The Kirkland Museum is located in Denver, Colorado, United States. It was initially based on a big truck and was moved through town, but now the Museum has been built with even more space and exciting artwork. One hundred fifty years of Colorado paintings and some international home decor you have never seen are here at the Museum. It is one of the best art museums in Denver.
Kirkland Museum has three principal collections:
- The international decorative art and design collection.
- The work of Vance Kirkland, a Colorado painter.
- Colorado and regional art.
The Kirkland Museum is 21 years old but was rebuilt and opened in 2018. It holds a salon of 4000 artworks that allow visitors to time travel 150 years back. Overall, there are 30,000 works by more than 1,500 artists who exhibit their talent and beauty through their ideas of art.
1. Let’s Take a Tour to Kirkland Museum of Fine and Decorative Art
Let’s learn about each gallery and collection that the Kirkland Museum holds.
1.1. Vance Kirkland Gallery
All of the paintings present in that room are by Vance Kirkland. He was a Colorado artist who moved to the state to find the DU School of Art in 1929. This gallery is one of the features of the new building on Bannock Street, and at the far end of the Museum, you will find his historic studio building.
Vance Kirkland was an artist with a very diverse career. He painted in five distinct periods, and you can see them in this gallery. His first painting was the 1926 old barn, in which he showed a realistic scene in watercolours that he would have seen in Ohio or from where he was from before he moved to Colorado.
He started his career by adding exciting colours you wouldn’t find in nature, like an orange waterfall, which wasn’t popular with his teacher at Cleveland School of Art. Still, he was an innovator, and you can see that through his five periods when he moved to Colorado, he continued painting realism and gradually evolved into surrealism and then abstraction. He is best known for his dot paintings. Unlike other artists, he didn’t settle only with signature styles; he was innovative and died at 76.
1.2. Promenade Gallery
This part of the gallery has one of the signatures of the architect Jim Olson, who designed the new building. The gallery will take you on a time travel tour, so you will have little visibility that will give you a little taste of what’s in the gallery and beyond.
The room has another part of the earliest Colorado and regional paintings and sculptures in the collection, shown in a salon-style of decorative art and design. Here, salon-style refers to how the artworks are organized like a home.
1.3. Bauhaus Gallery
The paintings on the wall of this room are by regionalist artists so one of the best-known names and best regionalists is Eve Drewelowe, she was a colder-based artist and used world travel to inspire her paintings. One of her famous paintings is The Runaway Rail, which has the train theme of the West. The Kirkland Museum feels proud to have and promote more women artist collections in its galleries.
They have types of furniture that were associated with the Bauhaus, which was a German design school that was eventually shut down by the nazis; they are known for their use of tubular aluminium.
1.4. Art Deco and Surrealism
The Art Deco period was fun because, despite prohibition, all the new technology cars were becoming popular. So there was lots of drinking, paraphernalia, smoking, and lots of fun things. The name came from the French, so the room holds two big names in French art deco. The artwork is known as the Japanese lacquer technique. Apart from this, there is surrealistic art by Colorado and other artists.
There is an amazing Nocturne radio, which is about ten in the world. That’s partly because they were so expensive when they were made in 1935. It costs the same as a new Ford car. So, these radios were marketed to hotel lobbies as very high-end, and it is very rare to have one in such good condition. It features grandeur from the third.
1.5. Decorative Art
This part of Kirkland Museum has a modern gallery holding 30,000 pieces of collections, and 5000-6000 are on view in this gallery. One of the best things about the restaurant is its diversity of culinary sets.
In this modern gallery, you can compare and contrast three different nationalities or areas of the world in their modernism. They also hold a variety of home decor, including three-leg chairs by Swedish artists.
There is one Italian vignette, The Lip Sofa, inspired by a Salvador Dali painting of Mae West’s lips. They do have a telephone that matches it in the shape of lips.
1.6. Sculptures
The exterior of the Kirkland Museum, which is a Jim Olson signature, created a unique pattern of ceramic tile as it is terracotta bars and then interspersed with glass that reflects the Colorado sunshine. It is also said that the Kirkland Museum is a part of the Golden Triangle Creative District, so they are now a Golden Museum.
There are sculptures in the outside and inside areas. They are usually light-sensitive, so we can take advantage of the beautiful Colorado light. There, you can see two bronze figures holding hands, which was a welcome gift from the Denver Art Museum. They gave several artworks as a welcome to the neighbourhood.
1.7. Historic Studio Building
The front room is called the watercolour room because it shows off some of Vance Kirkland’s paintings. This building was built in 1910 for Pearl Henry Read, another artist. He built it to be his student school of art, so no one ever lived in this building in its history, and it was his school of art. Then Vance Kirkland opened the Kirkland School of Art in this building in 1932 and kept it as his personal painting space for the rest of his life so the people felt it was the heart of the Kirkland Museum experience.
So, when they decided to relocate the Museum, they physically moved this entire three-room brick building over a hundred years old. With the help of mammoths moving, rigging, and rock Construction, they were able to excavate underneath, place it on three articulated wheels, roll it a mile down, and attach it to this new building on Bannock Street. Kirkland left a few of his estate, including his living room set and collections.
You can also see Vance Kirkland’s workplace the way it used to be during his lifetime. They have his paint table covered and all his tools. He was an avid music lover.
2. How to Visit
Due to the fragile nature of the Museum’s collections, Kirkland Museum is open to visitors from the age of 13. Private tour groups of 10 are limited. The entrance fee is quite affordable.
3. Sell Your Art
If you are an artist, you can sell your art to the Kirkland Museum. However, there are some conditions that the Museum sees: it should hold all the mission statement criteria, and if you feel like art is the beauty of a painter’s idea, then the Museum will review and get back to it.
4. Membership, Store and Donate
The new Museum offers membership to visitors, which has benefits like
- They give newsletters about programs and events.
- Free admission to the Museum.
- Discounts at the museum store.
- You can access past collections, lectures, and events.
There is a museum store where you can shop for decor for your house and toys the kids love to play with. Every purchase that you make will support the mission statement and educational lectures.
The Museum is open to donations, and your generosity will light up the Museum’s art. If you are a vendor and want to become a part of the museum family, you must follow some policies and contact the Museum.
5. Volunteer and Loans
Volunteering services are provided at the Museum of Fine Decorative Art, where there will be some training on how to approach visitors and take care of the antiques and art.
Kirkland Museum gives its collections to other museums to celebrate art and culture. Loans are an important part of its mission statement.
6. Mission Statement
Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art leads people into work of art and design. It makes them enter this world through a collection presented by Founding Director & Curator Emeritus Hugh A. Grant. It also inspires people to know about Vance Kirkland and his art collections.
7. Conclusion
In conclusion, Kirkland Museum is home to three distinct collections that will amaze you and take you to the art world. Art is growing as the years pass. In this Museum, the works take you on a journey of 150 years back to know the story of the meaning of art that is done. Visiting this Museum will give you an incredible experience.
Last Updated on April 3, 2024 by AnoushkaRoy
