The Muscarelle Museum of Art is a university museum affiliated with the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. While the Museum only dates to 1983, the university art collection has been in existence since its first gift – a portrait of the physicist Robert Boyle – in 1732. Most early gifts to William & Mary relate to its history or the history of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Gifts of portraiture were the foundation of the early collection and include many First Families of Virginia (FFV) including sitters from the Page, Bolling and Randolph families.

History

Throughout the years, gifts of art continued to accumulate including a donation of White Flower by Georgia O'Keeffe given to William & Mary in 1938 by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. This major work in the collection had indiscriminately "decorated" various campus walls, old and new, until it was re-discovered by President Thomas Ashley Graves Jr. in the 1970s. Graves tasked Miles Chappell, from the department of art and art history, to make a college-wide inventory. It was at that time that the immensity and importance of the growing collection was understood and the need for a university museum became apparent.

With the support of numerous alumni, including a major benefactor, Joseph L. Muscarelle (W&M '27) and his wife Margaret, the Carlton Abbott designed Muscarelle Museum of Art opened in 1983 with Glenn D. Lowry as director. In 1987, the second director, Mark Johnson oversaw the expansion of the facility and the first American Alliance of Museums accreditation in 1988. Subsequent accreditations came in 2000 under then-director Bonnie Kelm, and in 2012 under former director Aaron De Groft. David M. Brashear was appointed as interim director in January 2019, and in June 2020 was named as the museum's fifth director.

Current activities Today the collection numbers close to 8,000 works. Of particular note are Colonial American and English seventeenth and eighteenth century portraits; a survey collection of original prints and drawings from the fifteenth through the twenty-first centuries including Japanese prints and a major collection of German Expressionist works by Hans Grohs; and the Jean Outland Chrysler collection of American modern works interpreted in oils, drawings, watercolors, and sculpture. Recent acquisitions include European master works by such artists as Luca Giordano and Luca Forte, historic photographic works by Julia Margaret Cameron, Carleton E. Watkins and Edward S. Curtis, as well as contemporary Native American works by Kay WalkingStick, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Emmi Whitehorse, and Cara Romero.

A renovation and expansion of the existing museum concluded in early 2025, creating a state of the art facility as part of the Martha Wren Briggs Center for the Visual Arts at the original Jamestown Road campus location. Designed by world-renowned architects Pelli Clarke & Partners, the expanded Muscarelle Museum of Art includes additional gallery space for both traveling exhibitions and the permanent collection as well as additional space for lectures, events, and programming.

Selected exhibitions

+ Exhibition Start date End date Michelangelo: The Genesis of the Sistine March 6, 2025 May 28, 2025 Shared Ideologies, Selected works by Native American artists from the 1970s to the Present September 1, 2021 February 13, 2022 Forever Marked By The Day September 10, 2021 January 23, 2022 1619 / 2019 November 6, 2019 January 26, 2020 Women with Vision: Masterworks from the Permanent Collection February 10, 2018 May 13, 2018 In the Light of Caravaggio: Dutch and Flemish Paintings from Southeastern Museums February 10, 2018 May 13, 2018 Building on the Legacy: African American Art from the Permanent Collection September 2, 2017 January 14, 2018 Fred Eversley: 50 Tears an Artist: Light & Space & Energy September 2, 2017 December 10, 2017 The Bones of the Earth: Scholars Rocks and the Natural World in Chinese Culture, Selections from the Robert Turvene Collection April 21, 2017 August 13, 2017 The Art and Science of Connoisseurship February 11, 2017 August 13, 2017 Botticelli and the Search for the Divine: Florentine Painting between the Medici and the Bonfires of the Vanities February 11, 2017 April 5, 2017 Building the Brafferton: The Founding, Funding and Legacy of America's Indian School September 10, 2016 January 8, 2017 Contemporary American Marine Art: 17th National Exhibition of the American Society of Marine Artists September 10, 2016 December 2, 2016 Norman Rockwell and the Boy Scouts February 6, 2016 August 21, 2016 Hiroshige's 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō February 6, 2016 August 21, 2016 Twilight of a Golden Age: Florentine Painting after the Renaissance, masterworks from the Haukohl Family Collection April 25, 2015 January 17, 2016 Leonardo da Vinci and the Idea of Beauty February 21, 2015 April 5, 2015 Tree to Mountain: The Woodblock Prints of Tōshi Yoshida October 17, 2014 February 8, 2014 21st Century Diplomacy: Ballet, Ballots and Bullets May 31, 2014 September 28, 2014 Caravaggio Connoisseurship: Saint Francis in Meditation and the Capitoline Fortune Teller February 8, 2014 April 6, 2014 Glenn Close: A Life in Costume September 28, 2013 January 12, 2014 A Brush with Passion: Mattia Preti (1613–1699) February 9, 2013 April 14, 2013 Michelangelo: Sacred and Profane, Masterpieces from the Casa Buonarroti February 9, 2013 April 14, 2013 African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond from the Smithsonian Art Museum September 28, 2012 January 6, 2013 Athenian Potters and Painters: Greek Vases from Virginia Collections August 18, 2012 October 7, 2012 Seeing Colors: Secrets of the Impressionists October 20, 2011 January 22, 2012 In Memory Still: A Kiowa Legacy in Art September 10, 2011 November 13, 2011 Envelopes: Architect's Unfinished Experiments with Building "Skins" September 17, 2010 October 24, 2010 Merging Souls: Arts of Devotion in Latin America April 24, 2010 July 18, 2010 Unbearable Beauty: Triumph of the Human Spirit, Photographs by W. Eugene Smith and Aileen M. Smith April 24, 2010 July 18, 2010 Michelangelo: Anatomy as Architecture, Drawings by the Master February 6, 2010 - Deeply Superficial: Andy Warhol's "Voyeurism" November 7, 2009 January 17, 2010 Spanish Baroque in the New World: Sibyls from Zurbarán's Studio August 4, 2009 November 1, 2009 Tiffany Glass: A Riot of Color ("Art of Glass" ten year anniversary in Conjunction with Chrysler, Contemporary Art Center of VA, and the VA Arts Festival) April 16, 2009 July 12, 2009 The Dutch Italianates: Seventeenth-Century Masterpieces from Dulwich Picture Gallery November 13, 2008 March 22, 2009 Beyond the Edge of the Sea: Diversity of Life in the Deep-Ocean Wilderness September 5 November 2, 2008 Painting the Italian Landscape: Views from the Uffizi January 25, 2008 March 23, 2008 Legacy of the Generations: Jacob Lawerence's Legend of John Brown November 16, 2007 December 16, 2007 America the Beautiful: The Monumental Landscape of Clyde Butcher September 6, 2007 December 16, 2007 Building a College: The Colonial Revival Campus at The College of William & Mary September 6, 2007 November 12, 2007 Stars & Stripes: Rare & Historic American Flags from the Collection of Mark and Rosalind Shenkman June 16, 2007 July 29, 2007 Visions of the Soul: Works by Hans Friedrich Grohs May 5, 2007 July 29, 2007 An American Story: The Wyeth Family Tradition In Art April 21, 2007 May 27, 2007 Jaune Quick-To-See Smith: Contemporary Native American Paintings and the Response to Colonization February 10, 2007 April 8, 2007 Medici in America, Natura Morta: Still-Life Paintings of the Medici Collections & Caravaggio's Still Life with Fruit on a Stone Ledge November 11, 2006 January 7, 2007 The Tsar's Cabinet: Two Hundred Years of Russian Decorative Arts Under the Romanovs August 26, 2006 October 8, 2006 Eloquent Vistas: The Art of Nineteenth-Century Landscape Photography from the George Eastman House Collection November 5, 2005 January 8, 2006 Charles E. Burchfield: Backyards and Beyond August 27, 2005 October 23, 2005 Toulouse-Lautrec: Master of the Moulin Rouge August 28, 2004 October 24, 2004 American Studio Glass: A Survey of the Movement January 24, 2004 March 21, 2004 Shaped with Passion: The Carl A. Weyerhaeuser Collection of Japanese Ceramics from the 1970s August 18, 2001 October 7, 2001 Quilt National 1999: The Best in Contemporary Quilts May 5, 2001 July 7, 2001 Georgia O'Keeffe in Williamsburg: A Re-Creation of the Artist's First Public Exhibition in the South January 27, 2001 April 27, 2001 Bridges & Boundaries Revisited: African Americans & American Jews August 26, 2000 October 29, 2000 Hung Liu: A Ten Year Survey 1988–1998 August 26, 1998 October 18, 1998 Ties That Bind: Iban Ikat Fabrics July 11, 1998 August 16, 1998 Inuit II: From the Collection of Frederick & Lucy S. Herman; Contemporary American Indian Art: The Joe Fedderson Collection August 23, 1997 October 19, 1997 Building Form: Ansel Adams & Architecture June 14, 1997 August 17, 1997 Nell Blaine: Retrospective October 19, 1996 December 1, 1996 Voyages & Visions: Nineteenth-Century European Images of the Middle East from the Victoria & Albert Museum January 20, 1996 March 3, 1996 African-American Works on Paper October 21, 1995 December 3, 1995 Before Discovery: Artistic Development in the Americas Before the Arrival of Columbus May 27, 1995 August 27, 1995 The Passionate Observer: Photographs by Carl Van Vechten April 1, 1995 May 21, 1995 The Reverend James Blair: Preparatory Models & Drawings for the Stature by Lewis Cohen February 25, 1995 May 21, 1995 Drawn on the Spot: Perceptions and Views October 15, 1994 January 8, 1995 A Golden Age of Painting: Dutch, Flemish & German Paintings of the 16th – 17th Centuries from the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston, Texas; The Fine Art of Drawing: Works on Paper from the Museum and the Herman Foundation Collections January 23, 1993 March 21, 1993 Lila Katzen Quincentenary Sculpture Exhibition: Isabel, Columbus & the Statue of Liberty February 29, 1992 April 5, 1992 Rodin: Sculpture from the B. Gerald Cantor Collection February 28, 1991 April 28, 1991 Portraits & Prospects: British & Irish Drawings & Watercolors from the Collection of the Ulster Museum January 13, 1990 March 4, 1990 Photographs by David Hockney March 18, 1989 April 30, 1989 Art & the Law December 21, 1987 January 17, 1988 Photographs by Yousuf Karsh July 4, 1987 September 20, 1987 Modernism in America: 1937–1941 August 25, 1985 November 17, 1985 19th Century German Drawings from the Frederick & Lucy S. Herman Foundation April 24, 1985 May 4, 1985 Gene Davis: Child & Man Collaboration January 11, 1985 February 25, 1985 Into the Melting Pot: The Immigration of American Modernism (1909–1929) October 8, 1984 January 10, 1985 In Search of Light: Spanish Painters from 1850–1950 May 11, 1984 July 9, 1984 Late 20th Century Art from the Sydney & Frances Lewis Foundation February 4, 1984 April 30, 1984 Form, Function, & Finesse: Drawings from the Frederick & Lucy Herman Foundation October 21, 1983 December 21, 1983

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