The Bruce Museum’s fifth annual “Art of Design” panel – rescheduled for April 10 at the Greenwich Country Club after the first date was snowed out – featured another thought-provoking discussion on home and fashion design, inspiration and social media with Jamie Creel of Creel and Gow, a “cabinet of curiosities” on Manhattan’s Upper East Side; interior designer Markham Roberts; and the three co-founders of the striped fashion brand La Ligne – Molly Howard, Valerie Macaulay and Meredith Melling. It was moderated by architecture and design writer Pilar Viladas.
But they were understandably upstaged by some thrilling news: This summer, the Bruce Museum will launch a $41 million expansion project that will create a separate home for its art collection – which includes 15,000 works of art, 16 David Hockneys alone – much of which cannot be seen at present.
That will change with a new modern building – angular, shimmering and lucent – that will include a spacious lobby, a café that will seat 60, a lecture hall and a new gift shop, all by the New Orleans firm of Eskew + Dumez + Ripple. (The current museum will continue to house the Bruce’s science exhibits and collection.)
The Bruce has always been known for exhibitions that draw not only on the Northern Baroque expertise of executive director and CEO Peter C. Sutton and the interdisciplinary skills of the staff but on the exquisite taste and rich holdings of its neighbors. (Sutton earned laughs at the luncheon by likening it to going door-to-door and getting artwork instead of Halloween candy.)
Just think of the shows that the museum will be able to do – to say nothing of the holdings visitors will see in the permanent galleries – when the new building opens.
For more, visit brucemuseum.org.
– Georgette Gouveia
