Earlier this month the Parrish Art Museum opened its new 34,400 square-foot building in Water Mill, NY to the public. Founded in 1898 by New York lawyer, Samuel Longstreth Parrish, to house his growing art collection, the museum had been a staple in Southampton, NY before moving to its new location that boasts seven sky-lit galleries and three times the exhibition space than that of the museum’s former home.
Now that the $26.2 million move is complete, the result of years of painstaking fund-raising, the Parrish hopes to become the area’s artistic epicenter. Designed by the Swiss architectural firm Herzog & Meuron in collaboration with the landscape architecture firm Reed Hilderbrand, the new Parrish building sits on 14 acres of land right off of the Montauk Highway. The building is meant to blend into the landscape and consists of connected, stretching barn-like structures that sit under a white corrugated metal roof. Large sections of glass allow the line between the natural and artificial worlds to blend.
An American art museum with about 2,600 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper in its collection, the Parrish pays extra attention to the art of the East End of Long Island. The former Southampton location was simply too small to exhibit many of the exemplary works from the museum’s permanent collection that spans from the 19th century to the present. Now, American Impressionist William Merritt Chase and the realist Fairfield Porter each have their own permanent galleries and there are three galleries just for temporary exhibitions.
Inaugurating the space is Malcolm Morley: Painting, Paper, Process, an exhibition devoted to the English-born artist known for exploring paper’s many artistic possibilities including watercolors, scale models, and freestanding sculptures. Approximately 50 works from the 1980s to present will be on view through January 13, 2013.
The Parrish’s new building also includes offices, a café, an expanded lobby, and a theater where film screenings, lectures, and performances will be held.
