The Heckscher Museum: Nine Decades of World-Class Art

For 90 years, the Hecksher Museum of Art has operated with the assumption that publicly accessible art has an inherent civic value and set out to provide that.

Sounds good, but it hasn't always been easy.

In 1920 the German-American industrialist and developer August Heckscher opened the museum and surrounding park for the benefit of the people of Huntington.

Operated by a private foundation, the museum presented works by Old Masters such as Lucas Cranach, Gustave Courbet, François Girardon, and Henry Raeburn as well as important American painters like Edward and Thomas Moran, Asher B Durand, and George Inness.

Following the 1929 crash of the stock market, the foundation governing the museum was forced to pass the financial responsibility for the institution on to the Town of Huntington. For the next quarter century, the town maintained the Museum. The collection remained static and was accessible on a limited basis.

The modern life of the museum began in 1957 when responsibility passed to a Board of Trustees lead by George Wilhelm. Almost immediately the collection began to grow. Plans were developed for a more active exhibitions schedule and a program of educational activities.

In 1962, Eva Gatling was hired as Director, one of the first women to direct an art museum. During her tenure, the Museum made its most important acquisition since the foundation with the purchase of George Grosz's Eclipse of the Sun— a monumental painting from the height of his activity in Berlin in the 1920s. Many more objects were added to the collection during her sixteen-year career, including a number of works by Arthur Dove who, like Grosz, had lived in Huntington for an extended period.

In the 1970s, dreams of expansion were born with plans requested from Marcel Breuer, a Modernist architect and furniture designer. Through the years, emphasis was placed on education programs and improved exhibitions. The staff grew in number and professionalism. As did gifts. The addition of the Baker/Pisano Collection of American works in 2001 was the single largest gift to the museum since the founding donation.

A major historic preservation and renovation project was initiated in 2007, funded by the federal, state, and town governments as well as the museum's capital fund. The renovation included the installation of a new roof as well as cleaning the limestone on the museum's exterior. The interior work featured the installation of a new lighting system to simulate the  old skylights, cleaning and painting the walls and ceilings, installation of new wall panels throughout the galleries, repairing and resurfacing the floors, installation of a state-of-the-art fire suppression system, and restoration of the skylight in the rear of the central gallery, which allows filtered sunlight into the museum.

Following the departure of Erik Neil, an interim director was appointed in October 2009. Judith A. Jedlicka was President of the Business Committee for the Arts, Inc. (BCA), a national not-forprofit organization founded in 1967 by David Rockefeller to bring business and the arts together and is Managing Partner and founder of Solutions for Arts & Culture, a consulting firm serving the arts, cultural organizations, and business.

Today The Heckscher Museum seeks to thrive and grow in four basic areas—education and public programs, collections, exhibitions, and physical expansion.

Long Island's Best: Young Artists at The Heckscher Museum, opening this weekend, is no exception. The annual show gives high school students an opportunity to showcase their art through the annual juried art show.

This year is the fourteenth year of the show and approximately 250 local high school students in grades 9 through 12 from over 50 public and private schools submitted work this year. The exhibition opens Saturday, April 17 and runs through Sunday, May 2. An artists' reception will be held Sunday, April 18 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Developed by Heckscher's museum educators, who work in partnership with art instructors from participating schools, this is the only program on Long Island that offers high school students the opportunity to show their art in a professional art museum. For the show, students select at least one work of art on view to "inspire" an original work of art that is in turn submitted for jurying. 

In addition to juried exhibitions such as this, the museum's arts-in-education programs not only endure but flourish. Joy Weiner, the Director of Education and Public Programs, said the museum's ArtSense, a series of hands-on week-long workshops, program introduces children to the arts early.  

 "The Education Department uses technology as a hook to get kids looking and learning, but it is also most important for them to understand that no matter how much they learn about a work of art on the internet, nothing can replace the amazing experience of seeing an original work of art, hanging on the museum walls," Weiner siad. " You can feel the excitement generated when a child comes into the museum and spots a painting that they may have seen on the website.  They are thrilled to see the differences in size and also the ability to look close-up and discover brushstroke and texture.  They are truly impressed that they have the opportunity to see the one and only." 

Many other programs including those celebrating the Museums 90th birthday are on track throughout the year at the Museum including: Art after School; Recitals; Book Clubs, and Portfolio Development.