Berman Museum Pfeiffer Wing will Move Collection into Public View

A stunning addition to The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art will allow its dynamic permanent collection to move from the vaults and into public view, to foster an ongoing interaction between the community and the art.

As it celebrates its 20th anniversary year, the Berman Museum will be able to showcase more than 4,000 paintings, drawings, sculpture and cultural artifacts, allowing unprecedented access which has not been possible due to space constraints. The wing is to be named for alumnus Henry W. Pfeiffer, Class of 1948, and his late wife, June, and like the existing galleries, promises to redefine liberal learning at Ursinus.

The open storage concept, modeled after the Brooklyn Museum, New York Historical Society and Smithsonian Institution’s American Art Museum, is rare for an academic museum. The addition will feature a rooftop outdoor sculpture garden with the sculpture of Bucks County artist George Anthonisen, who donated his works, and British sculptor Lynn Chadwick, whose pieces dot the campus. Seven, state of the art, climate-controlled and light-regulated open storage vitrines will house over half of the museum’s sculpture, ceramics, Pennsylvania German artifacts and folk-art objects. These cases would be visible beyond the walls of the museum, protect the art treasures as well.

The project architects, Towers & Miller of Philadelphia, have conceived a magnificent glass atrium, visible from the main lawn in front of the College, to house a formal exhibition gallery, a works on paper study center, sculpture and decorative object visible storage and education spaces that focus on use and interpretation of the permanent collection. The rooftop will hold an Outdoor Sculpture Garden featuring bronzes of Bucks County, Pa. sculptor George Anthonisen, who donated his works, and the works of British sculptor Lynn Chadwick, whose pieces dot the Collegeville campus. In addition, artist Janet Sullivan Turner has donated a striking steel and copper monolith sculpture, “series #127,” for the new rooftop garden.

Construction on the 4,200 square foot addition began May 18, 2009. The $5 million overall project is moving forward thanks to the generosity of. The Berman Foundation, Los Angeles, Calif., the Pew Charitable Trusts, The Lenfest Foundation, The Alden Trust, Henry W. and June Pfeiffer, for whom the new museum wing will be named, and several others. Ursinus College is also the recipient of a State of Pennsylvania grant for expansion in the arts, used partly for the museum expansion. While the museum is open during the construction, the opening of the new space is scheduled for fall 2010.

During a groundbreaking ceremony Oct. 30, 2008, , Nancy M. Berman, President and Executive Director of the Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation, noted that “the Museum has more than exceeded its original physical and programmatic blueprint. The museum has become a place pulsating with ideas, art, students, faculty, community, artists, art lovers, thinkers, making connections and enjoying the mind in new ways of learning and creative pursuit.”
Ursinus President John Strassburger said of her parents, the Bermans, “their vision for the arts in a liberal arts college setting has been transforming.”

The Berman Museum of Art has become an educational and cultural resource since the late Philip and Muriel Berman, business leaders and philanthropists, found a home for their contemporary sculpture, American paintings and works on paper and folk art, joining an existing collection of 18th and 19th Century American and European paintings. The Berman Museum today houses some 4,000 notable works of art and attracts 35,000 visitors annually.
The Museum opened in 1989 in the historic, 1921 building that was formerly Alumni Memorial Library.

Pfeiffer, a 1948 Ursinus graduate, is a steadfast advocate of Ursinus. He has served as Chair of the Alumni Loyalty Fund, as President of the Alumni Association, as a leader of the Board’s Development Committee, and in all of the College’s fund raising campaigns, including as a co-chair of the recently successful $120,000,000 Taking Our Place campaign. Pfeiffer has been a member of the Ursinus College Board of Trustees since 1978.