Stagecoach Inn, courtesy Shelburne Museum
Vermont Business Magazine On the 75th anniversary of the Shelburne Museum, the museum will reopen its historic Stagecoach Inn, home to the museum’s famous American folk art collection, on September 11, 2022.
After a two-year renovation, the Stagecoach Inn’s galleries have been refreshed and reinstalled with iconic selections representing the best of the museum’s popular art collection. New research goes beyond the formal qualities of weather vanes, ship sculptures, commercial signs, etc. visual story.
“The renovation of the Stagecoach Inn has created the opportunity to rethink the way the American folk art collection is presented,” said Thomas Denenberg, director and CEO of John Wilmerding at the Shelburne Museum. “The new installation aims to deepen visitors’ understanding of the ‘invention’ of folk art in the context of the time when the category itself was created and to elucidate the narratives that are relevant today.”
The reinterpretation is also an opportunity to highlight the important role of Electra Havemeyer Webb, founder of the Shelburne Museum, as a pioneering collector, helping to create the canon of what we now call folk art as art and as one of the few women founders of museums. Built in 1873, the Stagecoach Inn once served as an inn along the main stagecoach route from New York to Montreal. Mrs. Webb acquired the property in 1949 to use as a permanent home for her diverse and extensive collection of American folk art. It is one of 39 buildings on the museum’s 45-acre campus. The renovation included increasing energy efficiency, creating new signage, and updating lighting, fire safety, and security. The project was supported by a Cultural Heritage Sustainment Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities with additional support from the Harriman Foundation.
About the Shelburne Museum
Founded in 1947 by pioneering folk art collector Electra Havemeyer Webb (1888-1960), the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont is the largest art and history museum in northern New England and Vermont’s premier public resource for visual art and material culture. The museum’s 45-acre campus features 39 buildings, including the Pizzagalli Center for Art and Education and the Webb Gallery, which feature important American paintings by Andrew Wyeth, Winslow Homer, Grandma Moses, John Singleton Copley and many more. . For more information, please visit shelburnemuseum.org.
SHELBURNE, Vermont (August 31, 2022)—Shelburne Museum
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