Founded in 1896, the Worcester Art Museum (WAM) has an impressive and unique collection of more than 38,000 works of art. There are 51 centuries of art and culture at the Museum.
Visitors to Worcester are often told “you must see the John Woodman Higgins Armory Collection*.” Another “don’t miss” is the Wall at WAM mural installed on a second-story, 67-foot expanse. And visitors are often quoted as saying “The Renaissance court is awesome!”
*In 2013, Worcester’s Higgins Armory Museum closed its doors and its renowned collection of 2,000 arms and armor was integrated into WAM’s.
WAM draws many to see its Medieval Chapter House, the Worcester Hunt Mosaic, its 15th-century Spanish ceiling, and the Flemish Last Judgment tapestry. A more recent installation is the interactive Reusable Universes and Organic Concept works by Shi Chieh Huang. There is art from the ancient Near East and Asia as well European and American paintings and works by contemporary artists from around the world. John Chandler Bancroft, a wealthy Bostonian, bequeathed more than 3,000 Japanese prints.
European paintings include Flemish Renaissance paintings, an El Greco, Rembrandt, a room of Impressionist and 20th-century works by Monet, Matisse, Renoir, Gauguin, and Kandinsky. The American painting collection includes works by Thomas Cole, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, William Morris Hunt, and Elizabeth Goodridge. In the 20th-century gallery, the Museum has works by Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, and Joan Mitchell. In 1901,
Worcester History
In September 1896, Stephen Salisbury III and a group of his friends founded the Art Museum Corporation to build an art institution “for the benefit of all.” Salisbury then gave a tract of land, on what was once the Salisbury farm, as well as $100,000 to construct a building designed by Worcester architect Stephen C. Earle. The museum formally opened in 1898. In 1905, Stephen Salisbury died and left the bulk of his five million-dollar estate to the museum.
Between 1932 and 1939, the Worcester Art Museum joined a consortium of museums and institutions to sponsor expeditions to the archaeological sites where the city of Antioch once stood. The Antioch mosaics were split up among the institutions.
On May 17, 1972, the museum suffered a major theft of artwork. Two men wearing masks entered the museum just before closing. The two men stole The Brooding Woman and Head of a Woman by Paul Gauguin, Mother and Child by Pablo Picasso, and St. Bartholomew, attributed to Rembrandt, a collection of works worth over one million dollars.
Worcester Art Museum
55 Salisbury Street, Worcester, MA 01609
508-799-4406
www.worcesterart.org
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