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July 2011 Newsletter 
In This Issue
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Blue Star Museum
In the News
Work Progressing
Painting Returns
Grant Received
Programs & Events
Melchers Painting Sold
New York in the Fall
Art Workshops
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The museum and grounds will be closed Monday, July 4, in observance of Independence Day.

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Blue Star Museum

Blue Star Museums

Our site is proud to participate in the Blue Star Museums Initiative.

 

All active duty military personnel and their families will receive free admission to the museum from Memorial Day through Labor Day (September 5).  

 

We are one of 1,000 museums across the country to participate in the program, which is sponsored by Blue Star Families and the National Endowment for the Arts.

In the News


The Home and Studio of Gari Melchers Becomes the Site of Exploration

The Free Lance-Star 

 

New Yorker

 

The New Yorker magazine's June 27 issue features an article that describes Alice Walton (think Walmart) paying seven times the expected auction sale price for a Gari Melchers painting. 

 

View The New Yorker's article abstract.

 

Read what the Huffington Post has to say.

 

Will Crystal Bridges Become the Walmart of American Art Museums?

Work Progressing

crew 

Roots House volunteer work crew members (L to R) Dave Ludeker, Ken McFarland, and Lars Mohs get ready for a busy day.

 

Read the article in our May newsletter for more information on this ongoing project.

Preschool Palette

Not a Box

 

Not a Box is July's theme.

We will read Antoinette Portis' Not a Box and create treasure from boxes in the Education Classroom. 

Watch the animated version of this book or an interview with the author.

For more information, including the schedule through the rest of the year, visit our website.


Fri, July 1

Tues, July 12

Thurs, July 28

Classes run from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Contact Education
Coordinator Michelle Crow-Dolby at 540/654-1851 to pre-register.
Painting Returns

 

mother and child with orange
Mother and Child with Orange, 1892, Gari Melchers  

 

On loan for over a year to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to celebrate their re-opening, Mother and Child with Orange is once again hanging in the Studio.

 

The painting was featured in the "Expatriate Artists" section of VMFA's new American installation. 

 

The theme of motherhood was a lifelong preoccupation of Melchers. While headquartered in Holland in the first half of his career, he favored Dutch peasants as models for their wholesome, old world charm.   

 

 

Mother and Child with Orange is one of his finest examples. 

Our Museum Gift Shop offers this beloved painting as a postcard, print, and pin.

Grant Received
Programming Grant Received for Upcoming Exhibition 
ring around the rosey
Ring Around the Rosey, 1942, William H. Johnson 

Belmont has received a $5,000 grant from the Smithsonian Community Grant program.  This competitive grant was awarded to assist in the development and implementation of education programming planned in conjunction with the Smithsonian traveling exhibition "William H. Johnson:  An American Modern."
  

Read the press release.


Read what the Smithsonian says about this important exhibition.

View the Exhibition Prospectus 

Soon-to-be-released exhibition catalog
    Smithsonian Logomet life logo
Programs & Events

Summer Family Tours 

Daily, except Wednesdays, 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. 

Regular Tours Offered Every Half Hour 

 

kids in library
Photo by John Magor 

This intergenerational experience allows visitors of all ages to engage in a guided tour of the historic house museum and art gallery spaces. Tours are customized to meet a family's needs and interests and are approximately one hour in length.

 

Up to two children are free with an accompanying, paying adult. Additional children are $5 each.  Families can enjoy these special tours through Labor Day.  The tour is free for Friends of Belmont.  

 
 

Woodland Walk
Sunday, July 31, 2 p.m.


Virginia Master Naturalist
 vo
lunteers lead this informative hike that covers a mile of trails in both woodlands and fields and touches on the historic ruins of Belmont's past.  Please wear sturdy footwear as the terrain in uneven.  Meet outside the Visitor Center. Free 
Melchers Painting Sold
Melchers Painting Sold by Sotheby's Amsterdam

VespersIn June Gari Melchers' Vespers was purchased by the Telfair Museum of Art for  $128,765.  The painting was once part of the collection of Walther Rathenau, the Berlin industrialist and founder of the German Democratic Party, who was murdered in 1922 by officers of the extreme right-wing party because of his Jewish background and political ideas.
  
The Telfair's Holly McCullough  comments: "Gari Melchers served as the Telfair's fine arts advisor between 1906-1916 and was responsible for acquiring some of the very finest works in our collection.  We are absolutely delighted to attain this very fine example of Melchers' early work as a tribute to his ongoing legacy at the Telfair." 
  
Art Summer Camps

  

paint"Belmont:  Think Big!"

August 15-18 

Grades 2-5, 10 a.m. - 12

waiting list

 

Grades 6-12, 2 - 4 p.m.

4 spaces available
 

Students will be challenged to think expansively while they work on a mural project.  An additional take-home project will round out this four-day camp. Small class size; all supplies are included.

 

Contact Education Coordinator Michelle Crow-Dolby at 540/654-1851 to register. Instructor: M.J. Bradley; Cost:  $65/members; $80/non-members

New York in the Fall

  

Teddy
Portrait of President Theodore Roosevelt, 1908, Gari Melchers, Freer Gallery of Art

Friends of Belmont
Trip to Manhattan and Long Island

October 7-10

  

Join the Friends of Belmont for a fall excursion to Manhattan and Long Island.  We will visit The Cloisters Museum and Gardens, a true Manhattan treasure, devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe.  

 

We will also explore two important estates on Long Island, Sagamore Hill, home of Teddy Roosevelt, and the Vanderbilt Museum, home of William K. Vanderbilt.  Gari Melchers painted both of these famous men.  

 

 

View or print out the trip brochure or contact Special Events Coordinator Betsy Labar at 540/654-1848 for more information.

 

 

 

 

Art Workshops
hand on clayMixed Media Sculpture
Saturday, July 9
10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Audience:  Middle School through Adult

Participants in this workshop are asked to bring ten objects that can fit into a backpack. Using those objects plus a variety of provided "treasures," students will enjoy a day of creating sculpture! 
  
Crash Course in Knitting
Saturday, August 13
10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
  
All workshops are $20 for members and $25 for nonmembers.

Visit our website for complete descriptions and registration information.
 
These programs have been organized by the VMFA Office of Statewide Partnerships and are funded, in part, by the Jean Stafford Camp Memorial Fund.  
Gari Melchers self portrait
At Gari Melchers Home and Studio at Belmont, see the richly furnished country house and working studio of American Impressionist painter Gari Melchers (1860-1932) as they appeared in the 1920s. Explore the colorful formal gardens and wooded hiking trails of the artist's 27-acre retreat. Enjoy special exhibitions of the art of Melchers and his contemporaries.

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