History of the Museum and Art Collection

Now Celebrating 55 Years

Located on the undergraduate institution’s campus in Lewiston, Maine, the Museum of Art was founded in 1955 as the Treat Gallery and, centered on a bequest from Norma Berger, the niece of Marsden Hartley; this gift became The Marsden Hartley Memorial Collection, which remains the core of the museum’s larger collection. The Treat Gallery was transformed into the Museum of Art at Bates College in 1986 with the opening of the Olin Arts Center. The beautiful new and greatly expanded museum space enabled the Museum of Art to organize major scholarly exhibitions of historical and contemporary artists. At that time the museum chose to concentrate on collecting works on paper and to increase its dedication to acquiring works by Maine artists and artists of national and international significance working in Maine. The mission was also expanded to create educational programming connected to the scholarly pursuits of Bates with the Lewiston-Auburn community and a much broader museum audience.

The Museum of Art has three separate gallery spaces dedicated to different uses. The Main Gallery is devoted to temporary exhibitions, the Collection Gallery provides space for long-term exhibitions that highlight and expand our knowledge of the permanent collection of nearly 5,000 works of art, and the Synergy Seminar Gallery is a visual art project, viewing and study space, which is used for a variety of purposes – from small, focused exhibitions to class related installations. There is also a reading and study area in the downstairs gallery. The museum welcomes approximately 15,000 visitors annually, organizes original exhibitions, has a strong publications program, and hosts both an annual senior exhibition by studio art majors and a student-curated exhibition series called Students in the Vault. The museum participates in significant statewide collaborations with multiple museums including the Maine Print Project in 2004 and the Maine Folk Art Trail in 2008.