The DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is a sculpture park and art museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts

Lincoln, Massachusetts

Lincoln is a town in the historic area of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 6,362 at the 2010 census, including residents of Hanscom Air Force Base that live within town limits...

 focused on modern and contemporary art, and holds a collection focused on work in all media, especially works by artists with connections to New England. The photography collection is particularly strong and the exhibitions program emphasizes sculpture.

History

Julian de Cordova, a Boston businessman, had a personal collection of visual arts which he often opened to the public. He donated his property to the town of Lincoln in 1930 with the condition that it become a public museum of art after his death. De Cordova died in 1945, and the trustees he appointed determined that it should focus on living regional artists and art education, and established the DeCordova and Dana Museum and Park in 1948. It opened to the public in 1950. The founding director of the museum was Frederick P. Walkey, whose innovative concepts for a regional museum of living art combined with art festivals, camps, and classes, helped establish a new model for small regional museums in the United States. It was popularly known as the DeCordova Museum, and officially changed its name to the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in 2009.

Museum

Its highlight is a 35 acres (141,640.1 m²) park overlooking Flint's Pond (also known as Sandy Pond) with approximately 70 outdoor sculptures and installations; it also has several indoor galleries with a rotating series of special exhibitions, a studio art school, gift shop, cafe, and functions spaces. The park's permanent collection is small but important, including works by Antony Gormley

Antony Gormley

Antony Mark David Gormley OBE RA is a British sculptor. His best known works include the Angel of the North, a public sculpture in the North of England, commissioned in 1995 and erected in February 1998, Another Place on Crosby Beach near Liverpool, and Event Horizon, a multi-part site...

, George Rickey

George Rickey

George Rickey was an American kinetic sculptor.Rickey was born on June 6, 1907 in South Bend, Indiana.-Life and work:...

, Alexander Liberman

Alexander Liberman

Alexander Semeonovitch Liberman was a Russian-American magazine editor, publisher, painter, photographer, and sculptor. He held senior artistic positions during his 32 years at Condé Nast Publications.-Biography:When his father took a post advising the Soviet government, the family moved to Moscow...

, Nam June Paik

Nam June Paik

Nam June Paik was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the first video artist....

 and others. Additionally, prominent works by Ursula von Rydingsvard, Sol LeWitt, Type A, Mark diSuvero, Chakaia Booker, Bartow + Metzgar, Jim Dine and other artists are displayed on rotating loan, and the park features rotating installations of new and site-specific contemporary work.

Museum School

The Museum School at DeCordova has 75 instructors, and about 4,000 students enroll annually. In its curriculum there are 100 adult classes/workshops each term, 20–30 children's classes, and children's summer programs throughout July. The facility includes seven studios for Calligraphy

Calligraphy

Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...

, Ceramics

Ceramic art

In art history, ceramics and ceramic art mean art objects such as figures, tiles, and tableware made from clay and other raw materials by the process of pottery. Some ceramic products are regarded as fine art, while others are regarded as decorative, industrial or applied art objects, or as...

, Jewelry, Painting

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

, Printmaking

Printmaking

Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...

, Sculpture

Sculpture

Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...

, and Watercolor art. Other programs at the school include book arts, collage

Collage

A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....

, fiber

Fiber

Fiber is a class of materials that are continuous filaments or are in discrete elongated pieces, similar to lengths of thread.They are very important in the biology of both plants and animals, for holding tissues together....

, the decorative arts, and photography

Photography

Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

.

External links

• http://www.decordova.org/
• Charity Navigator