Fenimore Art Museum


The Fenimore Art Museum is a museum located in Cooperstown, New York on the west side of Otsego Lake. Collection strengths include the Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art, American fine and folk art, 19th and early 20th century photography, as well as rare books and manuscripts. The museum's mission is to connect its audience to American and New York State cultural heritage by organizing exhibits and public programs that "engage, delight and inspire."
The house organ was titled Heritage.
The Fenimore Art Museum is closely associated with The Farmers' Museum, also in Cooperstown.

History

Fenimore Art Museum was founded in 1899 as the New York State Historical Association.
In 1939, Stephen Carlton Clark, an art collector interested in history who also served on the board of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum, helped organize a move to James Fenimore Cooper's former farmhouse in Cooperstown. In the mid-1990s, a new wing was added to the building to house the Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection. Fenimore House was subsequently renamed Fenimore Art Museum.
Having operated under a dba as Fenimore Art Museum since the 1990s, and in an effort to better describe its wide-ranging activities, the organization applied to amend its charter and change its corporate name in 2017. As such, the New York State Board of Regents approved the updated charter on March 10 of 2017, formally changing the organization's name from New York State Historical Association to Fenimore Art Museum.

Collections

Fine Art & Folk Art

The fine art and folk art collections were largely assembled by Stephen C. Clark and include works by Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Cole, William Sidney Mount, Benjamin West, Grandma Moses, Ralph Fasanella, and Lavern Kelley.

Thaw Collection of American Indian Art

Clare and Eugene Thaw donated their collection of indigenous American art to the Fenimore Art Museum in 1991. Items are continually added to the collection, which currently comprises more than 850 objects.

Photography

Fenimore Art Museum's photography collections feature a number of Cooperstown artists, the most well-known being the Smith & Telfer Collection. A portion of the firm's 60,000 piece archive has been digitized and is available online.

Research library

In 1968, a separate building was built to consolidate the library collections of both New York State Historical Association and The Farmers' Museum. The Research Library supplements the missions and collections of both organizations by supporting research in local history, 19th century trades and agriculture, as well as art and material culture of Otsego County and surrounding areas of New York State.

Performing Arts

Since 2015 the museum has hosted outdoor theatrical productions in the Lucy B. Hamilton Amphitheater, located on the grounds overlooking Otsego Lake.