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Wednesday marks the grand opening of the Yale University Art Gallery, following its 14-year renovation.
Yale University Art Gallery Director Jock Reynolds is our guide. Time is short and with more than 200,000 objects in the museum’s collection we’re warned that its going to be a whirlwind tour.
"You see here a great display of things from Mayan and Aztec cultures."
There’s a figure carved from manatee bone, colorful textiles and ceramics from Mexico and Costa Rica. I could spend all afternoon here, but gotta move on.
After passing Greek vases, Roman portraits and Assyrian stone reliefs, we arrive at an area dedicated to coins and medals.
"For the first time there’s over 100,000 coins and medals and currency from all over the world."
This is the largest coin and medal collection at any American university, with materials from Rome and Greece, from the American Revolution and the Civil War era. The objects are often used for teaching, so theres a study room right nearby where people can access them for research.
Next, we meet Pam Franks, the Gallery’s Deputy Director for Collections and Education.
"We are in the Mimi Gates Study Gallery for the Arts of Islam."
This is new. The Gallery’s never had a permanent space for Islamic Art before.
"We’ve worked with faculty members to create this installation to facilitate courses that deal with Islamic culture and Islamic history."
Sensory overload is setting in. But Jock Reynolds keeps us moving, upstairs into the Chales Benenson Gallery.
"He gave us great modern and contemporary artwork. The Calder, the David Smith drawing. There’s a Basquiat around the corner."
Its getting harder and harder to keep up. I’m lost in a work by Picasso. Now, Georges Braque. Now, Man Ray.
Snapping out just in time, I catch up with the group. They’re outside in a sculpture garden where we have a minute to catch our breath. Then, onward.
Marching past some of the museum’s most famous pieces. Vincent van Gogh’s Night Café. Masterworks by Paul Cezanne and Claude Monet..
The expanded Yale Gallery is made up now of three buildings along Chapel Street in New Haven. Our tour moves into a space in the old Street Hall building and we find ourselves in the Gallery of American Decorative Arts, standing inside two reconstructed rooms. They were taken from homes built in the 1700s in North Branford and Guilford, Connecticut.
"Like the first room which has its original blue on the sheathing walls, this is the original color"
Patricia Kane is curator of American Decorative Arts. She says a highlight of the collection is its silver.
"Yale’s silver collection is the best American silver, the best in the country and there’s no other museum that has a display that goes from the 17th century right up to the present.."
We fly past Asian Art, African Art, a new-Indo-Pacific collection, Modern and Contemporary Art and Photography.
Breathless, we’re back where we started. What a ride.
The Yale University Art Gallery is free and open to anyone who wants to see original works of art.
