Colby College Museum of Art

The Colby College Museum of Art is an art museum on the campus of Colby College in Waterville, Maine. Founded in 1959 and now comprising five wings, nearly 8,000 works and more than 38,000 square feet of exhibition space, the Colby College Museum of Art has built a collection that specializes in American and contemporary art with additional, select collections of Chinese antiquities and European paintings and works on paper. The museum serves as a teaching resource for Colby College and is a major cultural destination for the residents of Maine and visitors to the state. History In the early 1950s, Adeline and Caroline Wing gave paintings by William Merritt Chase , Winslow Homer , and Andrew Wyeth to Colby College. In 1956, Mr. and Mrs. Ellerton M. Jetté donated their American Heritage Collection, consisting of 76 works by American folk artists. The next year, the college received the Helen Warren and Willard Howe Cummings collection of American paintings and watercolors. Two years later, in 1959, the museum opened its first official galleries in the Bixler Art and Music Center. The Jetté Galleries, a major addition designed by E. Verner Johnson. Collections The Alex Katz Collection In 1992, the museum received a gift of 414 works by Alex Katz from the artist. The collection now holds over 800 works by the artist. Archive material related to the Katz Collection is held by Colby's Special Collections and is available to students and researchers. The John Marin Collection The John Marin Collection at the Colby College Museum of Art displays a retrospective collection of paintings, watercolors, drawings, etchings, and photographs. Twenty-four works spanning the artist's career from 1888 to 1953 were given to the museum in 1973 by.