According to the Vermont Encyclopedia, the museum is a cultural center for the community and "attracts a diverse audience from UVM, area colleges, and the general public."[1]
History
[edit]Rickshaw driver picking up two clients, circa 1909. This is a photo-postcard from a trip to Japan that Katherine Wolcott and her uncle, Robert Hull Fleming, made in 1909.
The University of Vermont began to acquire a collection of art, artifacts, and other objects in 1826, when a society of faculty and others formed the College of Natural History, a society separate from the university but housing its collections in the Old Mill on the University Green, in order to begin "the acquisition and diffusion of knowledge in every department of natural history, and the accumulation of books, instruments and all materials which can advance these ends." Among the museum's initial collections were "fossils, stuffed birds, a sperm whale tooth, and a cannon ball that a local resident found while gardening."[2]
When the collection outgrew its Old Mill space, it was relocated to Torrey Hall in 1862. Less than ten years later, a third story was built at Torrey Hall for the university's fine art collection, and the space became known as the Park Gallery of Fine Arts. The collection remained at Torrey Hall in the late 1920s, although it was outgrowing its space.[2]
The formation of the modern Fleming Museum of Art came in 1929, when Katherine Wolcott, the niece and only heir of Robert Hull Fleming and an artist herself, traveled from Chicago to Burlington, intending to establish a scholarship in honor of her late uncle, who had graduated from the University of Vermont in 1862 before becoming a wealthy Chicago grain merchant. Wolcott met with university president Guy Bailey, who proposed a new museum building in memory of Fleming. Wolcott accepted Bailey's proposal and donated $150,000 for the construction of the Fleming Museum. Soon afterward, the museum received another large contribution from James B. Wilbur of Manchester, Vermont, who donated $100,000 and his large collection of books and papers - including the papers of Ethan Allen - related to the history of Vermont to the museum.[2] These two gifts funded the $300,000 cost of construction the museum, and Wolcott donated an additional $150,000 for an endowment soon after.[2] The museum opened in 1931.
The university was one of the first to include a room specifically for children, and placed an emphasis on community service and education, including free movies, lectures, and workshops every Saturday, a traveling exhibit program for schools, and an adult education program with evening lectures and classes. In the mid-1930s, between 25,000 and 30,000 people visited the Fleming Museum annually, at a time when the population of Burlington was estimated at 27,000.[2]
The museum impacted the development of the University of Vermont. The university's studio art and art history departments began at the Fleming Museum of Art, and in the 1950s, the museum director was the chair of the university's art department. In the 1950s, the university shifted the museum's focus to make it an art museum, and many original artifacts from the "cabinet of curiosities" were moved to a number of university departments to free up space for newly acquired objects.[2]
A $1.4 million renovation to the museum was completed in 1984.[2] Until 2014, the museum was known as the Robert Hull Fleming Museum.[3]
The previous director of the museum was Janie Cohen, who led it for 20 years.[4]
African. The museum's African collection consists mainly of West and Central Africansculpture. Among the museum's important Africa pieces are premodern pieces such as a Queen Mother sculpture head from Benin (18th century), Ashanti gold weights, a Mende sowo mask, and southeast Africanbeadwork and carved wooden pieces (19th-century) as well as more recent works, including "a telephone-wire basket from South Africa and plastic Ibeji figures from Nigeria."[5]
Native American. The museum's indigenous peoples of the Americas collection is housed in the James B. Petersen Gallery of Native American Cultures, which reopened in 2006 following renovation.[10] The collection includes some 2,000 objects dating from c. 800 CE and originating in a variety of places in North and South America. Notable items include the Ogden B. Read Northern Plains Collection, which includes beadwork and quillwork; Southwestern objects, including ceramics, baskets, and textiles; and Pacific Northwest Coast objects, including masks, carvings, and a Chilkat blanket. The museum also holds the "Colchester Jar," a ceramic vessel dated to around the year 1500 and representative of the St. Lawrence Iroquoian style, which was found in Vermont in the early 19th century.[11]
Pre-Columbian. The museum holds a number of artifacts from the pre-Columbian era, including textiles, ceremonial stone carvings, and ceramics, including jars, bowls, and effigies of humans and animals.[13]
The Fleming Museum building was designed by William Mitchell Kendall of McKim, Mead & White, a prominent New York Cityarchitectural firm in the early 20th century. Several other University of Vermont campus buildings were designed by McKim, Mead & White, the earliest being the Ira Allen Chapel (1926) with the last being the Waterman Building (1940–41). The Fleming Museum building is an example of Colonial Revival architecture, with red bricks and boarding wood trim bordered white. Architectural elements in the museum building include pediments, pilasters, entablatures, and balustrades.[2]
The Marble Court was the museum's original entrance, and includes a two-story central courtyard with columns supporting a balcony on the second floor. The concept was the idea of the museum's first benefactor Katherine Wolcott, who drew a sketch of the design based on the Isaac Delgado Art Museum, which is now the New Orleans Museum of Art. William Mitchell Kendall had built a similar space for the Cohen Memorial Fine Arts Building at George Peabody College for TeachersinNashville, Tennessee. The Marble Court uses marble from Italy, France, and Vermont for the grand staircase, columns, and floors of the space.[2]
Renovations to the museum in 1984 reoriented the building's entrance, moving it from the front to the rear of the building and increasing accessibility, and included building additions designed by the Watertown, Massachusetts-based Crissman and Solomon Associates. New additions included a climate control system, corridor display cases, a new reception area, a museum store, and an altered gallery floor plan that allowed for exhibition space to be more flexible. The renovations preserved the original building's brick rear wall as an interior wall of this addition.[2]
