ABOUT FENIMORE
MISSION
Preserving – Engaging – Educating
Fenimore Art Museum is dedicated to welcoming and connecting people to our shared cultural heritage through exhibitions and programs that engage, delight and inspire.
WHAT IS FENIMORE ART MUSEUM?
Fenimore Art Museum is a museum of American art.
It is named for the property on which it stands, land once owned by the novelist James Fenimore Cooper. The Museum occupies a 1933 mansion built by Edward Severin Clark, an heir to the Singer Manufacturing Company fortune. Following his death the building was given to the Museum by his brother, philanthropist and art collector Stephen Carlton Clark, who also gave much of the fine art and folk art collections. Stephen later turned his brother’s farm complex across the road into The Farmers’ Museum, which to this day shares much of its staff with Fenimore Art Museum.
For a museum of its size, Fenimore Art Museum tells a remarkable range of American stories.
- Its fine art collection illustrates everyday life in early America and chronicles the development of the young nation.
- Its folk art collection shows the work of self-taught Americans who were inspired to create and who probably never thought their work would be in an art museum: traveling portrait painters, quilters, ship carvers, sign painters, students in female academies, and people from many different backgrounds and all walks of life.
- The photography collection illustrates the entire history of photography in the United States, from early daguerreotypes to contemporary photographers.
- The Cooper family collection shows the unique qualities of Cooperstown and Otsego Lake as seen in the writings of America’s first novelist, James Fenimore Cooper.
- The American Indian Art collection shows the masterful artistry of Native peoples from across North America from prehistory to the present.
- Special exhibitions and programs held regularly at the museum introduce visitors to a wide range of artworks and stories from our own as well as other museums and collections.
- Our members and visitors give us valuable ideas and feedback to guide us in future programming.
Fenimore Art Museum, and the stories it tells, aspires to provide an engaging experience leading to a renewed or enhanced appreciation of American art, history, and culture, and the many and varied people who comprise the American story.
Dear Friends,
Thank you all for the support and enthusiasm you bring to the Fenimore Art Museum each year! I want you to know how much you are appreciated and how meaningful it is to have you behind us as we plan each season of exhibitions and programs!
This year promises to be extraordinary right from the start! In April, we open several new exhibitions, including Psychedelic: Rock and Roll Poster Art, Swarm: Works by Ashley Norwood Cooper, A Tale of Star-Crossed Lovers: Romeo and Juliet in Opera and Art (to coincide with the Glimmerglass Festival production of Romeo and Juliet this summer!), Imprinted: The American Painter-Etcher Movement, and Randy Johnson: Storytelling with Photographs, the first-ever museum exhibition of the photography of Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Randy Johnson!
Summer will bring even more exciting offerings. On May 27 we open M. C. Escher: Infinite Variations, a major exhibition of the work of the 20th century’s preeminent graphic artist and master of visual illusions. Also opening that day is Day to Night: The Photographs of Stephen Wilkes, a fascinating series of images created over 24-hour time spans and incorporating day and night views at the same time. And on June 24 we open Crafting Freedom: The Life and Work of Free Black Potter Thomas Commeraw, the first exhibition of the work of this newly discovered and highly important artist and craftsman. We will, of course, offer a full range of on-site programs for these exhibitions that will include docent tours, character tours, interactive stations for families, Food for Thought lunchtime tours, and much more!
We round out the season in the fall with more stellar exhibitions, including Shaped by the Loom: Weaving Worlds in the American Southwest, a major exhibition of Native textiles, and Frog and Toad and Other Friends: The World of Arnold Lobel, a sure delight for families and children! The Frog and Toad exhibit will be complemented by Composed by Nature: Paintings and Tapestries by Adrianne Lobel, featuring the works of Arnold Lobel’s talented and accomplished daughter.
We are also back with our ever-popular performing arts program, with Fenimore’s Glimmer Globe Theatre showcasing The Tempest in the Lucy B. Hamilton Amphitheater in July and August. Our Art by the Lake special event will return in August, with more than twenty-five outstanding artists showing their work in our lakeside tent. Back by popular demand, we’re excited to announce that Fenimore will appear on Main Street in Cooperstown with a new, Escher-inspired mural in Pioneer Park! And as always, we continue to showcase the Thaw Collection of American Indian Art and our American art and American folk art collections. What a memorable season we have in store!
I can’t wait to see you at the museums this season!
Sincerely yours,
Paul S. D’Ambrosio, Ph.D.
President & CEO
OFFICERS
Andrew R. Marietta, Secretary
Jeffrey H. Pressman, Chairman
Charles B. Kieler, Vice Chairman
Paul S. D’Ambrosio, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer
Joseph Siracusa, Vice President for Operations
Anthony Fasano, Treasurer
James K. Patrick, Assistant Treasurer
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Laurene Krasny Brown
Gary Cassinelli
Jane Forbes Clark
Kathleen Flanagan
Shelley Graham
Charles B. Kieler
Reginald Q. Knight, M.D.
Doris Fischer Malesardi
Thomas Morgan
Erna Morgan McReynolds
James K. Patrick
Jeffrey H. Pressman, M.D.
Thomas O. Putnam
Henry F. C. Weil, M.D.
Francesca Zambello
SENIOR MANAGEMENT TEAM
Dr. Paul S. D’Ambrosio, President and CEO
Joseph Siracusa, Vice President for Operations
Todd A. Kenyon, Director of Marketing and Communications
Chris Rossi, Director of Exhibitions
Danielle Henrici, Director of Education
Jeff Gardner, Senior Accountant and Department Coordinator
POLICIES
For the safety of our collections and our visitors, we ask that you please check the following items in the coin-operated lockers in the Visitors’ Room:
• Video recorders
• Briefcases
• Backpacks
• Shopping Bags
• Oversized Purses
• Umbrellas
• Baseball Bats and similar athletic equipment (seriously, this is Cooperstown!)
Non-flash photography is permitted only in select galleries; please check with the admissions desk, security, or refer to your visitors guide. Videotaping is not permitted.
Service animals are welcome but need to wear their service identification jacket or vest.
Pets and non-service animals are not permitted in the museum or on museum grounds.
Smoking, food, and beverages are not permitted in the galleries.
To apply to an opening listed below, send a completed Employment Application to Human Resources, PO Box 800, Cooperstown, NY 13326. (Note: Some job postings specify a different application process.)
