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High Museum of Art

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High Museum of Art



 
 
The High Museum of Art is a leading art museum in the Southeastern United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
. Located in Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the Capital and most populous city in Georgia , as well as the 33rd largest city in the United States of America with a population of 519,145....
 on Peachtree Street
Peachtree Street

Peachtree Street is the main north-south street of Atlanta, Georgia. The city grew up around this one street, and many of its historical and municipal buildings are or were located along it....
 Northeast, the High is a division of the Woodruff Arts Center
Woodruff Arts Center

Woodruff Arts Center is the largest arts center in the Southeast as well as one of the largest in the United States. The Woodruff is unique in that it combines four visual and performing arts divisions on one campus as one not-for-profit organization....
, which also includes the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is an United States orchestra based in Atlanta, Georgia , USA. Robert Spano has been their music director since 2001....
, Young Audiences and the 14th Street Playhouse.

The High Museum holds more than 11,000 works of art in its permanent collection. Included in this collection are 19th and 20th century American art; European art; decorative art
Decorative art

The decorative arts are traditionally defined as ornamental and functional works in ceramic, wood, glass, metal, textile. The field includes Ceramics , furniture, furnishings, interior design, and architecture....
; African American art
African American art

African American art is a broad term describing the visual arts of the United States Black people community. Influenced by various cultural traditions, including those of Africa, Europe and the Americas, traditional African American art forms include the range of plastic arts, from basketweaving, pottery and quilting to woodcarving and paint...
; modern and contemporary art; photography
Photography

Photography is the process, activity and art of creating still or moving by recording radiation on a sensitive medium, such as a photographic film, or an ....
 and African art
African art

African art constitutes one of the most diverse legacies on earth. Though many casual observers tend to generalize "traditional" African art, the continent is full of peoples, societies, and civilizations, each with a unique visual special culture....
.






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The High Museum of Art is a leading art museum in the Southeastern United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
. Located in Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the Capital and most populous city in Georgia , as well as the 33rd largest city in the United States of America with a population of 519,145....
 on Peachtree Street
Peachtree Street

Peachtree Street is the main north-south street of Atlanta, Georgia. The city grew up around this one street, and many of its historical and municipal buildings are or were located along it....
 Northeast, the High is a division of the Woodruff Arts Center
Woodruff Arts Center

Woodruff Arts Center is the largest arts center in the Southeast as well as one of the largest in the United States. The Woodruff is unique in that it combines four visual and performing arts divisions on one campus as one not-for-profit organization....
, which also includes the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is an United States orchestra based in Atlanta, Georgia , USA. Robert Spano has been their music director since 2001....
, Young Audiences and the 14th Street Playhouse.

The High Museum holds more than 11,000 works of art in its permanent collection. Included in this collection are 19th and 20th century American art; European art; decorative art
Decorative art

The decorative arts are traditionally defined as ornamental and functional works in ceramic, wood, glass, metal, textile. The field includes Ceramics , furniture, furnishings, interior design, and architecture....
; African American art
African American art

African American art is a broad term describing the visual arts of the United States Black people community. Influenced by various cultural traditions, including those of Africa, Europe and the Americas, traditional African American art forms include the range of plastic arts, from basketweaving, pottery and quilting to woodcarving and paint...
; modern and contemporary art; photography
Photography

Photography is the process, activity and art of creating still or moving by recording radiation on a sensitive medium, such as a photographic film, or an ....
 and African art
African art

African art constitutes one of the most diverse legacies on earth. Though many casual observers tend to generalize "traditional" African art, the continent is full of peoples, societies, and civilizations, each with a unique visual special culture....
. Highlights of the permanent collection include works by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, also known as Gianbattista or Giambattista Tiepolo was a Venice Painting and printmaker. He was prolific and worked not only in the Veneto, but also in Germany and Spain, and is considered among the last "Grand manner" fresco painters from the Venice....
, Claude Monet
Claude Monet

Claude Monet also known as Oscar-Claude Monet or Claude Oscar Monet was a founder of French impressionism painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting....
, Martin Johnson Heade
Martin Johnson Heade

Martin Johnson Heade was a prolific United States Painting known for his salt marsh landscapes, seascapes, portraits of tropical birds, and still lifes....
, Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange

Dorothea Lange was an influential United States documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Great Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration ....
, Clarence John Laughlin
Clarence John Laughlin

Clarence John Laughlin was a United States photographer best known for his surrealism photographs of the U.S. South.Laughlin was born in to a middle class family in Lake Charles, Louisiana....
, and Chuck Close
Chuck Close

Chuck Thomas Close is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits. Though a catastrophic spinal artery collapse in 1988 left him severely paralyzed, he has continued to paint and produce work which remains sought after by museums and collectors....
.

The High places special emphasis on supporting and collecting works by Southern artists such as Howard Finster
Howard Finster

The Reverend Howard Finster was a folk artist from Summerville, Georgia who claimed to be inspired by God to spread the gospel through the environment of Paradise Garden and over 46,000 pieces of art....
, and includes a contextual installation of a portion of his Paradise Gardens. The museum includes a curatorial department specifically devoted to the field of self-taught art, a distinction unique among North American museums. The High’s Media Arts department produces an annual film series and festivals of foreign, independent and classic film. Special exhibitions at the High feature strong global partnerships with other museums such as the Louvre and with the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore and the Opificio delle pietre dure
Opificio delle pietre dure

The Opificio delle Pietre Dure e Laborati di Restauro literally meaning Workshop for Hard Stones and Laboratory for Restoration is an autonomous institute of the Italy Ministry for Cultural Heritage based in Via Alfani in Florence....
 in Florence
Florence

Florence is the Capital city of the Italy Regions of Italy of Tuscany and of the provinces of Italy Province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany and has a population of 364,779 ....
.

History

The museum was founded in 1905 as the Atlanta Art Association. In 1926, the High family, for whom the museum is named, donated their family home on Peachtree Street to house the collection following a series of exhibitions involving the Grand Central Galleries organized by Atlanta collector J. J. Haverty. Many pieces from the Haverty collection are now in the High Museum of Art. A separate building for the museum was built adjacent to the family home in 1955.

On June 3, 1962, 106 Atlanta arts patrons died in an airplane crash at Orly Airport
Orly Airport

Paris - Orly Airport is an airport located partially in Orly and partially in Villeneuve-le-Roi, south of Paris, France. It has flights to cities in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Caribbean, and North America....
 in Paris
Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
, France
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
, while on a museum-sponsored trip. Including crew and other passengers, 130 people were killed in what was, at the time, the worst single plane aviation disaster in history. Members of Atlanta's prominent families were lost including members of the Berry family who founded Berry College
Berry College

Berry College is an United States accredited, private, four-year Liberal arts colleges in the United States located in Mount Berry, Georgia....
. In their honor, the Atlanta Memorial Arts Center was built for the High. The French government donated a Rodin sculpture "The Shade" to the High in memory of the victims of the crash.

In 1983, a building designed by architect Richard Meier
Richard Meier

Richard Meier is a United States architect known for his rationalist designs and the use of the color white....
 opened to house the High Museum of Art. The Meier building was funded by a $7.9 million challenge grant
Challenge grant

Challenge grants are funds dispersed by one party , usually a Government Agency, Corporation, Foundation or Trust, typically to a non-profit entity or educational institution upon completion of the challenge requirement....
 from former Coca-Cola president Robert W. Woodruff
Robert W. Woodruff

Robert Winship Woodruff was the president of The Coca-Cola Company from 1923 until 1954. With his enormous Coke fortune, he was also a major philanthropist, and many educational and cultural landmarks in the United States city of Atlanta, Georgia, bear his name....
 matched by $20 million raised by the museum.

Several scenes for the 1986 movie Manhunter
Manhunter (film)

Manhunter is a 1986 thriller based on Thomas Harris's novel Red Dragon . Written and directed by Michael Mann , it features Brian Cox as the popular character Hannibal Lecter and stars William Petersen, Joan Allen, Kim Greist, Dennis Farina and Tom Noonan....
 were filmed at the museum.

In 2002, three new buildings designed by Renzo Piano
Renzo Piano

Renzo Piano is a world renowned Italy architect and recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, AIA Gold Medal, Kyoto Prize and the Sonning Prize....
 more than doubled the museum's size to . The Piano buildings were designed as part of an overall upgrade of the entire Woodruff Arts Center complex.

From October 2006 through 2009, Louvre Atlanta will be on view at the High . Louvre Atlanta is an unprecedented partnership that brings hundreds of paintings and sculptures from the Louvre, many of which have never before been seen in the United States, to the High. The High’s global partnerships continued in the spring of 2007 when, after more than twenty-five years of restoration work, the High Museum of Art, in collaboration with the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore and the Opificio delle Pietre Dure
Opificio delle pietre dure

The Opificio delle Pietre Dure e Laborati di Restauro literally meaning Workshop for Hard Stones and Laboratory for Restoration is an autonomous institute of the Italy Ministry for Cultural Heritage based in Via Alfani in Florence....
 in Florence, Italy, presents an exhibition of The Gates of Paradise by Lorenzo Ghiberti.[1]

Throughout the spring and summer of 2008, the High will also feature:

Louvre Atlanta: The Louvre and the Ancient World October 16, 2007 - September 7, 2008

Louvre Atlanta: Eye of Josephine October 16, 2007 - May 18, 2008

Street Life: American Photographs from the 1960s and 70s December 22, 2007 - August 10, 2008

Young Americans: Photographs by Sheila Pree Bright May 3 - August 10, 2008

Louvre Atlanta: Houdon at the Louvre: Masterworks of the Enlightenment June 7 - September 7, 2008

Road to Freedom: Photographs from the Civil Rights Movement, 1956-1968 June 7 - October 5, 2008

After 1968: Contemporary Artists and the Civil Rights Legacy June 7 - October 5, 2008

Later in 2008, the High will present "Medieval and Renaissance Treasures from the Victoria and Albert Museum," the third installment of Louvre Atlanta, "The Louvre and the Masterpiece," and "The Treasure of Ulysses Davis," which includes over 100 pieces by the self-taught Savannah artist.

Opening in November 2008 is "The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army," a collection of terracotta figures and artifacts from Xi'an, China.

External links