Spring 2024 Direct from the Director
Woohoo! I am very excited to share the fantastic news that we are an accredited Museum!
The Fairfield University Art Museum has been awarded Accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums, the highest national recognition afforded to American museums. Receiving accreditation signifies excellence to the entire museum community, to government agencies and institutional funders, to collectors, partners, and visitors. This prestigious distinction will bring national recognition to our Museum for its commitment to excellence, accountability, high professional standards, and continued institutional improvement.
About the Accreditation process: Accreditation is a rigorous but highly rewarding process that examines all aspects of a museum’s operations. To earn accreditation, a museum first must conduct a year of self-study and then undergo a site visit by a team of peer reviewers. Our small-but-mighty team at the Fairfield University Art Museum worked on the self-study from May 2022 through May 2023. As part of the process, we hosted two peer reviewers on campus for a two-day site visit in November 2023. The Alliance’s Accreditation Commission, an independent and autonomous body of museum professionals, considered the self-study and visiting committee report to determine whether we should receive accreditation. We were just notified of this happy result!
Our accreditation distinguishes the Fairfield University Art Museum on the national stage:
- Of the nation’s estimated 33,000 museums, just over 1,080 are currently accredited.
- Fairfield University Art Museum is one of only 21 accredited museums in Connecticut and one of only 12 accredited art museums in the state.
- Only 11% of museums in New England and only 16% of the academic art museums in the country are accredited.
- Only 15% of the museums with staffs the size of Fairfield’s Art Museum have achieved this honor, and only one other Jesuit University has an accredited museum (the De Saisset Museum at Santa Clara University).
We are incredibly proud to be an accredited Museum and to have been recognized for all that we have accomplished since the Museum’s inception in 2010. Among the achievements we are most proud of are: having grown and diversified the permanent collection, which now numbers almost 2,700 objects; making our programs accessible to the broadest possible audiences through livestreaming, recording and archiving; keeping our exhibitions and events always completely free and open to all year after year; and making all of our exhibition materials available bilingually in Spanish. Our accreditation is a testament to the incredible generosity of our wonderful donors and supporters, who make our work possible and enable us to present programs of the highest quality for the benefit of our students, faculty, and the broader community.
We have recently acquired a number of new works, some by donation and several via the Black Art Fund, in our continued quest to diversify our collection by purchasing works by Contemporary Black artists. This stunning photograph, entitled Sun and Trees, by Adger Cowans was included in our 2022 solo exhibition of the artist's work. We are thrilled to now be able to add it to our permanent collection, and it is making a reappearance in our Landscape in Focus exhibition opening next week.
This work by Martina Johnson-Allen was acquired, along with two others, from Brandywine Workshop and Archives to augment our Satellite Collection of works created there. It will be included in an exhibition this coming fall focusing on Brandywine prints entitled Sacred Spaces, guest curated by Juanita Sunday.
We are absolutely delighted and extremely grateful that the Quetzal that is included in Streaming: Sculpture by Christy Rupp, the current exhibition in the Museum's Walsh Gallery, has been donated by the artist to the Museum's permanent collection. You have just one month left to see this fantastic exhibition - do not miss it!
I look forward to seeing you in the galleries this spring for Christy Rupp (followed by Peter Anton: Just Desserts), Suzanne Chamlin: Studies in Color, and our Focus on Landscape photography exhibition.
Artfully yours, Carey Carey Mack Weber Frank and Clara Meditz Executive Director
Captions: Adger Cowans, Sun and Trees, 1959, archival pigment print. Museum Purchase with funds from the Black Art Fund, 2024 Martina Johnson-Allen, Another Realm, 2006, offset lithograph. Partial gift of the Brandywine Workshop and Archives and Museum Purchase with funds from the Black Art Fund, 2024 Christy Rupp, Quetzal, 2020, credit cards, wood, steel, mixed media. Gift of the artist. Christy Rupp, Streaming: Sculpture by Christy Rupp, Gallery Installation shot, Walsh Gallery, February 2024