The Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia will reopen its doors with five new special exhibitions and a weeklong celebration. The museum has been closed since March 2009 for construction of its Phase II expansion and renovation project.
Construction was funded entirely with $20 million in external support and designed by Stanley Beaman & Sears Architects of Atlanta in a collaborative effort with Gluckman Mayner Architects of New York. The newly renovated GMOA offers 16,000 square feet of new galleries, an outdoor sculpture garden, an expanded lobby and additional storage space. The new gallery space will accommodate continuous viewing of the museum’s permanent collection in the areas of early Italian Renaissance painting, 19th- and 20th-century American art, folk art and decorative arts. Special exhibitions will be on view in the C.L. Morehead Jr. Wing.
Another major addition to GMOA will be the Study Centers in the Humanities. Partially funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the centers will contain archives from the museum’s collections and consist of the C.L. Morehead Jr. Center for the Study of American Art, the Henry D. Green Center for the Study of the Decorative Arts, the Jacob Burns Foundation Center and the Pierre Daura Center. Curators of each collection will have offices in the corresponding study center, making information and archives easily accessible to students and researchers.
The GMOA will celebrate with Art Expands from Jan. 29 to Feb. 5. The kickoff event will be the official university ribbon-cutting ceremony and the museum’s annual fundraiser gala Elegant Salute XII: Metamorphosis. Activities will continue throughout the week with a special lecture, musical performances, Family Day and events for UGA faculty, staff and students.
The American Scene on Paper, Tradition Redefined, Stone and Steel, Horizons and an installation by artist Anthony Goicolea will be free and open to the public starting Jan. 31. For information on opening exhibits, click here.
The museum is located at 90 Carlton Street on the UGA campus in Athens.