WASHINGTON, D.C. – Here’s a challenge: how do you transform a space to reflect both modernity and classic American architecture? The DAR Museum pulled it off with their new gallery renovations, which perfectly balance the aesthetic of the capitol city’s architecture with the needs of a modern museum. The new space features an arched doorway, herringbone hardwood floors, and an open, airy atmosphere that is a welcome escape from the bustling city outside. The space now houses not one but two galleries: a Main Gallery with an annually rotating exhibit, and a Study Gallery with up-close access to over 600 objects in the collection. These complement the museum’s 31 period rooms as all three areas each offer a different way to experience the DAR Museum collection.

The Study Gallery is an exciting addition to the museum visitor experience. You are probably familiar with museum exhibits: they are built around a central theme—an artist, or time period, or decorative style, for example—and include detailed labels and supporting materials. A study gallery is different; it is more like an open storage area, allowing visitors a greater degree of access to the collection.  This makes it an ideal place to exhibit objects that would get “lost” in the period rooms: miniature paintings, jewelry, and other tiny things that you wouldn’t be able to see from the doorway. Now you can examine them up close and personal!

The Main Gallery’s opening exhibition, Lately Arrived: Recent Additions to the Collection, on view through December 30, 2018, showcases new objects to the collection in the new space. It approaches the question of what a museum considers when it chooses to collect an item. Amassing things just to claim ownership is not part of a museum’s reason for being! Objects help us gain a better comprehension of how our ancestors lived and worked; how they created communities and how, when the need arose, changed their way of life. This exhibit is a collection of “telling little details;” details of lives, of skills, of movements and communities.

The DAR Museum is open with free admission Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m.-4:00 p.m., and Saturdays 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. Closed Sundays and holidays. For more information, visit www.dar.org/museum. 

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About the DAR Museum
The DAR Museum tells the story of the American home from the 1600s through the early 1900s through objects, exhibits, and programming. The DAR Museum, accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, supports the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution’s goals of historic preservation and education through collecting, preserving, and interpreting American decorative arts and material culture. Learn more at www.dar.org/museum