Renovated Yale Art Gallery to Reopen in December 2012

The Yale University Art Gallery, in New Haven, Connecticut, the oldest and one of the most important university art museums in America, is in the final phase of a renovation and expansion that will transform the visitor experience of both the museum and its esteemed collections. The project will enable the Gallery not only to enhance its role as one of the nation's most prominent teaching institutions but also to join the ranks of the country's leading public art museums. The expandEd Gallery will open in December 2012.

The $135 million renovation increases the space occupied by the Gallery from one-and-a-half buildings—the 1953 modernist structure designed by Louis Kahn and approximately half of the adjacent 1928 Old Yale Art Gallery, designed by Egerton Swartwout—to three. The project began with the critically acclaimed restoration of the Kahn building and continues today with the renovation and expansion of the Old Yale Art Gallery and the contiguous 1866 Street Hall, designed by Peter Bonnett Wight and home to the Gallery from 1866 to 1928. It unites the three buildings into a cohesive whole while maintaining the distinctive architectural identity of each.

When complete, the expandEd Gallery will contain 69,975 square feet of exhibition space (enlarged from 40,266 square feet prior to the expansion) and will occupy the length of one-and-a-half city blocks. With new areas for exhibitions and object study, combined with a comprehensive plan for public and educational programming, the project will vastly increase access to the Gallery's encyclopedic collections.

The Yale University Art Gallery was founded in 1832, when patriot-artist John Trumbull donated more than 100 paintings to Yale College and designed a gallery to house them. Since then, the Gallery’s collections have grown to number more than 200,000 objects from around the world, ranging in date from ancient times to the present day (see “Collections Overview”). Among these holdings are the celebrated collections of American paintings and decorative arts; outstanding collections of Greek and Roman art, including the artifacts excavated at Dura-Europos; the Jarves, Griggs, and Rabinowitz collections of early Italian paintings; masterpieces of European art, including works by Hans Holbein, Frans Hals, Peter Paul Rubens, Eugène Delacroix, Édouard Manet, and Vincent van Gogh; Asian art; African art from diverse cultures, including a stellar group of nearly 600 objects donated to the Gallery by the late Charles B. Benenson, b.a. 1933, and around 200 African antiquities from the SusAnna and Joel Grae collection; sculptures and textiles from the new Department of Indo-Pacific art; art of the ancient Americas; the Société Anonyme Collection of early 20th-century European and American art; and a growing collection of modern and contemporary works