The Jersey City Museum was a municipal art museum in
Jersey City, New Jersey
Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark.[Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University
The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum (known popularly as the Zimmerli Art Museum) is located on the Voorhees Mall of the campus of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The museum houses more than 60,000 works, including Russian and ...]
.
In 2018, the Jersey City municipal government began the process of establishing a new museum in a historic building at
Journal Square
Journal Square is a business district, residential area, and transportation hub in Jersey City, New Jersey, which takes its name from the newspaper ''Jersey Journal'' whose headquarters were located there from 1911 to 2013. The "square" itself is ...
. After renovations, it is expected to open in 2024 as Centre Pompidou x Jersey City, a satellite museum of the
Centre Pompidou
The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
, and exhibit works of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries from the Pompidou collection.
History
1901–2000 at Jersey City Public Library
The Jersey City Museum dates back to 1901, when its collection was housed on the fourth floor of the Jersey City Free Public Library on Jersey Avenue, in the
Van Vorst Park
Van Vorst Park is a neighborhood in the Historic Downtown of Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey, centered on a park sharing the same name. The neighborhood is located west of Paulus Hook and Marin Boulevard, north of Grand Street, east of t ...
section of
downtown
''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...
. It closed in 1953 for lack of funding and re-opened in 1975. Jersey City historian
J. Owen Grundy served five times as the museum president.
The collection remained under the aegis of the library until 1987, when the museum association initiated efforts for the founding of a separate nonprofit institution.
In 1993, the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency (JCRA) donated a building on Montgomery Street for display of the museum collection.
2001–2013 at Montgomery Street
The museum relocated to a new location (also in the Van Vorst Park section) in 2001. The cream-colored brick building at 350 Montgomery Street, a former post office warehouse circa 1929, was renovated at the cost of $6.5 million, to become the museum's next location.
[ Designed by architect ]Charles Alling Gifford
Charles Alling Gifford (July 17, 1860 – May 3, 1937) was an American architect and a partner in the New York City firm of Gifford & Bates. He is best remembered for his resort hotels, but also designed houses, churches, and five armories for ...
, the interior offered a modern space enhanced by a skylight lobby. The re-fitted building included several galleries, a 152-seat theater, museum offices, a classroom, and a gift shop.
The stated mission of the museum was to serve the community by "maintaining, preserving, and interpreting the region's cultural heritage". In order to stimulate community participation in the visual arts and to reflect the cultural diversity of New Jersey, the museum gave special attention to the exhibition of contemporary art
Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...
, and it recognized the visual artists residing in New Jersey and its metropolitan area. For example, the museum hosted the debut of a solo exhibition
A solo show or solo exhibition is an exhibition of the work of only one artist. The artwork may be paintings, drawings, etchings, collage, sculpture, or photography. The creator of any artistic technique may be the subject of a solo show. Other s ...
of the works of Priscila De Carvalho.
Due to financial difficulties and in danger of losing the building, the museum closed to the general public in December 2010, amid speculation that it might not reopen. However, the building was purchased by the Jersey City Medical Center
The Jersey City Medical Center is a hospital in Jersey City, New Jersey. The hospital has had different facilities in the city. It is currently located on a 15-acre campus at Grand Street and Jersey Avenue overlooking New York Harbor and Lib ...
in February 2012 for partial use as offices, with the remaining space and theater dedicated to display of the museum collection that reopened in June, but closed permanently soon thereafter. A 2015 court ruling decided that the city government was not obligated to financially support the museum and that the collection belonged to the museum association.
2018 donation to Rutgers
The museum's collection comprises American art and material culture from the colonial period through the present, including painting, sculpture, decorative arts, photography, works on paper, furniture, metals, textiles, maps, industrial objects, and ephemera. It included works by contemporary artists David Wojnarowicz
David Michael Wojnarowicz ( (September 14, 1954 – July 22, 1992) was an American painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, songwriter/recording artist, and AIDS activist prominent in the East Village art scene. He incorp ...
, Chakaia Booker
Chakaia Booker (born 1953 in Newark, New Jersey) is an American sculptor known for creating monumental, abstract works for both the gallery and outdoor public spaces. Booker’s works are contained in more than 40 public collections and have been ...
, and Emma Amos, pieces by Colin Campbell Cooper
Colin Campbell Cooper, Jr. (March 8, 1856 – November 6, 1937) was an American Impressionism, American Impressionist painter, perhaps most renowned for his architectural paintings, especially of skyscrapers in New York City, Philadelphia, and Ch ...
, and a large body of work by nineteenth-century painter August Will August Will (1834–1910) was a German-American artist who spent the majority of his life living in Jersey City, New Jersey.
He was born in Weimar, Germany and immigrated to the New York City and New Jersey region when he was a young man. Although ...
.[
In 2018, the museum collection (estimated between 5,000 to 10,000 works) was donated to the ]Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University
The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum (known popularly as the Zimmerli Art Museum) is located on the Voorhees Mall of the campus of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The museum houses more than 60,000 works, including Russian and ...
.[
]
Pathside Building
In April 2016, the city government announced that it was considering purchasing the building at 25 Journal Square
Journal Square is a business district, residential area, and transportation hub in Jersey City, New Jersey, which takes its name from the newspaper ''Jersey Journal'' whose headquarters were located there from 1911 to 2013. The "square" itself is ...
. The building had been built in 1912 as part of the Public Service
A public service is any service intended to address specific needs pertaining to the aggregate members of a community. Public services are available to people within a government jurisdiction as provided directly through public sector agencies ...
transportation hub for its streetcar lines. That corporation became known as Public Service Electric and Gas Company
The Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) is a publicly traded diversified energy company headquartered in Newark, New Jersey and was established in 1985 with a legacy dating back to 1903.
The company's largest subsidiary is Public Service Elect ...
, whose transportation business became the nucleus of the NJ Transit
New Jersey Transit Corporation, branded as NJ Transit, and often shortened to NJT, is a state-owned public transportation system that serves the U.S. state of New Jersey, along with portions of New York State and Pennsylvania. It operates bu ...
bus network and the Newark City Subway
The Newark Light Rail (NLR) is a light rail system serving Newark, New Jersey and surrounding areas, operated by New Jersey Transit Bus Operations. The service consists of two segments, the original Newark City Subway (NCS), and the extension t ...
. The building had been purchased in 1996 by Hudson County Community College
Hudson County Community College (HCCC) is a public community college in Hudson County, New Jersey.
Locations
The school's main campus is located in Jersey City, with several institutions tapered throughout Journal Square and nearby Bergen Squar ...
, which renamed it to "Pathside". The college used the building until 2017. The city purchased the edifice through its redevelopment agency, JCRA, in 2018 and, after an RFP, awarded Office of Metropolitan Architecture
The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is an international architectural firm with offices in Rotterdam, New York, Hong Kong, Doha, and Australia. The firm is currently led by eight partners - Rem Koolhaas, Reinier de Graaf, Ellen van ...
the commission to conceive and design a new space for a new Jersey City Museum.
Centre Pompidou x Jersey City
In June 2021, the city announced that the Pathside building would be renovated for use as a satellite of the Centre Pompidou
The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
in Paris. Under a five-year extendable contract, the renovated Pathside would house an exhibition of artworks from Centre Pompidou, following closure of the Paris museum for its three-year renovation, planned to begin in late 2023. The satellite museum will be called Centre Pompidou x Jersey City. An opening in early 2024 is scheduled, with works of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries drawn from Pompidou's 120,000-piece collection.[Chang, Rachel, ]
One of Paris's Most Iconic Museums Is Opening Its First North American Location in an Unexpected U.S. City
', Travel and Leisure, June 07, 2021
See also
* Museum of Russian Art
The Museum of Russian Art (MoRA) is a museum in Jersey City, New Jersey dedicated to exhibiting Russian culture, Russian art, particularly Soviet Nonconformist Art. It was established in 1980 as CASE Museum of Contemporary Russian Art (the name ...
* Mana Contemporary
Mana Contemporary is a cultural center in Jersey City, New Jersey, United States with affiliated centers in Chicago and Miami.
History and Founder
Opened in May 2011, the center was founded by moving company mogul Moishe Mana. Shai Baitel ...
References
External links
''The New York Times'' articles on the Jersey City Museum
Exterior view of the museum
Interior view of the museum
{{authority control
Culture of Jersey City, New Jersey
Art museums and galleries in New Jersey
Museums in Hudson County, New Jersey
Buildings and structures in Jersey City, New Jersey
Art museums established in 1901
1901 establishments in New Jersey
Tourist attractions in Jersey City, New Jersey