| From the Director |
Michele Bechtell, Director |
Madison Museum of Fine Art, Inc.
PO Box 814/ 300 Hancock Street
Madison, GA 30650 mbechtell@prodigy.net |
| 706-485-4530 |
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Letter From the Director
Posted August 30, 2008
This year, the Madison Museum of Fine Art continues to receive many blessings that help the Museum to offer refreshment for lifelong learning to families and travelers in this region of Georgia.
On Saturday September 27, the Museum will join over 600 museums across the nation in producing the 4th Annual Museum Day organized by Smithsonian magazine. In the event, participating museums open their doors free of charge to readers of Smithsonian Magazine and any visitor to the Smithsonian.com website. A celebration of culture, learning, and the dissemination of knowledge, Smithsonian’s Museum Day reflects the spirit of the magazine, and emulates the free admission policy of the Smithsonian Institution’s Washington, D.C.–based properties and that of the Museum.
With each year, the Museum continues to build a world-class permanent collection that presently features original works by American and European masters including Picasso, Dali, and Whistler, an important collection of Asian Buddhist art and artifacts that date from the 3rd to the 10th century, and an endearing collection of hand-carved African Shona stone sculptures that formed the 1968 traveling exhibition organized by the Museum of Modern Art in New York
This year, the Museum received the donation of a captivating early American folk portrait of two sisters in an interior setting that dates from the late 1700’s to early 1800’s. And American Airlines made the generous gift of 8 stained glass panels that formed part of the famed abstract Robert Sowers glass window on the southern facade of its JFK Terminal 8 until earlier this year. At the time of its installation in 1964, the Guinness World Book of Records declared the work of art to be the largest stained glass window in the world. The gift of the eight stained glass panels in sapphire blue, ruby red, emerald green, and white will be installed in the museum’s sculpture garden.
As we near the end of our fifth year of operation, the Museum remains engaged in its search for a larger facility. The new home will increase display area for the museum’s permanent collection and traveling exhibitions, provide storage and much needed office space, and feature increased space for the Museum’s outdoor sculpture garden.
In preparation for the move, the landscape architectural design firm Charles Miller & Company of Greensboro, Georgia, has created the preliminary blueprint for the Museum’s new sculpture garden, a design that will put the Museum on the American map, not just for its interior visual art experience, but also for the exterior botanical experience of gardeners, romantics, and artists who enjoy mixing art with nature. In keeping with the Museum’s mission of promoting international visual art history education in an endearing setting, the new sculpture garden will offer a magical world tour of garden styles including a Japanese water garden, French country garden, a medieval Mary Garden, and an English boxwood garden, each a lovely backdrop for exhibiting contemporary sculpture.
As always, your membership support, donations of time, art, and funding are bringing smiles to many children, families, and travelers in this rural region of Georgia.
Michele Bechtell, Director
Select a News Story
Aug 30, 2008:
Letter From the Director
Dec 8, 2006:
Letter from the Director
Sep 20, 2005:
Letter From the Director
Dec 28, 2004:
Letter from the Director
Sep 28, 2004:
Letter from the Director
Feb 27, 2004:
Letter From the Director
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