Prints * Pittsburgh Artists * The Art of the Chair * Pictorialist Photography * Painting and Sculpture 1860–1920 * W. Eugene Smith

Galleries

Portal of the North Transept of the Cathedral of Saint-Andre at Bourdaux at CMArt

* Ailsa Mellon Bruce Galleries (1907) – The Ailsa Mellon Bruce Galleries were originally constructed to display reproduction bronze casts from Pompeii and Herculaneum. The gallery was renovated in 2009, and currently exhibits more than 500 objects representing American and European decorative arts from the

Rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

and Neoclassical periods of the 18th century to contemporary design and craft. * Hall of Architecture (1907) – The Hall of Architecture houses almost 140 full-size plaster casts of elements of buildings found in the ancient and classical civilizations of

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

and

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, and from Romanesque, Gothic and

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

Europe. It is the largest collection of plaster casts of architectural masterpieces in America and one of the three largest in the world, along with those of the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and the

Musée national des Monuments Français The Musée national des Monuments Français ( en, National Museum of French Monuments) is today a museum of plaster casts of French monuments located in the Palais de Chaillot, 1, place du Trocadéro et du 11 Novembre, Paris, France. It now for ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

. * Hall of Sculpture (1907) – The Hall of Sculpture was modeled after the

Parthenon The Parthenon (; grc, Παρθενών, , ; ell, Παρθενώνας, , ) is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the goddess Athena during the fifth century BC. Its decorative sculptures are considere ...

's inner sanctuary, and was originally created to house the museum's 69 plaster casts of Egyptian,

Near Eastern The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, and Roman sculpture. Today it exhibits works from the permanent collections, with its balcony displaying decorative arts objects from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. * Heinz Architectural Center (1993) – dedicated to the collection, study, and exhibition of architectural drawings and models. * Scaife Galleries (1974) – The Scaife Galleries display the permanent collection of the museum, and contains paintings, sculptures, works on paper, film, and video pieces. * Forum Gallery – Located on the first floor of the museum just inside the Forbes Avenue entrance, this single room is dedicated to temporary exhibitions of contemporary art. It opened November 3, 1990 with support from the National Endowment of the Arts – The first exhibition, ''Forum 1'', was a solo show of Jeff Wall. Subsequent exhibitions were numbered sequentially (for example, ''Forum 40'' featured Felix de la Concha). Unlike larger museum exhibitions, which can take up to three years to plan and execute, Forum shows come together relatively quickly, and are open to any curatorial staff's vision. In the words of Vicky Clark, a longtime curator at the museum, "The idea was to make sure that we had an exhibition of contemporary art set up at all times."

Educational programs

Saturday art classes in the galleries of Carnegie Museum of Art have been conducted for over 75 years. Alumni of the program include

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 ...

, photographer

Duane Michals Duane Michals ( "Michaels"; born February 18, 1932) is an American photographer. Michals's work makes innovative use of photo-sequences, often incorporating text to examine emotion and philosophy. Education and career Michals's interest in ar ...

, and contemporary artist

Philip Pearlstein Philip Martin Pearlstein (May 24, 1924 – December 17, 2022) was an American painter best known for Modernist Realist nudes. Cited by critics as the preeminent figure painter of the 1960s to 2000s, he led a revival in realist art. Biography ...

. The museum has classes specific to various age groups.

Gallery

File:Place des Lices Paul Signac.jpg, ''Place des Lices'', 1893, oil on canvas,

Paul Signac Paul Victor Jules Signac ( , ; 11 November 1863 – 15 August 1935) was a French Neo-Impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the Pointillist style. Biography Paul Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863. ...

File:CarnegieMuseumofArtKnightArmour.jpg, Armour, with Helmet, circa 1555, Anton Peffenhauser File:CarnegieMuseumofArtportablereliquary.jpg, Ivory portable altar, 14th Century, French File:Claude Monet - Nymphéas - Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, 2019-12-11.jpg, '' Water Lilies (Nymphéas)'', 1915–1926, oil on canvas,

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. Durin ...

File:ChrisLitherlandcarnegiemuseumarchitecturalroom-2.jpg, The 1907 Grand Staircase File:CarnegieMuseumofArtAncientChina.jpg, Bronze ritualistic vessel, 1300-1150 B.C.E.,

Shang Dynasty The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty founded by Tang of Shang (Cheng Tang) that ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and ...

, China File:ChrisLitherlandWilliamWallPittsburghFire.jpg, ''View of the Great Fire of Pittsburgh'', 1846, oil on canvas, William Coventry Wall File:ChrisLitherlandCarnegieAfricanroom.jpg, Housepost, circa 1930s, Yoruba Culture, Africa File:CarnegieMuseumofAncientGreek.jpg, Ancient Greco-Roman vase File:RuthMcChesneyMiniatureRoomCarnegieArt.jpg, Miniature room on display, Ruth McChesney File:CarnegieMuseumofVincentGoghAfterRain.jpg, ''Wheat Fields After the Rain (The Plain of Auvers)'', 1890, oil on canvas, Vincent van Gogh File:CarnegieMuseumofArtChristianArtifact.jpg, Casket for relics of a saint (châsse), 13th Century, French File:LitherlandCarnegieMuseumSteamboatontheOhio.jpg, ''Steamboat on the Ohio'', 1896, oil on canvas, Thomas Pollock Anshutz File:CarnegieMuseumofArtIndianHistory.jpg, Stele of

Vishnu Vishnu ( ; , ), also known as Narayana and Hari, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the supreme being within Vaishnavism, one of the major traditions within contemporary Hinduism. Vishnu is known as "The Preserver" withi ...

with Avatars and attendant deities, 1100s C.E., from central

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

File:Albert Bierstadt, Farallon Island 1887 Oil on Canvas.jpg, ''Farallon Island'', 1887, oil on canvas,

Albert Bierstadt Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was not ...

Past directors

* John W. Beaty (1896–1921) *

Homer Saint-Gaudens Homer Shiff Saint-Gaudens (1880-1953) was the only child of sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his wife Augusta (née Homer). He served as the Director of the Art Museum of the Carnegie Institute and was a founder of the Saint-Gaudens Memoria ...

(1922–1950) * Gordon Bailey Washburn (1950–1962) * Gustave Von Groschwitz (1963–1968) * Leon Arkus (1968–1980) * John R. Lane (1980–1987) * Phillip M. Johnston (1988–1996) * Richard Armstrong (1996–2008) * Lynn Zelevansky (2009–2017) * Eric Crosby (2018–present)

References

External links

*
Carnegie Museums

A finding aid to the Carnegie Institute, Museum of Art records, 1883-1962, bulk 1885-1940, in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
{{Authority control 1896 establishments in Pennsylvania Andrew Carnegie Art museums established in 1896 Art museums and galleries in Pennsylvania Asian art museums in the United States Edward Larrabee Barnes buildings Institutions accredited by the American Alliance of Museums Modern art museums in the United States Museums in Pittsburgh Plaster cast collections Tourist attractions in Pittsburgh