Soon after the building that now houses the Museum was built in 1920, President Beach’s office received a number of letters regarding the quality of the bricks used in its construction. Specifically, the bricks were of lower quality and very porous compared to a slightly more expensive and higher-grade brick from a Massachusetts kiln. Within a year, water infiltration was evident. Ninety years later, the bricks and other problems related to water infiltration—flashing, crown mouldings, flat roof, aged gutters, rubble foundations, inadequate drainage—are being renovated this summer. The job foreman, Ken, wrings his hands over delays due to rain and other acts of God, but the Museum has waited forty-three years for this work. If the start of our fall schedule requires small changes, this uncertainty is a nuisance, but not a catastrophe. The work will be completed, the building will be dry, and the wait will be worth it.

In conjunction with the construction, we have loaned thirty-two of the Benton’s best and most interesting paintings to the New Britain Museum of American Art this coming year. We are grateful to the Director, Douglas Hyland, for assisting us in the move.

This summer we were notified that a long-anticipated future gift to the Museum of $1,000,000 was finalized with the University Foundation. We are extremely grateful to this anonymous donor for two reasons. First, of course, is the gift itself and everything that it will mean to the Museum in the future. Secondly, and as important at this time, is its symbolic value. The donor has demonstrated in the most explicit terms that he believes in the importance of the Benton at the University of Connecticut because of what its collections, exhibitions, and programs can mean pedagogically and in the general principle that a humanistic education is visual as well as textural. Not every student can take an art history or studio class, but every student can easily find their way to the Art Museum. Almost every top twenty public university in the country has an art museum, some of which, like the University of Michigan’s, are outstanding—and so should the University of Connecticut’s art museum be outstanding. The benefactor clearly believes this as well.
We are looking forward to the fall season and the new academic year. Thank you for your ongoing support. We hope to see you here often in the coming months.

Thomas Bruhn

Interim Director