Discover the Walters in New Ways Beginning Summer 2014

Baltimore—Visitors to the Walters Art Museum will see their favorite pieces of Asian art in different galleries of the museum beginning this July and continuing through 2016.

From July 1 and continuing through summer 2016, Hackerman House will be emptied in order to repair and update fire safety and climate control systems and to make other needed upgrades. The $5.2 million refurbishment, for which the State of Maryland and City of Baltimore have provided lead funding matched by private gifts, is the first of several planned enhancements to the Walters’ five-building campus. A number of the works of Asian art collected by William and Henry Walters, and supplemented by generous gifts of South Asian, Himalayan and Southeast Asian Art, will be moved into other areas of the museum. Hackerman House, a five-story mid-19^th century building facing Mt. Vernon Place, has housed the museum’s collection of the arts of Asia for the last 23 years.

In addition to Hackerman House, museum galleries housing 19^th century art on the fourth floor of the Centre Street building will be closed beginning June 23 and will reopen to the public on October 26. The galleries will feature a new installation, From Rye to Raphael: The Walters Story, focused on the lives and legacy of the museum’s founders, William T. (1819–1894) and Henry (1848–1931) Walters. The exhibition will walk visitors through nearly 80 years of diverse collecting where they will get to know the founders’ tastes and the various phases of their lives as art connoisseurs, philanthropists and collectors before making the extraordinary gift of the collection for the benefit of the public.

Before July 1, 2014, visitors will have the opportunity to participate in special tours of Hackerman House. Also throughout the summer, visitors can see the Janet and Walter Sondheim Prize and Seeing Music in Medieval Manuscripts exhibitions.

About the Walters Museum

The Walters Art Museum is located in downtown Baltimore’s historic Mount Vernon Cultural District at North Charles and Centre Streets. At the time of his death in 1931, museum founder Henry Walters left his entire collection of art to the city of Baltimore. Between 1895 and 1931, Walters collected around 730 codices.  Its permanent collection includes ancient art, medieval art and manuscripts, decorative objects, Asian art and Old Master and 19th-century paintings. The Museum Store, located next to the Museum’s Café, offers distinctive gifts, jewelry and books based on the Museum’s collections. Wyndham Baltimore Peabody Court is the official hotel of the Walters Art Museum.

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