Nassau County Museum of Art
Encyclopedia
The Nassau County Museum of Art (NCMA) is located 20 miles east of New York City on the former Frick Estate, a 145 acres (58.7 ha) property in Roslyn Harbor in the heart of Long Island
’s Gold Coast. The main museum building, named in honor of art collectors and philanthropists Arnold & Joan Saltzman, is a three-story Georgian mansion that exemplifies Gold Coast architecture of the late 19th century. In addition to the mansion, NCMA, which receives nearly 200,000 visitors each year, includes the Art Space for Children, the Sculpture Park, the Formal Garden, rare specimen trees, marked walking trails and the Art School where an extensive array of beginning to advanced art classes are held for adults and children.
NCMA’s collection of more than 600 art objects spans American and European art of the 19th and 20th centuries. Encompassing all types of media, the collection includes works by Rodin, Braque, Vuillard, Bonnard, Lichtenstein, Rivers, Rauschenberg, Chaim Gross, Moses Soyer, Audrey Flack, Frank Stella, George Segal and Alex Katz among many others. Particularly notable are the museum’s holdings of works by Latin American artists of the 20th- and 21st-centuries. Among those represented in this collection are Wifredo Lam, Roberto Matta, Fernando Botero, Alejandro Colunga, Luiz Cruz Azeceta, Arnaldo Roche-Rabell and Efrain Almeida.
A major reorganization of the former Tee Ridder Miniatures Museum resulted in a facility that is dedicated to art and art-related activities for children and their families. Reflecting its new mission, the building is now called the Art Space for Children. A grassroots funding campaign has been launched by the museum to expand and completely transform the Art Space for Children.
NCMA's 145 acres constitute one of the largest publicly accessible sculpture gardens on the East Coast. Among the more than 40 sculptures sited on the property to interact with the natural environment are works by Tom Otterness, Alexander Calder, Fernando Botero, Chaim Gross, Alejandro Colunga, Masayuki Nagare, Richard Serra, Manolo Valdes and many others. The Sculpture Park was founded in 1989.
The museum's gardens and walking trails are also notable. Commissioned in 1925 by Frances Frick, an avid horticulturist and garden club member, the Frick Estate’s Formal Gardens have been restored to the original design of the famed landscape architect, Marian Cruger Coffin. Coffin considered these Formal Gardens to be among her finest creations. In recent years, the historic garden trellis and water tower have been restored to original condition. Additionally, many pathways through the 145-acre property are now marked as guided nature trails.
In 1919 Bryant’s heirs sold the estate to Henry Clay Frick, the co-founder of U.S. Steel, for his son, Childs Frick. The architect Sir Charles Carrick Allow was commissioned to redesign the facade and much of the interior. The Fricks named their home Clayton. Childs Frick and his wife Frances lived at Clayton for almost 50 years, until his death in 1965. The county bought the estate four years later and converted it into a museum, called Nassau County Museum of Art. In 1989, NCMA became a private not-for-profit institution and since has been governed and funded by a private board of trustees which includes many of Long Island’s most prominent business, civic and social leaders.
The Fine Arts Museum of Long Island, which spun off from the Nassau County Museum of Art, operated from 1978 to 2003.
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
’s Gold Coast. The main museum building, named in honor of art collectors and philanthropists Arnold & Joan Saltzman, is a three-story Georgian mansion that exemplifies Gold Coast architecture of the late 19th century. In addition to the mansion, NCMA, which receives nearly 200,000 visitors each year, includes the Art Space for Children, the Sculpture Park, the Formal Garden, rare specimen trees, marked walking trails and the Art School where an extensive array of beginning to advanced art classes are held for adults and children.
Overview
NCMA annually presents major rotating exhibitions, many of which are original to the museum and are organized by the museum’s own curatorial staff. The museum's exhibitions have reached across a broad spectrum of artistic concerns—from European and American art movements,Surrealism, September 2000 & May 2007Reflections of Opulence, May 2001A Century of Prints, March 2003La Belle Epoque, June 2003European Art Between the Wars, May 2004Picasso, February 2005Picasso and the School of Paris, November 2006Pop and Op, February 2008The Subject is Women: Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, January 2010 to epochs of American and European history,The Revolutionary War, January 2000Napoleon And His Age, January 2001Window on the West, February 2002The World of Theodore Roosevelt, November 2002The WPA Era, August 2004The American Spirit: Paintings by Mort Künstler, August 2006Napoleon and Eugenie, June 2009 to the influences of one art form on another Dance, Dance, Dance, June 2000Explosive Photography/Photorealism, January 2004Geoffrey Holder: A Life in Art, Theater and Dance, November 2007 and to the impact of Long Island artists on art and design.The Hamptons Since Pollock, April 2000Tiffany and the Gilded Age, September 2008 In addition to these major exhibitions, NCMA mounts smaller original exhibitions in the Library Gallery and the Second Floor galleries and regularly showcases work by today’s artists in the Contemporary Gallery.NCMA’s collection of more than 600 art objects spans American and European art of the 19th and 20th centuries. Encompassing all types of media, the collection includes works by Rodin, Braque, Vuillard, Bonnard, Lichtenstein, Rivers, Rauschenberg, Chaim Gross, Moses Soyer, Audrey Flack, Frank Stella, George Segal and Alex Katz among many others. Particularly notable are the museum’s holdings of works by Latin American artists of the 20th- and 21st-centuries. Among those represented in this collection are Wifredo Lam, Roberto Matta, Fernando Botero, Alejandro Colunga, Luiz Cruz Azeceta, Arnaldo Roche-Rabell and Efrain Almeida.
A major reorganization of the former Tee Ridder Miniatures Museum resulted in a facility that is dedicated to art and art-related activities for children and their families. Reflecting its new mission, the building is now called the Art Space for Children. A grassroots funding campaign has been launched by the museum to expand and completely transform the Art Space for Children.
NCMA's 145 acres constitute one of the largest publicly accessible sculpture gardens on the East Coast. Among the more than 40 sculptures sited on the property to interact with the natural environment are works by Tom Otterness, Alexander Calder, Fernando Botero, Chaim Gross, Alejandro Colunga, Masayuki Nagare, Richard Serra, Manolo Valdes and many others. The Sculpture Park was founded in 1989.
The museum's gardens and walking trails are also notable. Commissioned in 1925 by Frances Frick, an avid horticulturist and garden club member, the Frick Estate’s Formal Gardens have been restored to the original design of the famed landscape architect, Marian Cruger Coffin. Coffin considered these Formal Gardens to be among her finest creations. In recent years, the historic garden trellis and water tower have been restored to original condition. Additionally, many pathways through the 145-acre property are now marked as guided nature trails.
History
The land that eventually became the museum grounds was previously the undeveloped portion of Cedarmere, poet William Cullen Bryant's retreat from his busy life in New York City. In the 1890s, his family sold all but seven acres to former congressman Lloyd Bryce, who hired Ogden Codman, Jr. to build a Georgian Revival mansion on the high ground in the middle of the property, overlooking nearby Hempstead Harbor. He named it Clayton.In 1919 Bryant’s heirs sold the estate to Henry Clay Frick, the co-founder of U.S. Steel, for his son, Childs Frick. The architect Sir Charles Carrick Allow was commissioned to redesign the facade and much of the interior. The Fricks named their home Clayton. Childs Frick and his wife Frances lived at Clayton for almost 50 years, until his death in 1965. The county bought the estate four years later and converted it into a museum, called Nassau County Museum of Art. In 1989, NCMA became a private not-for-profit institution and since has been governed and funded by a private board of trustees which includes many of Long Island’s most prominent business, civic and social leaders.
The Fine Arts Museum of Long Island, which spun off from the Nassau County Museum of Art, operated from 1978 to 2003.