Farnsworth Art Museum Rockland Maine
Celebrating Maine’s Role in American Art, the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine offers a nationally recognized collection of works from many of America’s greatest artists. With 20,000 square feet of gallery space and over 10,000 works in the collection, there is always something new on view at the Farnsworth. The museum has the nation’s second-largest collection of works by premier 20th-century sculptor Louise Nevelson. Its Wyeth Center features works of Andrew, N.C. and Jamie Wyeth.
The Farnsworth’s library is also housed in its Rockland, ME, campus. Two historic buildings, the Farnsworth Homestead and the Olson House, and Julia’s Gallery for Young Artists complete the museum complex.
The Farnsworth Art Museum’s main building contains six galleries with a combined exhibition space of 5,291 square feet. The Jamien Morehouse Wing, the most recent addition to the main building, houses four additional galleries with an additional total exhibition space of 6,000 square feet.
The Wyeth Center contains two galleries with a total exhibition space of 3,546 square feet.
Rockland, ME 04841
Collections:
The Farnsworth Art Museum offers an unparalleled opportunity to enjoy a comprehensive collection of American art related to Maine. Lucy Copeland Farnsworth, last surviving member of her family and the daughter of a successful Rockland lime merchant who founded the local water company, instructed in her will that a building she owned on Main Street “be put into condition to serve as an art gallery,” which along with a library and the mid-Victorian house she grew up in were to be open to the public and named after her father. The task of creating and operating the museum was assigned by her trustee, the Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company, to Robert Peabody Bellows, a Harvard graduate and a partner in the Boston architectural firm of Aldrich and Bellows. Read more here….
Museum:
January 1 - March 31 Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.., closed Mondays and Tuesdays
Spring hours
April 1 - May 31 Tuesdays through Sunday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m..,closed Mondays
Summer hours:
June 1 through October 31, open daily 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Wednesdays 10 a.m. – 8 p.m. (from 5-8 p.m. Free admission to all) First Fridays (June through October)10 a.m. – 8 p.m. (from 5-8 p.m. Free admission to all)
Seniors
$10
Students 17 and older$10
Children 16 and under Free
Rockland residents Free
Wednesdays 5-8 p.m. (summer hours only)
Ticket price includes admission to the Olson House and the Farnsworth Victorian Homestead when open for regular summer hours; admission to the Olson House may be purchased separately for $5.
Wyeth Center
The Wyeth Center at the Farnsworth Art Museum consists of several discrete components dedicated to collecting, research, exhibitions and interpretive programs related to three generations of Wyeths in Maine: N.C., Andrew, and James Wyeth.
Exhibits focusing primarily on James Wyeth and N. C. Wyeth are presented at the “church” building on Union Street, an example of adaptive re-use of the United Methodist Church, one of Rockland’s most prominent and venerable structures dating from the last quarter of the 19th century. Although major thematic shows occasionally present all three Wyeths at the church, the downstairs Linda Bean Folkers Gallery is primarily devoted to works by N.C. Wyeth while the upstairs, Marylouise Tandy Cowan Gallery usually presents works by James Wyeth.
An addition to the original museum building houses an extensive collection of temperas, watercolors, drybrush paintings and drawings by Andrew Wyeth. Rotating exhibits of Andrew Wyeth’s work are largely drawn from this collection and are shown in the Study Center and adjacent Hadlock Galleries.
Finally, a large Victorian house across from the church on Grace Street houses a separate research facility primarily devoted to James Wyeth but which also includes a basic information and standard reference materials related to all three generations of artists in Maine.
Historic Properties
Education
Join the Farnsworth Community!
The Farnsworth Art Museum offers wonderful opportunities to help further our mission of celebrating Maine’s role in American art. Your interest and generosity is absolutely vital to the museum’s continuing success!
Learn more below:
Membership
Support Us
Giving Circles
Museum Events and Happenings
2011 Farnsworth Art Museum Summer Gala
For more information, call the museum’s Development Office at 207-596-6457 ext 117 or email kstone@farnsworthmuseum.org
Info on Rockland Maine
History of the Farnsworth Art Museum
In the 1840s, William Farnsworth opened a general store in Rockland. He quickly became involved in the limestone industry, a staple of the local economy. By the 1850s, William owned not only the store, but also interest in limestone quarries, kilns to process the lime and numerous schooners to ship it. He had a number of real estate holdings throughout the city and was the founder and president of the Rockland Water Company.
William (1815-1876) and Mary (1816-1910) had six children: Josephine (1837-1907), Lucy (1838-1935), James (1841-1905), Willie (1849-1856), Fannie (1852-1877) and Joseph (1858-1863). Of the three youngest, only Fannie lived to adulthood. Of the eldest three children, Josephine and James married but neither had children. Lucy never married. She outlived her siblings by 28 years and her mother by 25. After their deaths, Lucy continued to live in the family home, where she died in 1935 at age 97.
Thanks to a generous inheritance from her father and brother James, and to her own business acumen, Lucy left a sizable estate. She directed that the bulk of it be used to establish the William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum (now known simply as the Farnsworth Art Museum) as a memorial to her father. The museum officially opened in August, 1948.
