View source for Montclair Art Museum

{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2015}}
{{Infobox museum
| name            = Montclair Art Museum
| image           = Montclair Art Museum (Montclair, New Jersey).jpg
| imagesize       = 300
| map_type        = 
| established     = Chartered 1909; opened 1914
| location        = [[Montclair, New Jersey]], [[United States|U.S.]]
| type            = [[Art museum]]<ref name= "MAM: About">{{citation | title= Montclair Art Museum: About | publisher=ARTINFO  | year=2008 | url= https://www.artinfo.com/galleryguide/19454/6001/about/montclair-art-museum-montclair/| accessdate=July 21, 2008 }}</ref>
| collections     = [[Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native American]], [[Visual arts of the United States|American]], [[Contemporary art|Contemporary]]
| collection_size = 
| visitors        = 
| director        = Ira Wagner
| publictransit   = NJ Transit (bus and rail), [[Walnut Street (NJT station)|Walnut Street Station]]; [[DeCamp Bus Lines]]
| website         = [https://www.montclairartmuseum.org/ montclairartmuseum.org]
{{Infobox NRHP
| name         = Montclair Art Museum
| embed        = yes
| nrhp_type    =
| location     = 3 S. Mountain Avenue, [[Montclair, New Jersey]]
| coordinates  = {{coord|40|49|7|N|74|13|27|W|display=inline,title}}
| locmapin     = USA New Jersey Essex County#New Jersey#USA
| built        = 1913
| added        = November 14, 1986
| mpsub        = {{NRHP url|id=64000493|title=Montclair MRA}}
| refnum       = 86002984<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|version=2013a|refnum=86002984}}</ref>
}}
}}

The '''Montclair Art Museum''' (MAM) is located in [[Montclair, New Jersey|Montclair]] in [[Essex County, New Jersey]] and holds a collection of over 12,000 objects showcasing [[Visual art of the United States|American]] and [[Native American art|Native North American art]]. Through its public programs, art classes, and exhibitions, MAM strives to create experiences that inspire, challenge, and foster community to shape our shared future.

Montclair Art Museum has been privately funded since it opened in 1914 as the first museum in New Jersey that granted access to the public and the first dedicated solely to art. The building was added to the [[National Register of Historic Places]] on November 14, 1986, for its significance in art and architecture.<ref name="nris"/><ref name="nrhpdoc">{{cite web|url={{NRHP url|id=86002984}}|title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Montclair Art Museum |publisher=[[National Park Service]]|first1=Diane |last1=Lutters |date=April 1980 }} With {{NRHP url|id=86002984|photos=y|title=accompanying photo}}</ref> It was listed in the Montclair Artists Colony section of the Historic Resources of Montclair [[Multiple Property Submission]] (MPS).<ref name="mps">{{cite web |title=Historic Resources of Montclair Multiple Resources Area |url={{NRHP url|id=64000493|title=}} |publisher=[[National Park Service]] |first1=Eleanor |last1=Price |date=November 1986 |page=[{{NRHP url|id=64000493}}#page=6 6]}}</ref>

==Collection==
The Montclair Art Museum is one of the few museums in the United States devoted to [[Visual arts of the United States|American art]] and [[Native American art]] forms. The collection consists of more than 12,000 works. The American collection comprises paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, and sculpture dating from the 18th century to the present. The museum's holdings of historical, modern, and contemporary Indigenous art from North America include textiles, pottery, beadwork, woodcarving, jewelry, painting, sculpture, and more. The historical Native art collection represents one of the major repositories of the collecting activities of Pasadena-based dealer [[Grace Nicholson]].

The museum has the only gallery in the world dedicated solely to the work of the 19th-century American painter [[George Inness]], who lived in Montclair from 1885 to 1894 and painted in the area. He is often acknowledged as the father of American landscape painting. <ref>{{Cite web |last=Esplund |first=Lance |date=January 25, 2023 |title='George Inness: Visionary Landscapes' Review: Enchanted by the Light |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/george-inness-visionary-landscapes-review-enchanted-by-the-light-11674685589 |website=The Wall Street Journal}}</ref> MAM's Inness paintings are, according to one critic, "the crown of the Montclair Art Museum's collection".<ref>{{cite news|last1=Schwabsky|first1=Barry|title=A Haven for Creative Talents, Then and Now|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/16/nyregion/a-haven-for-creative-talents-then-and-now.html|accessdate=February 24, 2015|work=New York Times|date=February 16, 1997}}</ref> Some of Inness's most important landscapes were inspired by the Montclair country side with works such as ''Early Autumn, Montclair, 1888''. <ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/ocm48883965 |title=Montclair Art Museum: selected works |date=2002 |publisher=The Museum : Distributed by Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-936489-61-2 |editor-last=Montclair Art Museum |location=Montclair, N.J |oclc=ocm48883965 |editor-last2=Birmingham |editor-first2=Mary}}</ref>  The intimate George Inness Gallery displays selected works from the museum's 21 Inness paintings, two of his watercolors, and an etching by the artist.<ref>Web page titled [https://www.montclair-art.com/collections-inness.php/ "George Inness Gallery"] at the Montclair Art Museum website, retrieved December 18, 2012</ref> It also features the work of sculptor [[William Couper (sculptor)|William Couper]], who lived in Montclair for fifteen years while sculpting and for another thirty in retirement.
 
Artists represented in the collection include [[Tony Abeyta]], [[Josef Albers]], [[Milton Avery]], [[Will Barnet]], [[Romare Bearden]], [[Thomas Hart Benton (painter)|Thomas Hart Benton]], [[Carl Borg]], [[Margaret Bourke-White]], [[Alexander Calder]], [[Ching Ho Cheng]], [[Thomas Cole]], [[Willie Cole]], [[Stuart Davis (painter)|Stuart Davis]], [[Willem de Kooning]], [[Richard Diebenkorn]], [[Elsie Driggs]], [[Asher B. Durand]], [[Thomas Eakins]], [[Harry Fonseca]], [[Lee Friedlander]], [[Jeffrey Gibson]], [[Arshile Gorky]], [[Marsden Hartley]], [[Elizabeth Hickox]], [[Robert Henri]], [[Winslow Homer]], [[Edward Hopper]], [[George Inness]], [[Ben Jones (artist)|Ben Jones]], [[Donald Judd]], [[Fred Kabotie]], [[Michael Lenson]], [[Helen Levitt]], [[Roy Lichtenstein]], [[Robert Longo]], [[Truman Lowe]], [[Whitfield Lovell]], [[Man Ray]], [[Thomas Manley (artist)|Thomas Manley]], [[Knox Martin]], [[Ma-Pe-Wi]], [[Robert Motherwell]], [[Dan Namingha]], [[Alice Neel]], [[Louise Nevelson]], [[Tom Nussbaum]], [[Georgia O'Keeffe]], [[Sarah Miriam Peale]], [[Rembrandt Peale]], [[Charles Willson Peale]], [[Philip Pearlstein]], [[Maurice Prendergast]], [[Oscar Bluemner]], [[Ad Reinhardt]], [[Mark Rothko]], [[Morgan Russell]], [[John Singer Sargent]], [[George Segal]], [[Ben Shahn]], [[Lorna Simpson]], [[Jaune Quick-To-See Smith]], [[Joseph Stella]], [[Kay WalkingStick]], [[Andy Warhol]], [[Max Weber]], and [[James Abbott McNeill Whistler]].

==History==
The arrival of the railroad in Montclair in the 1830s transformed a rural agricultural village into a prosperous suburban community, with a rail link to New York that was too expensive for the working class that traveled by street cars and trolleys.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Schwartz|first1=Joel|title=The Development of New Jersey Society|date=1998|publisher=New Jersey Historical Commission|location=Trenton, N.J.|pages=40–2}}</ref> Montclair's arts community centered on landscape painter [[George Inness]], who visited for several seasons beginning in 1878 and made it his home from 1885 until he died in 1894,<ref name=Schwabsky>{{cite news|last1=Schwabsky|first1=Barry|title=A Haven for Creative Talents, Then and Now|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/16/nyregion/a-haven-for-creative-talents-then-and-now.html|accessdate=March 10, 2015|work=New York Times|date=February 16, 1997}}</ref> when the ''New York Times'' described Montclair as "the home of more prominent artists and wealthy art connoisseurs, probably, than any other place in New-Jersey."<ref>{{cite news|title=Loan Exhibition at Montclair|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B00E7DF1630E033A25753C1A9659C94659ED7CF |accessdate=March 10, 2015|work=New York Times|date=March 10, 1894}}</ref> Others had preceded him as early as the 1860s, when illustrators [[Harry Fenn]] and Charles Parsons commuted by rail to their New York City studios, just as Inness and others did in the decades that followed.<ref name=Schwabsky /> They were year-round resident-commuters and varied in their stylistic approaches, unlike the impressionists that abandoned city life to gather for the summer in the "[[art colony|art colonies]]" at the end of the 19th century in [[Cos Cob Art Colony|Cos Cob]] and [[Old Lyme Art Colony|Old Lyme]], Connecticut, and [[New Hope, Pennsylvania]].<ref name=Raynor>{{cite news|last1=Raynor|first1=Viven|title=The Magnet of Montclair|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/27/nyregion/art-the-magnet-of-montclair-its-attractions-on-view.html |accessdate=March 10, 2015|work=New York Times|date=December 27, 1981}}</ref> Charles Eaton painted in a style much like that of Inness<ref name=Raynor /> and [[Frederick Judd Waugh]] devoted himself to seascapes,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Carlisle|first1=Robert D.B.|title=A Jewel in the Suburbs: The Montclair Art Museum|date=1982|publisher=Montclair Art Museum|location=Montclair, N.J.|pages=19–20}}</ref> while painter [[Henry Rankin Poore]] preferred a "workaday realism " in subject and texture of brushwork and his colleague [[Frederick Ballard Williams]] adopted a "more rough-hewn and turbulent form".<ref name=Schwabsky /> Walter and Emilie Greenough worked as stained-glass designers in the studio of [[John LaFarge]], who lived in Montclair for a time as well.<ref name=Raynor /> Sculptors included [[Jonathan Scott Hartley]], Inness's son-in-law, and [[William Couper (sculptor)|William Couper]].<ref name=Raynor />{{efn|Realist painter [[George Bellows]] was, unlike the others, only a summer resident.<ref name=Raynor />}} The "Inness Colony" provided the impetus for the establishment of the Montclair Art Museum. <ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/ocm48883965 |title=Montclair Art Museum: selected works |date=2002 |publisher=The Museum : Distributed by Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-936489-61-2 |editor-last=Montclair Art Museum |location=Montclair, N.J |oclc=ocm48883965 |editor-last2=Birmingham |editor-first2=Mary}}</ref>

The town created a Village Improvement Society in 1878, superseded by a Municipal Art Commission in 1908, to beautify Montclair and preserve the charm of a country town.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Carlisle|first1=Robert D.B.|title=A Jewel in the Suburbs: The Montclair Art Museum|date=1982|publisher=Montclair Art Museum|location=Montclair, N.J.|page=16}}</ref> The Commission's head was [[William T. Evans]], an Irish immigrant dry-goods magnate who had acquired the Inness estate in 1900.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Carlisle|first1=Robert D.B.|title=A Jewel in the Suburbs: The Montclair Art Museum|date=1982|publisher=Montclair Art Museum|location=Montclair, N.J.|pages=22–5}}</ref> Between the early 1880s and 1913, Evans amassed a collection of more than 800 American paintings, by far the largest collection of American art before World War I. In 1907, he donated several dozen works to the [[Smithsonian American Art Museum]] in [[Washington, D.C.]] (named "National Gallery of Art" at that time),<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rathbun |first1=Richard |title=The National Gallery of Art: Department of Arts of the National Museum |date=1909 |publisher=Government Printing Office |location=Washington |pages=115ff |url=https://archive.org/details/nationalgallery01rathgoog|accessdate=February 27, 2015}}</ref> and grew that number to 160 by the time of his death in 1918.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/11/26/106216871.pdf| title= William T. Evans, Art Collector, Dies| work=New York Times| date=November 26, 1918|accessdate=February 27, 2015}}</ref> In 1909, Evans offered to donate 26 oil paintings to the town of Montclair on condition that it provide a fireproof gallery space to house and display them.<ref name=carlisle25>{{cite book|last1=Carlisle|first1=Robert D.B.|title=A Jewel in the Suburbs: The Montclair Art Museum|date=1982|publisher=Montclair Art Museum|location=Montclair, N.J.}}</ref>{{rp|25}} The proposal was defeated in a referendum in 1910.<ref name=carlisle25/>{{rp|28}}

In response to that rejection, on December 8, 1910, the Municipal Art Commission transformed itself into the Montclair Art Association and proposed to create and manage an art gallery without government support. Raising funds still proved difficult until another Montclair resident, Florence Rand Lang (1861&ndash;1943), agreed to bear most of the expense and her gift of $50,000, much of it for the purchase of the site, transformed the project from a gallery into a museum.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Carlisle|first1=Robert D.B.|title=A Jewel in the Suburbs: The Montclair Art Museum|date=1982|publisher=Montclair Art Museum|location=Montclair, N.J.|pages=26–7}}</ref>{{efn|The Montclair Art Association continued under that name until 1962 when it adopted the name Montclair Art Museum.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Carlisle|first1=Robert D.B.|title=A Jewel in the Suburbs: The Montclair Art Museum|date=1982|publisher=Montclair Art Museum|location=Montclair, N.J.|page=29}}</ref>}} She had arrived in Montclair from Massachusetts as a teenager in 1873. Her initial donation was the first of many that totaled more than $250,000 over the next thirty years, plus $200,000 in her will and more from her estate.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Carlisle|first1=Robert D.B.|title=A Jewel in the Suburbs: The Montclair Art Museum|date=1982|publisher=Montclair Art Museum|location=Montclair, N.J.|pages=25, 81}}</ref>{{efn|Her philanthropy ranged from several institutions on [[Nantucket]] to [[Montclair High School (New Jersey)|Montclair High School]] and [[Scripps College]] in [[Claremont, California]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Mrs. Henry Lang, A Patron of the Arts|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/02/06/85626796.pdf |accessdate=February 25, 2015|work=New York Times|date=February 6, 1943}}</ref>}} She was heir to much of the Rand family fortune, amassed by her father Jasper Rand (1837&ndash;1909) and bachelor uncle Addison C. Rand (1841&ndash;1900), who together had founded [[Ingersoll Rand|Rand Drill Company]] in 1871.<ref>{{cite web |title=Addison C. Rand|url=https://www.nycommunitytrust.org/Portals/0/Uploads/Documents/BioBrochures/Addison%20C.%20Rand.pdf |publisher=New York Community Trust|accessdate=February 25, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Rand|first1=Florence Osgood |title=A Genealogy of the Rand Family in the United States|date=1898|publisher=The Republic Press |location=NY |page=86ff |url=https://archive.org/details/genealogyofrandf00inrand}}</ref>{{efn|Three of her younger siblings had died by 1892.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Rand|first1=Florence Osgood|title=A Genealogy of the Rand Family in the United States|date=1898 |publisher=The Republic Press|location=NY|page=[https://archive.org/details/genealogyofrandf00inrand/page/n145 120]|url=https://archive.org/details/genealogyofrandf00inrand}}</ref> Her uncle Addision died in 1900,<ref>{{cite news|title=Addison C. Rand|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1900/03/11/102435254.pdf |accessdate=February 27, 2015|work=New York Times|date=March 11, 1900}}</ref> her father Jasper in 1909.<ref>{{cite news|title=Obituary Notes|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1900/07/19/102610926.pdf|accessdate=February 27, 2015|work=New York Times|date=July 19, 1900}}</ref> Her mother, already feeble, traveled to Italy and died in Milan in 1907.<ref>{{cite news|title=Obituary Notes |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1907/10/31/104998826.pdf |accessdate=February 25, 2015|work=New York Times|date=October 31, 1907}}</ref> She was buried in the [[Protestant Cemetery, Rome|Protestant Cemetery]] in Rome.<ref>{{cite web|title=Protestant Cemetery, Rome: Stone 2153|url=https://databank.ora.ox.ac.uk/sandbox/datasets/Rahtz_test_2/ProtestantCemetery/S2153.html|website=Databank|accessdate=February 27, 2015}}</ref> Florence's youngest and last remaining sibling died in 1909 at age 35 in Utah, where he was recuperating from pneumonia.<ref>{{cite news|work=New York Times|accessdate=February 27, 2015 |date=April 1, 1909|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1909/04/01/101874156.pdf |title= Jasper Rand}}</ref>}}

Needing a dedicated structure to house the collections, museum trustee Michel Le Brun hired [[Albert Randolph Ross|Albert R. Ross]] to design a [[Neoclassical architecture|neoclassical]] building. Ross had worked on several [[Carnegie library|Carnegie libraries]] and the [[Pueblo County Courthouse]] (1908&ndash;12) in Colorado.{{efn|Ross later won the design competition for the [[Milwaukee County Courthouse]] in 1927, a competition that Frank Lloyd lost with some amusement.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Wright|first1=Frank Lloyd|title=Frank Lloyd Wright: An Autobiography|date=1943|publisher=Duell, Sloan and Pearce|page=358|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S8zlZcJjNEMC&pg=PA358|isbn=9780764932434}}</ref>}}

When the museum opened on January 15, 1914, it was the first museum in New Jersey that granted access to the public and the first dedicated solely to art.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Carlisle|first1=Robert D.B.|title=A Jewel in the Suburbs: The Montclair Art Museum|date=1982|publisher=Montclair Art Museum|location=Montclair, N.J.|pages=5, 14}}</ref> On the circular lawn in front of the museum's entrance, the founders placed a bronze sculpture by [[Hermon Atkins MacNeil]], ''[[The Sun Vow]]'', another gift from Evans. It remains on view.{{efn|The work depicts a romanticized scene that even the sculptor admitted was dubious: a Sioux elder assesses a boy's effort to prove himself by shooting an arrow directly at the sun.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/11494 |accessdate=February 27, 2015|title=The Sun Vow, 1899|publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art}}</ref>}} At its opening the museum had two collections gifted by its principal organizer, Evans, and its principal funder, Lang. Evans' donation of American art included 2 sculptures and 54 paintings, among them works by [[George Inness]], [[Ralph Albert Blakelock]], and [[Childe Hassam]]. Lang donated a collection of Native American art amassed by her mother, Annie Valentine Rand. The Rand Collection's several hundred objects included baskets, clothing, jewelry, and household items.<ref name=carlisle25 />{{rp|25, 28}}

The museum's holdings have expanded by means of acquisitions and donations. In 1922, the museum invited Montclair residents to vote for their favorite among 25 works for acquisition. The museum's art committee overrode the winning work by the impressionist [[Daniel Garber]] and instead purchased a work by the comparatively avant-garde [[Arthur Bowen Davies]], ''Meeting in the Forest'' (1900), a depiction of nudes in a landscape in the [[Symbolism (arts)|Symbolist]] style.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Carlisle|first1=Robert D.B.|title=A Jewel in the Suburbs: The Montclair Art Museum|date=1982|publisher=Montclair Art Museum|location=Montclair, N.J.|page=7}}</ref><ref>Charlotte Moser, "Davies, Arthur B." in Joan M. Marter, ed., ''The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art'', Volume 1, 25-6</ref> In the 1930s the museum was less open to modernists,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Carlisle|first1=Robert D.B.|title=A Jewel in the Suburbs: The Montclair Art Museum|date=1982|publisher=Montclair Art Museum|location=Montclair, N.J.|pages=69, 72–3}}</ref> and in the 1940s it tried to counter that reputation by having works for its annual exhibit of local artists' work selected by two juries, traditional and modern, a procedure abandoned when artists objected to having to characterize themselves in such a fashion.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Carlisle|first1=Robert D.B.|title=A Jewel in the Suburbs: The Montclair Art Museum|date=1982|publisher=Montclair Art Museum|location=Montclair, N.J.|page=88}}</ref>

The building has since expanded along with the collection. The museum grew with additional gifts from Lang that allowed the front portico and mezzanine to be completed in 1924 and a new East Wing added in 1931 to house the Rand Collection. In the 1950s the high-ceilinged North Gallery was divided horizontally.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Carlisle|first1=Robert D.B.|title=A Jewel in the Suburbs: The Montclair Art Museum|date=1982|publisher=Montclair Art Museum|location=Montclair, N.J.|pages=8, 32, 36, 46, 56–7, 127}}</ref> The most recent renovation by architectural firm [[Beyer Blinder Belle]] in 2000-2001 added a new wing that doubled the museum's square footage.<ref>{{cite news|last1=D'Agnese|first1=Joseph|title=Big Dreams for the Montclair Art Museum|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/04/nyregion/big-dreams-for-the-montclair-art-museum.html|accessdate=February 13, 2015|work=New York Times |date=November 4, 2001}}</ref>

To mark its 75th anniversary, MAM published ''Three Hundred Years of American Painting: The Montclair Art Museum Collection''. It provided detailed entries for 538 paintings, detailed discussion of 32 of them, and a set of thematic essays.<ref>Marilyn S. Kushner, ed., ''Three Hundred Years of American Painting: The Montclair Art Museum Collection'' (The University of Chicago Press), reviewed by Elinor Nacheman in ''Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America'', vol. 9, no. 2 (Summer 1990), p. 112; [https://www.jstor.org/stable/27948217  available online]</ref> In 1999, MAM collaborated on ''American Tonalism: Selections from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Montclair Art Museum''.<ref>Kevin J. Avery and Diane P. Fischer, eds., ''American Tonalism: Selections from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Montclair Art Museum'' (Montclair Art Museum, 1999), reviewed by Martin Hopkinson  in ''The Burlington Magazine'', vol. 142, no. 1168 (July 2000), p. 453; [https://www.jstor.org/stable/888806 available online]</ref>

In January 2009, the museum announced it had transferred most of its LeBrun Library to the Harry A. Sprague Library at [[Montclair State University]], a public institution that accepts library cards from public libraries in Essex and Passaic counties.<ref>{{cite web|title=Montclair Art Museum - LeBrun Library|url=https://montclair.libguides.com/content.php?pid=322325&sid=3214853|website=Sprague Library Digital Bookplates|publisher=Montclair State University|accessdate=February 13, 2015}}</ref>{{efn|According to a 1999 account: "In 1913 the museum received a bequest from the estate of Michel LeBrun for the construction of a library and 40 volumes from his library for the LeBrun Library which opened in 1916, overseen by Michel's widow Maria Olivia LeBrun. In 1917, Michel's brother Pierre LeBrun, also an architect, donated an additional 100 volumes. Since the Montclair Art Museum's collection is limited to American fine arts and Native American art, the LeBrun Library's research materials are similarly restricted, for the most part, to these same fields. The LeBrun Library has been and still is the foremost art reference source in this limited field in the State of New Jersey. The library's holdings for its 84-year existence have increased more than one-hundred fold to some 14,000 books, plus some 5000 volumes of bound periodicals, 136 drawers of vertical file material on American artists, a collection of 20,000 slides, and nearly 8000 bookplates."<ref>Edith Anderson Rights, "Montclair Art Association", ''Libraries & Culture'', vol. 34, no. 3 (Summer 1999), 278-281</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Montclair Art Association|url=https://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~lcr/archive/bookplates/34_3_Montclair.htm |website= Bookplate Archive|publisher=University of Texas At Austin School of Information|accessdate=February 13, 2015}}</ref>}}

MAM often mounts exhibitions that bridge its two collections. For example, a 2001-2 exhibit explored [[Albert Bierstadt]]'s depiction of encounters between European settlers and Native Americans, using its collection of Native American art to create conversations with two monumental Bierstadt oils.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Zimmer|first1=William|title=In Montclair, a Controversial View of American History|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/30/nyregion/art-review-in-montclair-a-controversial-view-of-american-history.html|accessdate=February 24, 2015|work=New York Times|date=December 30, 2001}}</ref> In 2005, it presented "Roy Lichtenstein: American Indian Encounters" to explore a 20th-century American artist's fascination with and use of motifs from Native American art to critique their clichéd use by earlier artists. It included a Lichtenstein parody of Bierstadt, a variation on the Indian head nickel, and attempts to incorporate Indian symbolism into cubist and surrealist imagery.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Glueck|first1=Grace|title=A Pop Artist's Fascination With the First Americans|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/23/arts/design/23lich.html|accessdate=February 24, 2015|work=New York Times|date=December 23, 2005}}</ref>

MAM also features exhibitions that highlight its region. It participates with other institutions and the [[New Jersey State Council on the Arts]] in New Jersey Arts Annual: Fine Arts, which develops juried exhibitions of works by local artists. For example, as part of that program, in 2012 MAM presented 13 works that explored technology and "sampling, appropriating and remaking older artworks" in an exhibit called "New Media: New Forms".<ref>{{cite news|last1=Schwendener|first1=Martha|title=Finding Inspiration in a Borrowed Past|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/nyregion/a-review-of-new-media-new-forms-at-the-montclair-art-museum.html |accessdate=March 7, 2015|work=New York Times|date=June 29, 2012}}</ref> In 2014, "Robert Smithson's New Jersey" explored how the artist's early exploration of the landscape and excavations near [[Paterson, New Jersey|Paterson]] and [[Rutherford, New Jersey|Rutherford]], New Jersey, inform [[Robert Smithson]]'s later collages and [[land art]] projects. One critic wrote in ''[[The New Yorker]]'': "This might seem like just more hopeful boosterism by a Garden State that exists in the shadow of a Big Apple, except that it’s true."<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-source-of-robert-smithsons-spiral | title= The Source of Robert Smithson's Spiral | date= June 18, 2014| accessdate = March 6, 2015| magazine= The New Yorker| first= Robert |last= Sullivan}}</ref>

In 2009, the museum and the [[Baltimore Museum of Art]] organized the exhibition "Cézanne and American Modernism," with 131 items, including 18 works by [[Cézanne]]. In a news release, MAM called the show "the largest, most ambitious exhibition in the 95-year history of the museum." After appearing in Montclair, the exhibition traveled to the Baltimore and to the [[Phoenix Art Museum]].<ref>{{cite web|website=Yale University Press| url=https://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300147155| title = Cézanne and American Modernism|accessdate=February 18, 2015}} Published in conjunction with the exhibit: Gail Stavitsky and Katherine Rothkopf, eds., ''Cézanne and American Modernism'' (Yale University Press, 2009)</ref>

As its centennial year approached, MAM undertook a fundraising campaign to double its endowment to $20 million.<ref>{{cite web|title=Montclair Art Museum Retains Ghiorsi & Sorrenti as Campaign Counsel|url=https://www.gsifundraising.com/subpage.php?id=75|publisher=Ghiorsi & Sorrenti|accessdate=February 24, 2015}}</ref> It also mounted an exhibition of contemporary sculpture based on the gifts of New Jersey resident Patricia A. Bell over the last 20 years to underscore its commitment to the contemporary arts scene.<ref>{{cite news|last1=McGlone|first1=Peggy|title=Montclair Art Museum celebrates 100th anniversary with new sculpture, exhibits|url=https://www.nj.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2013/09/montclair_art_museum_celebrates_100th_anniversary_with_new_sculpture_exhibits.html |accessdate=February 24, 2015|publisher=NJ.com|date=September 29, 2013}}</ref> To mark its centenary in 2014, on the anniversary date, it lit a new installation by [[Spencer Finch]], ''Yellow'', that filled the windows on the first level of the museum's facade with a soft glow that suggests someone is home, countering in some measure the formality of the architecture.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Ebbels|first1=Kelly|title=At the Montclair Art Museum, it's lights on for the party|url=https://www.northjersey.com/community-news/recreation/at-the-montclair-art-museum-it-s-lights-on-for-the-party-1.175827?page=all|accessdate=February 13, 2015|work=Montclair Times|date=January 9, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Montclair Art Museum Turns 100 |url=https://www.njtvonline.org/news/uncategorized/montclair-art-museum-turns-100/|accessdate=February 13, 2015|publisher= NJTVonline.com|date=January 10, 2014}}</ref>

==MAM Yard School of Art==
The museum's educational programs serve a wide public, from toddlers to senior citizens. Collaborations with numerous cultural and community partners bring artists, performers, and scholars to the museum on a regular basis. MAM's Yard School of Art is a regional art school offering an array of classes for children, youth, adults, seniors, and professional artists.<ref name="MAM: About" />

In the summer of 2014, MAM launched a new community outreach program called the Art Truck, using an ice cream truck refurbished with funds from a grant from the Partners for Health Foundation. A pilot program in its first year, the Art Truck brought art instructors and supplies to conduct open studio art classes at sites in several New Jersey counties, including town pools, senior centers and assisted living facilities, local festivals, and farmers markets.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Nutt|first1=Bill|title=Museum puts art on wheels|url=https://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/life/arts/2014/07/13/art-truck/12525885/|accessdate=March 2, 2015|publisher=myCentralJersey.com|date=July 13, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Janulis|first1=Tina|title=Honk if You Love Art: MAM Art Truck Pulls into South Orange|url=https://villagegreennj.com/arts/honk-love-art-mam-art-truck-pulls-south-orange/|accessdate=March 2, 2015|work=[[The Village Green (news site)|The Village Green]]|date=July 9, 2014}}</ref>

== See also ==
* [[National Register of Historic Places listings in Essex County, New Jersey]]

==Notes==
{{Notes}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{commons category|Montclair Art Museum}}
* [https://www.montclairartmuseum.org/ Official website]

{{National Register of Historic Places in New Jersey}}
{{NRHP in Montclair, New Jersey}}

{{authority control}}

[[Category:Montclair, New Jersey]]
[[Category:Art museums and galleries in New Jersey]]
[[Category:Museums in Essex County, New Jersey]]
[[Category:Art museums and galleries established in 1914]]
[[Category:1914 establishments in New Jersey]]
[[Category:National Register of Historic Places in Montclair, New Jersey]]
[[Category:New Jersey Register of Historic Places]]
[[Category:Neoclassical architecture in New Jersey]]