History
Artist’s rendering of the Montclair Art Museum from 1913. Featured in the Montclair Times on Saturday, July 5, 1913 to celebrate the laying of the Museum’s original cornerstone.
The Montclair Art Museum
A Brief Overview
“Montclair, as generously endowed by Nature, may be enriched by Art and so rendered even more attractive as a select residential town.”
–William T. Evans (1909), Montclair civic leader who presided over the commission that led to the founding of the Montclair Art Museum.
A notable community institution with an international reputation, the Montclair Art Museum is still located in the same—though now thrice-expanded—building in which it opened in 1914. Situated amid a beautiful, tree-lined residential area of Montclair, New Jersey, just 12 miles west of New York City, the Museum is esteemed for its holdings of American and Native American art, its exhibition programs, and its educational offerings.
The Museum was a pioneer: one of the country’s first museums primarily engaged in collecting American art (including the work of contemporary, nonacademic artists) and among the first dedicated to the study and creation of a significant ethnographic art collection. This pioneering spirit still reverberates in the Museum’s pursuit and presentation of high-quality art that characterizes and celebrates America’s diversity.
The collection has grown to over 12,000 works. The American collection, which began with a gift of 30 paintings from William T. Evans, a Montclair civic leader, comprises paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, and sculpture dating from the 18th century to the present, and features excellent works by Benjamin West, Asher B. Durand, George Inness, John Singer Sargent, Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein, as well as younger and emerging artists such as Louise Lawler, Chakaia Booker, Whitfield Lovell, and Willie Cole.
The Museum’s superb holdings of traditional and contemporary American Indian art and artifacts represent the cultural achievements in weaving, pottery, wood carving, jewelry, and textiles of indigenous Americans from seven major regions—Northwest Coast, California, Southwest, Plains, Woodlands, Southeast, and the Arctic. The collection was begun by Annie Valentine Rand and carried on by her philanthropic daughter Florence Rand Lang, one of the Museum’s founders, and continues to grow with commissioned works, gifts, and purchases that celebrate the vitality and modernity of traditional forms and beliefs. Among the contemporary American Indian artists represented are Tony Abeyta, Dan Namingha, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Allan Houser, Bentley Spang, and Marie Watt.
The Museum’s extensive education programs serve a wide public and, often in collaboration with cultural and community partners, bring artists, performers, and scholars to the Museum on a regular basis. MAM’s Yard School of Art is the leading regional art school, offering a multitude of comprehensive classes for kids, teens, adults, seniors, and professional artists.
One of the first museums to be accredited by the American Association of Museums, the Montclair Art Museum welcomes more than 65,000 visitors annually to its acclaimed exhibitions and programs. The expansion and progress of the Museum has been made possible by the participation, generosity, and farsightedness of its founders, trustees, members, and friends. Their support has helped to make the Montclair Art Museum the vital institution it is today.
