Congratulations to the Yale University Art Gallery! The brilliantly expanded Gallery formally opened to the public last Wednesday, December 12th, to wide and universal acclaim; doubly covered in the New York Times, art critic Holland Cotter asserts that the museum is now “a destination.” The Boston Globe’s Sebastian Smee calls it “a masterpiece,” and in The New Yorker, Peter Schjeldahl writes, “The gallery is magnificent; by a fair margin, it now bids to be the mightiest teaching-related museum in the United States.”
What’s new? The galleries of ancient art; art of the ancient Americas; African, Asian, European, and American art; and modern and contemporary art and designer have all been completely reinstalled. There are brand-new galleries for coins and medals; photography; and Indo-Pacific art. The reopening represented the culmination of a fourteen-year renovation program.
Members of the Yale University Press Art Workshop had the pleasure of attending the Yale University Art Gallery Gala on Friday, December 7th, to celebrate the Gallery’s expansion and re-opening. We had a marvelous time, and even got an impromptu tour from a Yale student who works at the Gallery. In addition to learning some fascinating trivia (the marble statue of Athena seen below was initially mistaken for a plaster cast!), we enjoyed fabulous food, festive cocktails, and above all, the outstanding array of holdings now on display.