Creating a Collection: A Tour Through the Smith College Museum of Art Main Menu How do museums build and unbuild collections? How This Works Instructions on How to Use this Website How to Read a Museum Label This will help you navigate the SCMA and other museums What is "Public Trust"? Why Museums Collect Why Museums Remove Objects from their Collections How Museums Remove Objects from their Collections

How Museums Collect

15623
It's one thing to know why the SCMA collects, it's another to know how it does this. There are many ways the SCMA can “acquire”—get—a new object for its collection.

Sometimes the SCMA buys the art it wants, from the artist or from a professional who sells art for artists. Museums can also receive artworks as gifts. Sometimes artists donate their art, or sometimes an art-lover will donate it. Also, sometimes an art-lover promises to donate an artwork after they pass away. This is called “bequeathing.” 

In all of these cases, though, the SCMA has to be sure that the artwork is something the museum really wants and needs for its collection. Just as removing something from the collection can be a big decision, adding a new artwork takes a lot of careful thought. This is because artworks use the museum's resources--including space in the gallery and storage, money and time for conservation, and thought for developing educational resources for the artwork.



Click on one of the pages below to learn more about how museums get new artworks for their collections. 

This page has tags:

  1. How do museums build and un-build collections? Samantha Page

Contents of this tag:

  1. Why Museums Collect
  2. Bought from the artist
  3. Donated by a patron
  4. Lockwood De Forest's "Ramesseum at Thebes"
  5. Thomas Wilmer Dewing's "Lady with a Lute"
  6. Winslow Homer's "Song of the Lark"
  7. Abbott Handerson Thayer's "Winged Figure"
  8. Winslow Homer's "Shipyard at Gloucester"
  9. Thomas Wilmer Dewing's "Lady with Cello"

This page references: