Permanent Collection Galleries
This new installation of Middlebury’s art collection invites visitors to join a conversation sparked by objects created throughout time and around the globe.
The first-floor galleries highlight the Museum’s permanent collection. Here you’ll find works of art from ancient times to the present, including terracotta sculpture from Tang-dynasty China, Greek amphorae from the Archaic period, early Italian painting, treasures from a royal Indian court and the Russian Firm of Fabergé, a mask from West Africa, Vermont landscape paintings, global contemporary art, and more.
![Catherine Opie (American, born 1961), Diane di Massa [detail], 1994, chromogenic color print on paper, 20 x 16 inches.](/museum/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_thumbnail/public/stories/diane_di_massa_thumb.jpg?fv=YTl7FwH-&itok=vLtpa8JL)
![Catherine Opie (American, born 1961), Diane di Massa [detail], 1994, chromogenic color print on paper, 20 x 16 inches.](/museum/sites/default/files/stories/diane_di_massa_thumb.jpg?fv=OPfxhNGP)
Our thematic installation invites visitors to explore and appreciate each object through distinct sections: making and materiality, interpreting historical narratives, constructing social identity in portraiture, considering human impact on the environment, and the role of art in devotional traditions.
The Museum is an active hub for collaborative, integrated arts research, with installations changing each semester to correspond with course syllabi across the college curriculum. Lectures, tours, and special events activate objects as sites of visual and intellectual inquiry, offering a range of voices and asking questions that intersect areas of social, political, and cultural life. Be sure to visit our Events page for upcoming events and programming related to objects in the collection.
Inside the Reinstallation
In our 3-part “Inside the Reinstallation” series, various staff members talk about the challenges and opportunities that come with selecting a new set of works to display, discuss the intersections of the curatorial and educational responsibilities of a museum, and highlight the important role an academic museum plays in campus life.
Inside the Reinstallation: Richard Saunders
Richard Saunders, Director of the Museum of Art, shares the museum’s plans to reinstall the permanent collection for an exciting reopening in the spring of 2021.
Inside the Reinstallation: Jason Vrooman
Chief Curator and Director of Engagement Jason Vrooman discusses the Middlebury College Museum of Art’s reinstallation.
The museum’s staff invites you to activate the collection anew by considering your own responses to works of art (and to the interpretations) that delight, engage, challenge, or frustrate you. Because a museum is always a work in progress, your responses, ideas, and questions are welcomed in the comment box at the main museum entrance, online through our digital comment box, or via social media. Find us @middartmuseum on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, or email us.