Collections
The permanent collections of the Art Museum and its subsidiary, the Joseph Allen Skinner Museum, include more than 24,000 works of art, decorative art, and material and visual culture from around the world and through time. Founded in 1876, our holdings continue to grow through gifts and purchases. Selections from these diverse collections are on view in our public galleries, and stored objects are also available for classes or individual appointments by students, faculty, scholars, and community members.
Get to know the Museum by browsing highlights organized by culture, time period, and material or by viewing our special collections donated by individuals and organizations. To locate a particular object, search our complete holdings online through the Five Colleges and Historic Deerfield Museum Consortium Collection Database.
Events And Links
Curatorial Intern Juliana Cordero ’18 is a book lover. Her affinity for books is so strong, in fact, that she hopes to pursue a career as a book conservator. Here, she shares her favorite books from a collection of nearly 70 artists’ books by women recently gifted to MHCAM by Marjorie (Jerry) Cohn ’60. Cohn, a long-time conservator and curator at the Fogg Museum, amassed this wondrous collection over 25 years. Feminist themes abound in these books, through comedy, tragedy, and the commonplace. Read on…Cordero’s picks are laugh-out-loud funny!
Money doesn’t just talk. It’s also good to think with. Assistant Professor of History Desmond Fitz-Gibbon describes some of the intriguing stories told by coins and other money-related objects in the MHCAM collection: a Spanish real with layers of history, a gold solidus with a disturbing omission, and an assignat, France’s first paper currency. Taught bienially in the spring semester, Professor Fitz-Gibbon’s History of Money course explores the meaning of money from the distant past to the present day.
Associate Curator of Visual and Material Culture Aaron Miller is back with another list of ten delightfully strange objects from the collection of the Joseph Allen Skinner Museum. This time, see if you can match his amusing descriptions with the objects. And don't miss out on a visit to the Skinner Museum before it closes for the season!