The University of Notre Dame’s former Snite Museum of Art is reopening as the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art in a new building in the university’s arts district on 30 November.
Dating back to 1875, the art museum is part of the University of Notre Dame, a Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana.
Designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, the new 70,000-square-foot building is located in the nine-acre Charles B. Hayes Family Sculpture Park.
The launch of the new venue “promises to be a transformational experience for the University of Notre Dame as well as the entire region and national arts audiences”, said Joseph Antenucci Becherer, director of the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art.
“The storied and celebrated collections have been thoughtfully addressed and reinstalled in a majestic new home where tradition and innovation, the classic and the contemporary meet,” he added.
The Raclin Murphy Museum of Art will be home to state-of-the-art galleries, a multi-level atrium, a teaching gallery, a cafe and a bookshop.
It will include European and American art created between 1700 and 1900, African art dating from 2,000 BCE to the present day, Indigenous art of the Americas, and international modern and contemporary art.
“The new Raclin Murphy Museum of Art nurtures an ongoing culture of learning through art,” said Melissa DelVecchio, partner at Robert A.M. Stern Architects.
Learning through art
“The museum provides a vibrant new home for permanent collections together with space for events and temporary exhibitions that will bring the campus and community together.”
The new museum‘s second phase will include a 62,000-square-foot research complex, open collections storage and an auditorium.
Per a press release, the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art is one of the oldest university art museums in the US. The permanent collection contains more than 30,000 works representing various cultures and periods in history.
Lead image credit: Robert A.M. Stern Architects
