Bennington Museum

Vermont’s Champion of Art, History, and Innovation

So much happening at the Museum Bennington Museum is home to the largest collection of Grandma Moses paintings in the world, the great 20th-century folk artist who painted scenes of rural life embodying a sense of an idyllic bygone America. Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses (1860-1961) started painting in her seventies and within years was one of America’s most famous artists. A selection of her works is always on view. With the museum’s introduction of “Creative Collisions,” visitors discover works by Grandma Moses side-by-side with galleries of Military History which focuses on the Revolutionary War battle named after the town of Bennington. The Battle of Bennington was one of the pivotal early battles of the Revolutionary War. Named after the town of Bennington, the museum maintains a strong collection of objects and documents relating to the battle and has many on view. Gilded Age Vermont reflects the industrial boom in Bennington from the mid-nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century. With this industrial boom came economic prosperity as well. This gallery highlights the industrial and cultural innovation of our region’s Gilded Age through objects that were either made or owned in Bennington and the surrounding region or created by artists with connections to the area. This gallery can be found in close proximity to the ongoing Bennington Modernism exhibition featuring works from the early 1950s through the mid-1970s created by a group of avant-garde artists working in and around Bennington who led the nation in artistic thought and innovation. Artists such as Paul Feeley, Vincent Longo, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, and Pat Adams were nurtured by the atmosphere of artistic inquiry cultivated at Bennington College and animated by its proximity to the art scene in New York City. Vermont provided them with a retreat to focus on creation as well as a setting for lively discussion and socializing. The Museum’s Early Vermont Gallery presents life in Vermont from the time when the earliest European settlers arrived in 1761 with only the bare necessities to the early 1800s when Vermont craftsmen achieved a level of sophistication rivaling Boston and New York. (1760s to early-1800s). The Bennington Pottery Gallery celebrates the history of pottery in the town of Bennington, long identified with the production of pottery. Manufacturing began on a small, local scale in the late eighteenth century. The Museum has a defining collection on view including that produced by The Norton Pottery (1785-1911) and the United States Pottery Company (1847-1858). Other galleries include the Church Gallery, Center Gallery of Fine and Decorative Art, the Grandma Moses Schoolhouse, and several changing exhibition galleries. Art, History, and Innovation from the early days of Vermont and the surrounding regions to the present in the quintessential New England town of Bennington, Vermont. Visit us soon!