After being closed nearly two years for construction, the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester reopened Sunday.
They're celebratiing all week with free admission and public tours.
NHPR Correspondent Ellen Grimm was among the 4,000 people who got the chance to see the museum's new look on opening day.
A few years ago, you might have driven right by the Currier Museum of Art.
Resembling a kind of villa, it looked out of place in this residential neighborhood.
It won’t go unnoticed anymore.
Out front sits a bold sculpture called Origins by Mark di Suvero.
Casey: ….. it's kind of ominous because it's like a girder made out of this really thick metal. It's kind of funny that they chose to put it in front of the building.
Derry residents Casey Long, and her mother Kathy were impressed by the piece.
Kathy: Look at the colors, though, against the sky -- that red and that black and that blue, and it's going to change because the sky changes every day. Casey: And the moving part at the top changes. Kathy: That's beautiful because it's not going to be the same every day.
The front of the building has been reshaped.
And the new glass entrance reflects the sculpture’s soaring red-orange legs topped with what looks like a ram's horns.
Inside is an airy new lobby with comfortable seating and the museum shop.
Ambiance: Museum sounds.
Andrew Spahr is chief curator.
Spahrcut: …… it's just fantastic to finally see people back in the building to look at the art and to see much more of the collection because we really have about twice as much on view now than we did before in the smaller building.
The expansion cost more than 21 million dollars.
But the museum has added 33,000 square feet, which includes several new galleries, a 180-seat auditorium and classrooms.
Sharon Matt Atkins is assistant curator.
Atkinscut1: Visitors, I think the first thing they'll notice is these really high ceilings, the quality of light in the gallery, just with the choices the architects made, with the contrast between light wood floors and the dark baseboards and sort of framing the doorways and entrances to the gallery really sets off the space...
And Tammy Wertz of Hollis says she was pulled right in.
Wertzcut1: ….. the shapes of the galleries and the way the colors draw you in or the shapes draw you that way. But everything has plenty of space to be looked at. And yet it's close enough that the next piece is going to pull you to it when you're ready and not so close that's it's all disturbing one another. I'm really enjoying it.
The new galleries form a u-shape around a dramatic winter garden that contains seating for events and a cafe.
The large room, lit by skylights, incorporates the building's original southern entrance with its pillars and glittering mosaic.
Craig Wolf is from Manchester.
Wolf: I especially liked that they're able to bring the old entrance, that the old entrance is now part of the rest of the gallery -- as an art piece.
Assistant curator Sharon Matt Atkins points out the giant wall painting across from the mosaic.
Sol LeWitt, who died last year, designed the piece, which looks a bit like a children's board game.
Atkinscut3. It was quite remarkable. He was given these two walls that are 16 by 17 and a half feet, but there's an expanse of about 30 feet of glass separating these two walls. It was really quite wonderful the way he was able to unite those two walls in a single composition by creating this band of curving bricks that start on one end on one wall and then pick up on the other side and continue curving around.
On the second floor is American art from the 1600s through about 1915, including examples of early American furniture.
On one of the balconies, the wall is painted a deep blue.
It’s crowded with paintings of all shapes and subjects, including one of Daniel Webster with brooding eyebrows.
Curator Andew Spahr.
Spahr: This is generally referred to as a salon style installation. Some museums have been doing this recently just to capture the sense of what some of first public exhibitions of painted pictures looked like in the 1700s and 1800s. Prior to that most pictures were exhibited in royal residences or in churches.
Many who came for the grand reopening were from New Hampshire.
Ambiance.
But Dave Dlesk came up from Andover, Mass.
He was contemplating the 500-year-old Franco-Flemish tapestry that’s been in restoration for about six years.
Dlesk: I lived in Europe for a couple of years, so I've seen a lot of tapestries, so it was interesting especially the story it tells about the gypsies. I hadn't been up to the Currier before. I've driven past the sign many times along the highway, so the grand opening was a chance to come and see it. It's quite a nice little museum.
There's plenty that will be familiar to regular Currier goers -- a painting of a boat-full of bottleggers by Edward Hopper and Picasso's "Woman Seated in a Chair"
One of the galleries is devoted to works by New Hampshire Artists.
Roxann Fredette, 12, and Katherine Battey, 11, of Goffstown, agreed on their favorite -- a still-life by James Aponovich.
Kathy: A bunch of fruit and flowers but they're all color-coordinated... Roxane: It's like pink and yellow, pretty much. Kathy: It looks like you could walk right into it. Roxane: It looks real.
Several hours after opening -- and hours before the museum had yet to close -- many of the giant glass doors leading into the museum and into the individual galleries were covered in fingerprints.
That, said Assistant Curator Sharon Matt Atkins, was a good sign.
For NHPR News in Manchester, I'm Ellen Grimm
