Crocker Art Museum
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The Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, California, USA has operated continuously longer than any other art museum west of the Mississippi River. Founded in 1885, it boasts an excellent collection of early California art including important works of Albert Bierstadt, Xavier Martinez, William Keith, and Thomas Hill; in addition there is an old master drawings collection containing pieces of Rembrandt, Durer, and Francois Boucher. The core collection gifted by Judge E.B. Crocker has grown to a count of over 14,000 pieces. The Crocker Museum is the leading art museum of the capitol district and California Central Valley.
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[edit] Early California Collection
The California Collection includes scenes of early settlement, Gold Rush era, and turn of the century Tonalism. These works capture a broad range of the early California experience including landscape and genre paintings. Examples from the core collection assembled by Judge Crocker are Thomas Hill's Great Canyon of the Sierra (1871), Charles Christian Nahl's Sunday Morning in the Mines, William Hahn's Market Scene (1872) and The Larder (1879) by Samuel Marsden Brooks. Late 19th and early 20th century Impressionism and Tonalism art has been added, including such works as Edward Deakin's Mont Blanc (1880); Xavier Martinez' The Bathers; and William Keith's After Morning Rain (ca. 1890s).
[edit] Old Master drawings
Many major European schools are represented in this collection of approximately 1400 images. There are noteworthy Italian masterpieces, especially from the 16th and 17th centuries. The Central European and Swiss Schools are strongly represented, particularly from the 19th century. Present are a number of rare works of the French school. Some specific drawings held are: Albrecht Durer's Woman with a Banner, Jacques Callot's Study for the Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian and Rembrandt's Liberation of Saint Peter.
[edit] Asian Art collection
Over 600 miniature Indian and Persian artworks donated by Edith and William Cleary form the backbone of this expanding collection.
[edit] Architecture
In 1868, Judge Edwin B. Crocker purchased the property and existing buildings on the corner of Third and O Streets. He then commissioned Seth Babson (1830-1908), a talented local architect, to redesign and renovate the home into a grander, Italianate mansion. In addition, Crocker asked Babson to design an elaborate gallery building that would sit adjacent to the mansion and display the family’s growing art collection.
Babson saw the home and gallery as an integrated complex, unique in design and demanding the finest materials. The gallery building included a bowling alley, skating rink and billiards room on the ground floor; a natural history museum and a library on the first floor; and gallery space on the second floor. Completed in 1872, the Crocker family mansion and art gallery are considered the masterpieces of Babson's career.
Today, the art gallery building retains its original Victorian Italianate design and serves as the main entrance to the Museum. The family mansion went through several uses and reconstructions until a 1989 renovation restored the historic façade and created a modern gallery interior. The original buildings, now connected, as well as the Herold Wing addition of 1969, were renamed the Crocker Art Museum in 1978.
Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects was commissioned in 2000 to design the renovation of, and addition to the museum. The museum’s major addition and renovation will triple the institution’s size to 145,000 square feet and elevate it to a world-class facility. The design will give the Crocker, long considered one of the cultural gems of the western United States, a more prominent, contemporary image along with greatly expanded, skylit gallery spaces suitable for both its permanent collection and temporary exhibits. Also part of the project are a public plaza and larger commercial, educational, administrative and support spaces.
[edit] Bibliography of works about the Crocker Art Museum
- Janice T. Driesbach, Catherine Church Holland and Harvey Jones, Art of the Gold Rush. University of California Press (1998)
- Susan Landauer, California Impressionists, Georgia Museum of Art (1996)
