National Endowment For The Hummanities & Institute for Library and Museum Service Awards

We are pleased to announce that we have recently received two major grants that will allow us to build a state-of-the-art storage center in our John L Wehle Art Gallery for our collections of fine art and historical artifacts, including our recent historic clothing acquisition, the Greene Collection.

The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded us a $400,000 grant. In addition to that, we also received a $150,000 grant from the Institute for Library and Museum Service.

Currently objects must be stored in different areas across the museum campus. This project will allow us to more efficiently organize objects for research and exhibition in the renovated galleries and provide the storage and conditions we need to properly store them. The work will be done as part of a larger $2.5 million renovation of our John L.Wehle Art Gallery and will create the environmentally controlled conditions necessary for long-term preservation and collection care in a sustainable and energy-efficient manner.

"We're absolutely delighted," said Peter Arnold, our president and CEO. "Our storage facilities are very inadequate, that's our main motivation for getting this done. We'll begin construction in the fall. I assume it'll take a year."

The gallery is closed this season in preparation for the renovation.

Trained day dress of heavy watered silk, c1865

You can still see some of the Greene Collection here THIS season! Starting next week we will be highlighting items from the collection on a weekly basis as the collection will be unavaliable for public viewing until the gallery renovation has been completed.

For another sneak peek at the collection, check out, The Collecting Gene's interview with prior collection creator, Susan Greene.