Toledo Museum of Art

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Toledo Museum of Art
Established	1901
Location	Toledo, Ohio, USA
Type	Art museum
Director	Brian P. Kennedy
Website	ToledoMuseum.org

The Toledo Museum of Art is an internationally known art museum located in the Old West End neighborhood of Toledo, Ohio, United States. The museum was founded by Toledo glassmaker Edward Drummond Libbey in 1901, and moved to its current location, a Greek revival building designed by Edward B. Green and Harry W. Wachter on January 17, 1912.^[1] The building was expanded twice in the 1920s and 1930s.^[2] Brian Kennedy serves as the museum's director.

Exhibits [edit]

The Rubens painting, The Crowning of Saint Catherine, from the collection of the Toledo Museum of Art. It was bought in 1950, to Albert Koppel, apparently, the son of very wealthy science entrepreneur and science mecenas converted to the evalengical faith, German-Jewish banker Leopold Koppel, (Dresden,1834 - 1933), after being used for the private pleasure of German Nazi and Hitler´s commander of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Göring, (1893 - suicide by poisoning with cyanide 15 October 1946), and being hidden afterwards in a salt mine. It is said it was tracked back and denounced to the American Occupation Troops in Germany after 1945 . The painting had been bought by Leopold Koppel to some English Dukes around 1911

The museum contains major collections of glass art of the 19th and 20th century European and American art, as well as small but distinguished Renaissance, Greek and Roman, and Japanese collections. Notable individual works include Peter Paul Rubens's The Crowning of Saint Catherine, significant minor works by Rembrandt and El Greco, and modern works by Willem de Kooning, Henry Moore, and Sol LeWitt, as well as Fragonard's Blind man's bluff.

A concert hall within the east wing, the Peristyle, is built in a classical style to match the museum's exterior. The hall is the principal concert space for the Toledo Symphony Orchestra. A sculpture garden, containing primarily postwar works (earlier sculptures are on display in the interior) was added in 2001, and runs in a narrow band along the museum's Monroe Street facade.

The Toledo Museum features an extended exhibit, entitled The Egypt Experience: Secrets of the Tomb, Oct. 29, 2010-Jan. 8, 2012. The exhibit "is designed to showcase how architecture and objects inside tombs were intended to make the mummy comfortable." ^[3]

Glass Pavilion [edit]

Toledo Glass Pavilion		Interior of the Glass Pavilion.

A Center for the Visual Arts, designed by Frank Gehry, was added in the 1990s. It includes the museum's library as well as studio, office, and classroom space for the art department of the University of Toledo. In 2000, the architectural firm of SANAA was chosen to design a new building, to house the museum's glass collection; it was the firm's first commission in the United States. Front Inc.^[4] was appointed to assist the architects in developing technical concepts for the glass wall systems. The Glass Pavilion opened in August 2006 to considerable critical acclaim; in his review for The New York Times, Nicolai Ouroussoff said, "Composed with exquisite delicacy, the pavilion’s elegant maze of curved glass walls represents the latest monument to evolve in a chain extending back to the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles." Ouroussoff commented on the Pavilion's relationship with the Museum's other buildings:

The Glass Pavilion is part of a loosely knit complex that includes the Beaux-Arts-style art museum here and the University of Toledo’s Center for the Visual Arts, designed by Frank Gehry. With its grand staircase leading up to a row of Ionic columns, the original museum is both a temple to art and a monument to the belief in high culture’s ability to uplift the life of the worker. The new structure’s low, horizontal form fits in this context with remarkable delicacy, as if the architects hesitated to disturb the surroundings.

The glass for the building was imported entirely from China.^[5] Simon Bower summed it up with: "...they designed a monument of American craftsmanship so awesome that American craftsman couldn't actually build it."^[6]

The building showcases the museum's original glass collection in addition to several new works, including one prominent glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly. The Glass Pavilion is made possible through the largest public fundraising drive in Toledo's history.

References [edit]

Notes [edit]

Resources [edit]

• Ouroussoff, Nicolai. "A Crystal Showcase Reflects a City’s Glass Legacy." The New York Times, August 28, 2006.
• Davis, Ben. "Glass Houses" Artnet Magazine, Aug. 30, 2006.

External links [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Toledo Museum of Art

• Official museum webpage
• Center for Visual Arts, University of Toledo
• Video review of the Museum with on-site footage

Coordinates: 41°39′29″N 83°33′34″W / 41.65806°N 83.55944°W / 41.65806; -83.55944