Cornell's Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art will have its silver anniversary celebrated Saturday, May 2, from 1 to 5 p.m. with a festival of activities, including dance and musical performances, gallery tours and hands-on workshops.
At 3 p.m. Franklin Robinson, the Richard J. Schwartz Director of the museum, will cut a giant cake made in the shape of the I.M. Pei-designed building.
Among the features at the museum's 25th birthday celebration will be demonstrations of Japanese calligraphy, portrait drawing, print-making, Chinese brush painting and soapstone carving, and appearances by Mrs. McPuppet and the Cornell bear. All activities take place at the museum.
The museum opened May 23, 1973, with benefactor Herbert F. Johnson expressing hope that the new facility would serve students by adding a broader dimension to their lives, no matter what their field of study.
"It's clear to see that we've lived up to that expectation and more," said Robinson. "We have maintained that this museum not simply be a repository for great art, but a central part of the teaching mission of Cornell and for the community beyond the campus."
Dozens of Cornell classes are held in the museum each year, and more than 6,000 students from outlying school districts attend the museum's numerous workshops, supported in part by the New York State Council for the Arts.
Since opening its doors 25 years ago, the museum has welcomed more than 2 million visitors and added more than 20,000 works. Recent notable acquisitions include Monhegan Landscape by Edward Hopper and Study of a Model, the only painting by Thomas Eakins that is part of the museum's permanent collection.
Enabling the museum to strengthen its holdings and outreach efforts has been a supportive alumni base, Robinson noted. "We've been very lucky," he said. "Cornell alumni have been extremely dedicated to the museum's mission, not simply in terms of contributing to our campaigns but also in donating works of art to the museum."
Robinson noted that the museum has received more than $600,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation over the past two years that has helped support an endowment fund to strengthen the museum's educational programming.
Though the Johnson Museum is only 25 years old, Cornell has been collecting art since the university opened in 1865, thanks in large part to the first president and art connoisseur Andrew Dickson White. Cornell, however, did not open an art museum until 1953, when the Andrew Dickson White Museum of Art became part of the campus landscape. In the early '60s, the museum was plagued with numerous problems, including poor storage, faulty climate controls and constant maintenance concerns. Talk turned to a new facility, and Cornell President Deane Malott, in 1963, created a committee to plan a new museum.
In 1967 trustee Herbert F. Johnson, president of Johnson Wax, gave $4 million to construct a new facility with one condition: that an architect of stature be hired. In short order, renowned architect I.M. Pei was retained to design the building, and Thomas W. Leavitt was appointed as director of the new Johnson Museum of Art. Robinson joined the museum as director in 1992.
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