The Cincinnati Art Museum is opening its renovated ground floor after more than a year of construction. The space contains new classrooms for art making and an art study center.
Emily Agricola Holtrop, director of learning and interpretation, says the classrooms will foster hands-on experiences for school groups, summer camps, and art classes.
“It could be a lot of different things — a place to get dirty, get your hands into the art making materials, as opposed to just looking up in the galleries,” Agricola Holtrop said. “Some people learn the best by doing, and this is a space where they can do that.”
She says having a dedicated place for creating art is important. Every Cincinnati Public Schools fourth grader gets to take a field trip to the museum, which includes a tour, then a chance to make art. They can now do that in the ground-level classrooms.
The renovations will also allow classes to spend more time at the art museum. The ground level contains a new, flexible room where students of all ages can gather — and eat lunch.
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“Before that, they could only come between the hours of 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. because they had to get back to school for lunch, and we didn't have a great space here for them to eat lunch all year round,” Agricola Holtrop said.
Also on the ground floor is a public study center, where people can view artworks on paper from the museum’s collection that aren’t currently on display.
“That is very often the part of a museum collection that is the hardest for the public to access,” Curator of Photography Nathaniel Stein said.
The museum has more than 30,000 works on paper, but they can’t be on view for long periods of time because of their sensitivity to light.
“The museum has a collection that is much, much bigger than the galleries,” Stein said. “The purpose of the study room is to allow us to make all those portions of the collection that aren't on view in the galleries available for scholars, for artists, for teachers, for learners of all kinds to see and to work with.”
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Stein says crews are still preparing the space. He expects it will be ready for art early next year, and for people after that.
The study center contains a paper conservation lab, studio for the collection photographer, and space for research staff to plan exhibitions as well.
The renovations are part of the $65 million "A New View" campaign.
Click the photo at top to see more from the renovated space.