Landscapes for Learning - The Arnot Museum uses its Hudson River School collection to anchor its educational programming

Continuing the mission of its founder, education remains major focus of the Arnot Art a Museum in Elmira, New York. The museum's founding donor, Matthias H. Arnot (1833-1910) was a wealthy banker who believed everyone should have access to fine art and arts learning opportunities. Each weekend, he would open his home to share his collection with the local community. Arnot also emphasized the importance of building an art library, which became part of the museum when it opened in 1913, and now contains nearly 1,000 volumes.

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Continuing the mission of its founder, education remains major focus of the Arnot Art a Museum in Elmira, New York. The museum's founding donor, Matthias H. Arnot (1833-1910) was a wealthy banker who believed everyone should have access to fine art and arts learning opportunities. Each weekend, he would open his home to share his collection with the local community. Arnot also emphasized the importance of building an art library, which became part of the museum when it opened in 1913, and now contains nearly 1,000 volumes.

Today, the Education Department at the Arnot Art Museum offers a variety of customizable programming from child-to-adulthood, one of which is the Chemung River School, an award-winning full-year interdisciplinary education program for fourth-grade classrooms anchored in the museum's substantial Hudson River School holdings. The program takes a fine arts approach to exploring the historical, cultural, commercial and ecological aspects of the area's Chemung River and beyond. The paintings also act as entry-way for discussions about contemporary issues in politics, ecology and anthropology.

In preparation for a move into a larger, educational gallery space, the Arnot has hung The Wilderness and the Promise: Landscapes from the Hudson River School Collection, showcasing 20 artworks bookended by Thomas Cole's 1827 Autumn in the Catskills and the early 1880s painting A Lake in the White Mountains by George Wellington Waters. Works from second-generation Hudson River School painters are also included, and the selections are rotated during the show's duration as different aspects are examined in the comparative exercise.