The Michele and Donald D'Amour Museum of Fine Arts, also called the D'Amour Museum of Fine Arts, is an art museum on the Quadrangle in

Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield is the most populous city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States, and its county seat. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the ea ...

, which is primarily focused on paintings and works on paper.

History

The museum's construction and collection was established with funds from the estate of Dr. and Mrs. James Philip Gray, and the

steel frame Steel frame is a building technique with a "skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal I-beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame. The develop ...

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

building was designed by New York-based firm Tilton and Githens. The Springfield Museum of Fine Arts opened in October 1933. The Fine Arts museum is facing the

Springfield Science Museum The Springfield Science Museum is located in Springfield, Massachusetts, in the United States. Founded in 1859, the museum has operated in its current building since 1899. The building has undergone two expansions, in 1934 and 1970. It is also h ...

; both buildings were designed together as a unit. In 1943, the museum held a mural competition to find an artist to paint a mural in the museum's library, with Honoré Sharrer submitting a design;

Sante Graziani Sante Graziani (March 11, 1920 – March 15, 2005) was an American artist and art educator. He was known for his murals, which adorned many public buildings. Education Graziani was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to parents who had immigrated from Tus ...

ultimately won. Graziani painted his winning mural in 1947. Between 1955 and 2001, the museum had a 16th-century Italian painting by

Jacopo Bassano Jacopo Bassano (c. 1510 – 14 February 1592), known also as Jacopo dal Ponte, was an Italian painter who was born and died in Bassano del Grappa near Venice, and took the village as his surname. Having trained in the workshop of his father, Fran ...

, called "Spring Sowing", in their collection. The piece had been stolen from the Italian embassy in Poland in 1939, and in 1945 the Lucerne Fine Arts Company, based in

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, bought the painting from a Swiss woman who claimed it had been in her family for generations. The Springfield Museum bought the painting from Lucerne through an art dealer in 1955. Although the painting was known to be in Springfield by the 1960s, the difficulty of determining whether it was the original painting delayed any possible repatriation. In the late 1990s, Italy began pursuing repatriation, which the museum agreed to. "Spring Sowing" was returned to the

Uffizi Gallery The Uffizi Gallery ( ; , ) is a prominent art museum adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums and the most visited, it is also one of ...

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

, Italy in June 2001, and the gallery lent the museum another Bassano painting in thanks. In 2008, the museum was renamed to the Michele and Donald D'Amour Museum of Fine Arts following a $4 million donation by Michele and Donald D'Amour, who at the time was the CEO of regional supermarket chain

Big Y Big Y Foods, Inc. (or Big Y) is an American, family-owned supermarket chain located in Massachusetts and Connecticut. It operates under the trade names Big Y World Class Market or Big Y Supermarket. The company is headquartered in Springfield, Ma ...

. In 2018, the museum entered into a partnership with the

Boston Museum of Fine Arts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, allowing for works to be lent and exhibited between the two more easily.

Exhibits

The museum's Blake Court gallery holds ''The Historical Monument of the American Republic'' (1867-1888), a 9 x 13 ft painting by

Erastus Salisbury Field Erastus Salisbury Field (May 19, 1805 in Leverett, Massachusetts – June 28, 1900 in Sunderland, Massachusetts) was an American folk art painter of portraits, landscapes, and history pictures. Erastus Field and his twin sister, Salome, were born ...

, as well as paintings by

Hudson River School The Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. Early on, the paintings typically depicted the Hudson River Valley and the sur ...

artists. On the second floor, the Carol and Noel Leary Gallery of Impressionist Art features a number of French impressionist paintings, including '' Grainstack'' by

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

, and pieces by

Degas Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French people, French Impressionism, Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. Degas also produced bronze sculptures, Print ...

Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramist, and writer, whose work has been primarily associated with the Post-Impressionist and Symbolist movements. He was also an influ ...

Pissarro Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro ( ; ; 10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but t ...

, and

Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; ; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that ...

. The museum also has galleries of 18th and 19th-century French art, and 16th and 17th-century Dutch and Flemish art. The museum has featured temporary exhibitions of pieces by

Isabel Bishop Isabel Bishop (March 3, 1902 – February 19, 1988) was an American painter and graphic artist. Bishop studied under Kenneth Hayes Miller at the Art Students League of New York, where she would later become an instructor. She was most notable fo ...

Marc Chagall Marc Chagall (born Moishe Shagal; – 28 March 1985) was a Russian and French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with the School of Paris, École de Paris, as well as several major art movement, artistic styles and created ...

Lisa Hoke Lisa Hoke (born 1952) is an American visual artist based in New York City and Hudson Valley, New York.Sisto, Elena"'Unmitigated, Unknowable Joy': A Studio Visit with Lisa Hoke" ''artcritical'', June 16, 2015. Retrieved August 18, 2021.Butler, Sh ...

Vassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky ( – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in Odessa, where ...

, William Jurian Kaula and Lee Lufkin Kaula,

Frances Flora Bond Palmer Frances is an English given name or last name of Latin origin. In Latin the meaning of the name Frances is 'from France' or 'the French.' The male version of the name in English is Francis. The original Franciscus, meaning "Frenchman", comes from ...

, Theodore Rousseau, Nelson Stevens, and

Ai Weiwei Ai Weiwei ( ; , IPA: ; born 28 August 1957) is a Chinese contemporary artist, documentarian, and activist. Ai grew up in the far northwest of China, where he lived under harsh conditions due to his father's exile. As an activist, he has been ...

References

{{coord, 42.1037, -72.5863, type:landmark_region:US-MA, display=title 1934 establishments in Massachusetts Art museums and galleries in Massachusetts Museums established in 1934 Museums in Springfield, Massachusetts