WILLIAMSBURG — An exhibit featuring 24 rare drawings by famed artist Michelangelo will debut at William & Mary’s Muscarelle Museum of Art when the museum reopens this winter following an extensive expansion project.
Construction, which began last year, is about a month behind schedule. Originally set to reopen this month, the new and improved museum is now anticipated to open in February to coincide with W&M’s Charter Day celebrations. The museum will be named in honor of Martha Wren Briggs, the lead donor of the roughly $43 million project, which adds 42,000 square feet to the existing space.
The expanded museum will feature 14 galleries for various exhibitions, with four of them set to house “Michelangelo: The Genesis of the Sistine.” The exhibit, which will run March 6 through May 28, will highlight 39 of Michelangelo’s works, including 24 rarely displayed masterpiece drawings, some of which are early drawings of the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel.
The Muscarelle Museum of Art is the only museum set to host the exhibition, which, coincidentally will open on Michelangelo’s 550th birthday.
“This will be our first blockbuster show,” museum director David Brashear said during a recent update of the project. During a progress update at the Williamsburg Regional Library on Wednesday, Brashear shared floor plans, renderings and photos of the construction progress of the exterior and interior of the building, which is nearing completion, as well as details on future exhibitions.
“There has been a lot of activity lately,” he said. “We are approaching the finish line. We are getting there.”
The three-story addition to the museum will boast a two-level grand lobby that will connect the old building with the new through two sky bridges, as well as a seminar room, study space, an event hall with lecture seating for 200 and banquet seating for 100, a café and a gift shop. The new building will also offer more storage space, more room for staff collaboration with student interns, a courtyard for outdoor gatherings and three times the gallery space as the previous museum, enabling multiple exhibitions simultaneously. All galleries will be located on the second floor.
“There are a lot of different ways we can use these galleries,” Brashear said. “That is exciting. The museum is going to feel a lot more active, more multi-dimensional than in the past.”
In addition to the Michelangelo exhibit, other showcases in store when the Muscarelle Museum of Art reopens include “The Life of Touissant L’Overture,” featuring a series of prints by Jacob Lawrence, one of the leading figurative artists of the 20th century, and “William & Mary Collects III,” featuring works on loan from friends of the university.
Additional exhibitions slated for the next few years are a display of Native American artists debuting in June; “Judith Godwin Free Forms” with pieces by the Suffolk abstract painter from September to December 2025; “Abstract Expressionists: The Women,” opening in February 2026; an exhibition to mark the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks set to open in July 2026; and “Lynne Drexler: Seeing in Color,” planned from September to December 2026. A Cuban abstraction exhibit and an exhibition on Italian Renaissance architecture are anticipated for 2027.
“There will be a lot more to do when you come for a visit,” Brashear said. “It is going to be a whole different experience than you had in the past. We want you to feel when you leave the museum that it was well worth the trip.”
For more information on the new Muscarelle Museum of Art at the Martha Wren Briggs Center for the Visual Arts, visit muscarelle.wm.edu/building-expansion.
Brandy Centolanza, [email protected]
Originally Published: November 1, 2024 at 1:03 PM EDT