Norton Museum of Art

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This article is for the Norton Museum of Art in Florida. See this link for the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California.

The Norton Museum of Art is an art museum located in West Palm Beach, Florida. Its collection includes over 5,000 works concentrated in European, American, Chinese, Contemporary art, and Photography. It was founded in 1941 by Ralph Hubbard Norton (1875–1953) and his wife, Elizabeth Calhoun Norton (1881–1947).

1 1941 Founding
2 2003 Expansion
3 External link
4 Notes

[edit] 1941 Founding

Norton, the former head of the Acme Steel Company in Chicago, moved to West Palm Beach upon retiring and decided to share his sizable collection of paintings and sculpture. The late Art Deco/Neo-Classic building designed by Marion Syms Wyeth opened its doors to the public on February 8, 1941.

Mission Statement - “To preserve for the future the beautiful things of the past.”

The Norton Museum of Art strives to preserve, develop, exhibit and interpret its outstanding permanent collection and to educate the public through special exhibitions, publications and programs. The Norton seeks to strengthen awareness of the arts in our region through encouraging participation, reaching out to improve the quality of life in all communities through appreciation of the visual arts and cultural patrimonies.

The Norton Museum of Art offers several special exhibitions every year, some of which are organized by the Norton from the Museum Collection and loans, and others that are organized by other leading institutions. Some recent highlights include: French Impressionism and Boston: Masterworks from the Museum of Fine Arts, William Wegman: Funney/Strange, and Georgia O'Keeffe: Circling Around Abstraction.

[edit] 2003 Expansion

In its latest expansion the Norton Museum's new Gail and Melvin Nessel Wing opened to the public in 2003, highlighting the completion of a two-year project. The "art first" expansion increased the Norton's gallery space by seventy-five percent, allowing more opportunities for the Museum's renowned collections of American, Chinese, Contemporary, European art, and Photography to be continually on view to the public on a rotating schedule, including works never before on display in the Museum. The Nessel Wing includes fourteen new galleries, an elegant enclosed courtyard that accommodates a variety of educational and social events, and a glass ceiling installation commissioned from Dale Chihuly.^[1]

The 45,000-square-foot project features a cantilevered spiral staircase and dramatic three-story atrium with architectural motifs that express the artistic statements found in the permanent collections. The new wing, designed by Chad Floyd, FAIA, of Centerbrook Architects, Connecticut, increases the size of the Norton Museum to 122,500 square feet, providing more space in both new and existing galleries to display the Museum's art collection. The new wing features rotating selections from the Museum's permanent collections.^[1]