The Newark Museum of Art (formerly known as the Newark Museum), in

Newark Newark most commonly refers to: * Newark, New Jersey, city in the United States * Newark Liberty International Airport, New Jersey; a major air hub in the New York metropolitan area Newark may also refer to: Places Canada * Niagara-on-the ...

, Essex County,

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, is the state's largest

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

. It holds major collections of American art, decorative arts, contemporary art, and arts of Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the ancient world. Its extensive collections of American art include works by

Hiram Powers Hiram Powers (July 29, 1805 – June 27, 1873) was an American neoclassical sculptor. He was one of the first 19th-century American artists to gain an international reputation, largely based on his famous marble sculpture ''The Greek Slave''. ...

Thomas Cole Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist and the founder of the Hudson River School art movement. Cole is widely regarded as the first significant American landscape painter. He was known for his romantic landscape and history painti ...

, John Singer Sargent,

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 ...

, Frederick Church,

Childe Hassam Frederick Childe Hassam (; October 17, 1859 – August 27, 1935) was an American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressioni ...

Mary Cassatt Mary Stevenson Cassatt (; May 22, 1844June 14, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh's North Side), but lived much of her adult life in France, where she befriended Edgar De ...

Edward Hopper Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realist painter and printmaker. While he is widely known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. Hopper created subdued drama ...

Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Ame ...

Joseph Stella Joseph Stella (born Giuseppe Michele Stella, June 13, 1877 – November 5, 1946) was an Italian-born American Futurist painter best known for his depictions of industrial America, especially his images of the Brooklyn Bridge. He is also ...

, Tony Smith and

Frank Stella Frank Philip Stella (born May 12, 1936) is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker, noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. Stella lives and works in New York City. Biography Frank Stella was born in Ma ...

. The Museum's

Tibetan art The vast majority of surviving Tibetan art created before the mid-20th century is religious, with the main forms being thangka, paintings on cloth, mostly in a technique described as gouache or distemper, Tibetan Buddhist wall paintings, and sm ...

galleries are considered among the best in the world. The collection was purchased from Christian missionaries in the early twentieth century. The Tibetan galleries have an in-situ

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

altar that the

Dalai Lama Dalai Lama (, ; ) is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current D ...

has consecrated. In addition to its extensive art collections, the Newark Museum of Art is dedicated to natural

science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

. It includes the Dreyfuss Planetarium and the Victoria Hall of Science which highlights selections from the museum's 70,000 specimen Natural Science Collection. The Alice Ransom Dreyfuss Memorial Garden, located behind the museum, houses numerous works of contemporary sculpture and is the setting for community programs, concerts and performances. The garden is also home to a 1784 old stone schoolhouse and the Newark Fire Museum. The museum was founded in 1909 by librarian and reformer

John Cotton Dana John Cotton Dana (born August 19, 1856, in Woodstock, Vermont – died July 21, 1929, in Newark, New Jersey) was an American library and museum director who sought to make these cultural institutions relevant to the daily lives of citizens. As ...

. As the charter described it, the purpose was "to establish in the City of Newark, New Jersey, a museum for the reception and exhibition of articles of art, science, history and technology, and for the encouragement of the study of the arts and sciences." The kernel of the museum was a collection of

Japanese prints Woodblock printing in Japan (, ''mokuhanga'') is a technique best known for its use in the ''ukiyo-e'' artistic genre of single sheets, but it was also used for printing books in the same period. Widely adopted in Japan during the Edo period (160 ...

, silks, and porcelains assembled by a Newark pharmacist. Originally located on the fourth floor of the

Newark Public Library The Newark Public Library (NPL) is a public library system in Newark, New Jersey. The library system offers numerous programs and events to its diverse population. With eight different locations, the Newark Public Library serves as a Statewide Re ...

, the museum moved into its own purpose-built structure in the 1920s on Washington Park after a gift by

Louis Bamberger Louis Bamberger (15 May 1855 – 11 March 1944) was the leading citizen of Newark, New Jersey, from the early 1900s until his death in 1944. He and his sister Caroline Bamberger Fuld co-founded the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Ne ...

. It was designed by

Jarvis Hunt Jarvis Hunt (August 6, 1863 - June 15, 1941) was a Chicago architect who designed a wide array of buildings, including railroad stations, suburban estates, industrial buildings, clubhouses and other structures. Biography Hunt was born in Weath ...

, who also designed Bamberger's flagship Newark store. Since then, the museum has expanded several times, to the south into the red brick former YMCA and to the north into the 1885 Ballantine House, by means of a four-year, $23 million renovation. In 1990, the museum expanded to the west into an existing acquired building. At that time much of the museum, including the new addition, was redesigned by

Michael Graves Michael Graves (July 9, 1934 – March 12, 2015) was an American architect, designer, and educator, as well as principal of Michael Graves and Associates and Michael Graves Design Group. He was a member of The New York Five and the Memphis Gr ...

. The museum had a mini-zoo with small animals for some twenty years, until August 2010. For the security of climate-sensitive artwork, the museum closed its front entrance to the public in 1997 to minimize the effects of temperature and humidity changes. However, in February 2018, after extensive renovation and the construction of a ramp for disabled access, the front doors were reopened. On November 6, 2019, the museum changed its name to "The Newark Museum of Art" to highlight the focus of the museum on its art collection which was ranked 12th in the country. The

Newark Black Film Festival The Newark Black Film Festival (NBFF), held every summer since 1974 at the Newark Museum in Newark, New Jersey, is the longest running Black film festival in the United States. The NBFF focuses on the work and history of African Americans and the ...

was founded in conjunction with the Museum and was formerly held every summer on the Museum campus. The museum is open daily from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

The Ballantine House

The Ballantine house is a preserved and restored house from the Victorian Era, designed by architect George Edward Harney. It was home to John Holme Ballantine, his wife, Jeannette, and their children, John, Robert, Alice, and Percy. Mr. Ballantine owned and ran a brewery in the Ironbound section of Newark. The house originally had twenty-seven rooms and three floors. In 1937, the Newark Museum bought the house and has since restored it to serve as galleries for the extensive decorative arts collections.

Notes

References

External links

The Newark Museum of ArtDreyfuss Planetarium
* - article on Museum
The Newark Museum of Art
within Google Arts & Culture * {{DEFAULTSORT:Newark Museum of Art Culture of Newark, New Jersey Planetaria in the United States Art museums and galleries in New Jersey Asian art museums in the United States Newark Museum of Art Natural history museums in New Jersey Museums in Newark, New Jersey Michael Graves buildings Art museums established in 1909 1909 establishments in New Jersey Historic district contributing properties in Newark, New Jersey National Register of Historic Places in Newark, New Jersey Association of Science-Technology Centers member institutions New Jersey Register of Historic Places Non-profit organizations based in New Jersey New Classical architecture African art museums in the United States