DURHAM, N.C – The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University will celebrate its fifth anniversary with a community day event and yearlong installations of modern and contemporary works of art acquired since the museum opened on Oct. 2, 2005.
The free community day on Oct. 2 will include gallery talks, a gallery hunt, make-and-take crafts and live entertainment. Durham Mayor Bill Bell will make remarks at 2 p.m.
A new installation of 20th-century art in the museum’s permanent collection is anchored by a bequest from Louise and Alvin J. Myerberg, T ’47, and includes 15 works by major artists, including Charles Burchfield, Anthony Caro, Thomas Hart Benton, Fernand Léger, Roy Lichtenstein, Jacques Lipchitz and Andrew Wyeth. Many of the works will be on public view for the first time since the 1960s and 1970s.
In spring 2011, the Nasher Museum will present gifts and purchases of contemporary art made in the past five years in the exhibition “Building the Contemporary Collection: Five Years of Acquisitions.”
The Nasher Museum was formerly the Duke University Museum of Art, founded in 1969 and housed in a former science building on the East Campus until May 2004. The 65,000-square-foot Nasher Museum, designed by architect Rafael Viñoly, has become a cornerstone for cultural activities on campus, serving as a venue for performing arts events, lectures, film series and social gatherings. The museum is named in honor of the family of Raymond D. Nasher, a prominent art collector and philanthropist who graduated from Duke in 1943.