JOEL AND LILA HARNETT MUSEUM OF ART, UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND MUSEUMS, CELEBRATES ITS 40th ANNIVERSARY September 27th, 1 to 4pm Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art University of Richmond Museums The Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art is hosting a Museum Day Open House on September 27, 2008, 1 to 4 p.m., in the Modlin Center for the Arts, University of Richmond, with gallery tours, music, activities for children, and refreshments. The event will celebrate the museum’s 40 years of bringing art to the University of Richmond’s students, faculty, and staff and to the greater Richmond community. The Museum Day Open House invites visitors of all ages to participate in hands-on art activities, a scavenger hunt through the exhibition Arctic Spirit: Inuit Art from the Albrecht Collection at the Heard Museum, live a capella music by University of Richmond groups Off the Cuff, The Octaves, and Choeur du Roi, face painting and henna decoration, and festive refreshments. The event is free and open to the public.
Originating in 1968 as the Marsh Art Gallery, the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art is one of three museums known collectively as University of Richmond Museums, also comprising the Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature and the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center. In 2004, longtime visual arts supporters Joel and Lila Harnett of Phoenix, Arizona, made a generous commitment to the University Museums, and in appreciation for their on-going support, the University’s art museum was renamed the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art. Joel Harnett (1926-2006), a University of Richmond graduate (RC ’45), was a former vice president of Look magazine and founder of Media Horizons, a public radio broadcasting and magazine company. Harnett served on the board and executive committee of the Heard Museum in Phoenix. Lila Harnett is one of the founders of ArtTable, a national organization of professional women leaders in the visual arts, a former critic with CUE magazine, a member of the New York State Council on the Arts for eight years, and is currently serving on the board of the Phoenix Art Museum. The Harnetts supported many of the museum’s exhibitions from the beginning, including several one-person exhibitions by such notable American artists as George Tooker, Philip Pearlstein, Jerome Witkin, and Janet Fish. In 2001 the Harnetts gave a major contribution to establish the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center and an endowment for print acquisitions and programs. They have also given significant artwork to the museum’s permanent collection and funding for the Harnett Summer Research Fellow, which allows a University of Richmond undergraduate to work full time with museum staff to research the collections and curate exhibitions. The Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art is proud of bringing four decades of outstanding art to the University of Richmond’s students, faculty, and staff and to the greater Richmond community and beyond. The museum has consistently shown work by artists of local and international reputation and from throughout history, from prehistoric Native American artifacts to master prints from the Italian Renaissance to modern American folk art to Internet art by contemporary artists. Many of the exhibitions organized by the museum have circulated throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia and many have traveled nationally. For the past forty years, the museum has endeavored to present compelling and captivating exhibitions and programs that not only engage visitors, but inspire them as well and to bring to Richmond the very best art. With approximately 4,000 square feet of exhibition space, the Harnett Museum of Art features changing exhibitions each school year, in addition to lectures, openings, gallery talks, workshops, concerts, symposia, and other programs. The museum’s mission is to be a forum for the visual arts and a catalyst for widely varied issues of visual expression, art research, and scholarship within the University and throughout the greater Richmond community and region. Museum Day Open House is celebrated in conjunction with Smithsonian Magazine’s Museum Day. On Saturday, September 27, 2008, museums nationwide will participate in the fourth annual Museum Day. Museum Day is a day when museums and cultural institutions nationwide open their doors free of charge to Smithsonian magazine readers and Smithsonian.com visitors. Last year, all 50 states plus Puerto Rico were represented by 651 participating museums. Since admission is already free, the Harnett Museum will give a 20% discount on Saturday, September 27, for catalog purchases to anyone who presents the Museum Day card which is available from the website Smithsonian.com.