THE CHRYSLER MUSEUM INC

The Chrysler Museum is the largest visual arts organization in eastern Virginia, where it serves as the central resource for interpretive engagement with the fine arts for more than 200,000 visitors each year. While the majority of guests are from our region, the Museum’s reputation attracts visitors from across the country and throughout the world. The Museum also administers the Perry Glass Studio, which offers programs, classes, and free daily glassmaking demonstrations; the historic Myers house (circa 1795), home to the area’s first Jewish residents; and the Jean Outland Chrysler Library, widely hailed as one of the most significant art libraries in the southeastern United States. Free admission and public programming at all venues eliminate financial barriers to attendance and encourage visitation by the broadest audience possible.

The Museum actively seeks to add new works to the collection that reflect the community of which it is a part. Complemented by a robust schedule of changing exhibitions, the collection serves as the catalyst for an array classes and programs designed to engage and inspire lifelong learning by a diversity constituencies. A staff position dedicated to community outreach facilitates the development of collaborative programming with a range of businesses, community groups, and other non-profits to expand our audiences and reach specific constituencies, particularly those with limited access to the arts. Community advisory panels are regularly convened to collect input from different viewpoints and have influenced the content and interpretation of several exhibitions. Customized, curriculum-based K-12 school programs and teacher workshops extend the Museum’s reach into classrooms across the region, and bring more than 8,000 students and educators to the Museum each year, many of them for the first time.

A central element of the Museum’s strategic plan is to develop important and appealing exhibitions that foster new scholarship and raise awareness of lesser known aspects of visual culture. In recent years, staff has expertly organized Thomas Jefferson Architect: Palladian Models, Democratic Principles, and the Conflict of Ideals (2019), Americans in Spain: Painting and Travel 1820–1920 (2021), Alma W. Thomas: Everything is Beautiful (2022), and Black Orpheus: Jacob Lawrence and the Mbari Club (2023). These projects have broken new ground in their fields, produced scholarly catalogues, and three have traveled to important venues throughout the United States.

The Chrysler Collection:
The Chrysler Museum of Art cares for, displays, and interprets a collection of more than 30,000 objects, with core holdings of European Art, American Art, Modern and Contemporary Art, Glass, and Photography. The collection continues to grow through donations and acquisitions that enhance these strengths, but we also seek to fill gaps in the collection by focusing on underrepresented artists, movements, and subjects. The Museum is committed to diversifying its collection, remaining at the forefront of American museums, and introducing compelling new narratives for visitors.

The European Art collection ranges from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century, with major strengths in Baroque and nineteenth-century art. Key works by iconic figures such Jan Gossart, Lucas Cranach, Peter Paul Rubens, Claude Monet, and Henri Matisse, form an expansive view of European painting across centuries. These works are bolstered by the Museum’s collections of decorative art, which include substantial holdings of eighteenth-century English furniture, silver, and Worcester porcelain, as well as Art Nouveau furniture.

The American Art collection similarly extends from the Colonial period to the early twentieth century. Comprised of hundreds of images by leading American artists, it includes important holdings of colonial portraiture, Hudson River School landscapes, and nineteenth century neoclassical sculpture. Enriching this collection further is the Myers House, built in 1795, and administered by the Museum. Home to a family of successful merchants who were Norfolk's first permanent Jewish residents, the Myers House contains seventy percent of its original furnishings, creating an exceptionally accurate picture of the late Federal period in Norfolk.

The collection of Modern and Contemporary Art spans the last century. While international in scope, the collection primarily features artists born in, and working in, the United States. Highlights showcase early European Abstraction, Social Realism, Abstract Expressionism, and Pop Art, with works by critical figures, such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol. Recently, the Museum has focused on growing this collection through the acquisition of works by international artists, women, artists of color, and new mediums such as video and fiber art.

These three collecting areas are enhanced by nearly 5,000 drawings and prints, representing the full creative range of these mediums through works by acclaimed artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Paul Signac, Mary Cassatt, and Jacob Lawrence. In addition to these works on paper, the museum has a substantial Photography collection, with strengths in documentary photography of the Civil War, the New Deal, and the Civil Rights Movement. Recent acquisitions include noteworthy collections of daguerreotypes, vernacular photography, and portfolio collections of regional and national photographers.

The Glass collection is comprised of objects spanning 3,000 years, and includes strong holdings of ancient, American, English, and French glass. The Chrysler has an extensive collection of works by Louis Comfort Tiffany, representing the full range of his production and including many rare and unique examples of his work. The contemporary glass collection is global and far-reaching, with ample holdings of Studio Glass, as well as innovative explorations of the medium by leading contemporary artists.

Smaller, but significant collections of Egyptian, Greco-Roman, Ancient American, African, and Asian Art are displayed on the Museum’s first floor, with exemplary objects from each area, such as the impressive sarcophagus of Psamtik-Seneb. These galleries offer a glimpse of the ancient and contemporary cultures from throughout the world, making them an important regional resource, particularly for school groups. Works from the Museum’s core collections are often showed alongside these objects to create juxtapositions that spark dialogue and draw connections across time and geography.