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The Renovation of the Schmidlapp Gallery now complete, Opening October 28, 2011

The Renovation of the Schmidlapp Gallery now complete, Opening October 28, 2011. The newly renovated Schmidlapp Gallery opened Friday October 28, 2011 to Cincinnati Art Museum visitors as an intimate and intense introduction to eighteen of the Art Museum’s most iconic works of art.  The paintings, sculptures and decorative arts on exhibit represent the Art Museum’s core strengths as a collecting institution. The most visited wing of the Cincinnati Art Museum will display these great works of art in a fashion that encourages reflection and concentration on each singular work of art, allowing the visitor to become completely immersed in the viewing experience. This renovation is the first major step in the renovation of the Art Museum’s permanent galleries into more visitor-focused nodes, places where themes will become clear, and opportunities for both education and enjoyment of more of the Art Museum’s over 65,000 works of art.  The next step in this process will be The Collections: Six Thousand Years of Art,  the first phase of which will open on December 2nd.A team of curators carefully selected the eighteen works of art on display in the Schmidlapp Gallery for their immense power and beauty. Their iconic status derives from both the skill and genius of the artists who made these pieces, and from the way in which they function in our culture, or how we see and use them. According to Cincinnati Art Museum Director Aaron Betsky, "Imagine walking into the Art Museum and seeing a treasure room with some of the greatest art works ever made.  I think we will all be amazed by the power and beauty of this work, and I hope it will start our visitors on a voyage of discovery through the best of the more than sixty thousand works of art we hold in trust for this community."Chief Curator James Crump also states: “we are showcasing some of our great masterworks in an effort to introduce participants to the wealth of our holdings. The Schmidlapp Gallery will act as a springboard, inspiring visitors to explore other galleries in the Art Museum that connect and interrelate to these extraordinary objects.”Text wall labels next to each piece give visitors a glimpse into why each work of art was selected as iconic and encourage visitors to discover other similar works throughout the Cincinnati Art Museum. Visitors can still enjoy some of our most popular pieces for our Antiquities collection, when the Cincinnati Art Museum’s new permanent exhibition gallery, The Collections: Six Thouand Years of Art, opens in December.

###About the Cincinnati Art MuseumHours of operation are Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Art Museum is closed on Mondays. The Art Museum is FREE, EVERYDAY!  The Art Museum is located at 953 Eden Park Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45202. For general information, call (513) 639-2995 or visit www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org.

The Cincinnati Art Museum is supported by the generosity of individuals and businesses that give annually to the ArtsWave. The Ohio Arts Council helped fund the Cincinnati Art Museum with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, educational excellence and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans. The Cincinnati Art Museum gratefully acknowledges operating support from the City of Cincinnati, as well as our members.