Welcome to the Portland Museum of Art!
Last year I wrote about the Museum's role in the ecology of cultural institutions and the creative economy in Maine. We set a goal to be the best regional museum in the country. With a unique profile, a local story with history, and a dynamic vision for the future, we are reaching our goal, which has been chronicled in the national media and scholarly publications. During 2011, the Museum's community presence grew through collaborations and by concentrating on the visitor experience. Our goal this year is for the Museum to truly become the center of town: a place that transcends the local (that which makes Maine great) to the national. Visitors can already experience a snapshot of what Maine has to offer through our collections, our programs, the Museum Store, and the Museum Café by Aurora Provisions. In 2012 we want to make sure that members and visitors come for the great art on view but also to linger over a meal, conduct a meeting, shop, see a movie, and enjoy a tour or a program. Everyone in town should be saying "Let's meet at the Museum!" We need to let everybody know that the Museum can and should be part of everyday life in Portland, not just reserved for a special visit.
The Museum is starting the year by offering art that transcends the local in a national and international context, from Edgar Degas: The Private Impressionist, presenting a new side of this European Impressionist, to Making Faces: Photographic Portraits of Actors and Artists, to Tanja Alexia Hollander: Are You Really My Friend?, an exhibition of photographs by Maine artist Tanja Hollander, who uses 21st-century social media to help her explore themes of friendship and portraiture. The Museum will continue to tell local, national, and international artistic stories of relevance that connect the past to the future, in exhibitions ranging from The Draw of the Normandy Coast to From Portland to Paris: Mildred Burrage's Years in France, to next fall's Winslow Homer exhibition and a Circa exhibition focused on contemporary artists utilizing photographic processes from Winslow Homer's era.
When the Winslow Homer exhibition and the Homer Studio open in September, the entire American art world will focus on the Portland Museum of Art. This is The Year of Winslow Homer at the Museum. We just received a magnificent challenge gift from a Maine foundation. This challenge grant offers a wonderful opportunity to maximize gifts to the Homer Studio restoration project. Please make your gift today and help us reach our goal to bring Maine and Winslow Homer alive to new generations.
Mark Bessire
Director