The Montclair Art Museum opened on January 15, 1914, in a neoclassical building designed by Albert R. Ross. It grew out of Montclair's unusually active artist colony and a failed municipal referendum to house William T. Evans's American art collection. Private philanthropy, especially Florence Rand Lang's funding and Evans's gifts, made the museum possible. At opening, the museum combined Evans's American paintings and sculpture, including works by George Inness, Ralph Albert Blakelock, and Childe Hassam, with the Rand collection of Native American art assembled by Annie Valentine Rand. Hermon Atkins MacNeil's bronze The Sun Vow stood outside. The institution was described as New Jersey's first public-access museum devoted solely to art.
The opening created a lasting regional model for pairing American art with Indigenous North American material culture.
