Art Museum of WVU staff and Friends visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
Friends of the Art Museum of WVU traveled with museum staff to Boston and Provincetown, Massachusetts, to visit world-class art museums and to see the Art Museum of WVU’s first traveling exhibition, Blanche Lazzell: Becoming an American Modernist.
“We had in-depth and bespoke visits to Boston’s most renowned art institutions. Our trip offered great inspiration and even better conversations and camaraderie,” said Art Museum of WVU Director Aaron Garvey.
Friends of the Art Museum make annual contributions to support the museum's efforts to bring internationally renowned artists to campus and provide community engagement opportunities for all ages at no cost to the public. In exchange, the Friends get to meet artists, curators and collectors; have inside access to private collections and artists’ studios; and enjoy exclusive events and travel opportunities like the trip to Boston and Provincetown.
“It was important for us to take the Friends on this trip because it gave them a chance to witness the visual arts in so many different settings,” said WVU College of Creative Arts and Media Dean Keith Jackson. “In a very short amount of time, we got a survey of different museum types—a contemporary museum, a university museum, a private collection and a museum in an arts mecca.”
Over two days, the group visited five museums. They received curator-led tours from Dr. Christopher D.M. Atkins, the Van Otterloo-Weatherbie Director for the Center for Netherlandish Art at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and from Mitra Abbaspour, the Houghton Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, at the Harvard Art Museums. They had a docent-led tour at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and took a self-guided tour of the Institute of Contemporary Art.
Friends of the Art Museum receive a tour of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
“Trips like these not only allow for time together to explore museums and meet with industry colleagues, but they also provide a chance to imagine what our museum can grow and be in the years to come,” said Garvey.
The “crown jewel” of the trip according to George Lilley, a Friend of the Art Museum, was visiting the Blanche Lazzell collection at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum and getting a tour of the exhibit by Art Museum of WVU Curator Robert Bridges.
“He did an excellent job of curating that collection. As we were there, he took time to walk us through the exhibit and explained the various aspects of it,” said Lilley, who went on the trip with his wife and fellow Friend, Mavis.
Blanche Lazzell was a West Virginia native, born near Maidsville, and a West Virginia University alumna. She studied different art and art styles across Western Europe and New England, including cubism, abstraction and woodcut prints, which became her signature medium.
Lazzell was one of the early pioneers of modern abstraction, but her contributions weren’t widely recognized in her day. Recently, however, her work has been “rediscovered” and is receiving widespread critical appreciation.
The Art Museum of WVU owns one of the largest collections of Lazzell’s work, thanks to $1.5 million in donations that helped the museum expand its collection. Much of the museum’s Lazzell collection is part of the traveling exhibition currently on display in Provincetown, Lazzell’s artistic hometown for many years. Provincetown is the exhibition’s last stop before it comes home to Morgantown, where it will fill both museum galleries in Fall 2026.
WVU's Robert Bridges gives Friends of the Museum a tour of the Blanche Lazzell exhibit at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum.
Touring the Lazzell collection with Bridges was a highlight of the trip for Dean Keith Jackson and Friend of the Art Museum James Stevenson as well.
“It gave me goosebumps, knowing that our university is being seen in that light by thousands of art lovers,” Jackson said. “People might not realize WVU has an art museum, and what an incredible way for them to find out.”
“The highlight to me was the opportunity to view our first traveling exhibit of Blanche Lazzell paintings and woodcut prints at the Provincetown museum,” said Stevenson. “Her national reputation grows in the art world as others are able to view her works. How fortunate we are to house one of the largest collections of her works here in Morgantown!”
“The benefit of being a Friend of the Art Museum is access to social events and the learning opportunities. You get insider knowledge of when events are going to occur at the museum, so you can come be part of the learning,” said Lilley. “There are obviously financial ways to support the museum. But you can also support it by reaching out to the community and alerting other people to the great asset that the community has.”
Friends of the Art Museum is the largest donor network for the Art Museum of WVU. There are multiple tiers to fit sponsors’ desired level of support, with yearly memberships as low as $100 for individuals. To see the membership tiers, visit https://give.wvu.edu/campaign/friends-of-the-art-museum/c473919.
The next Friends of the Art Museum trip will be to Phoenix, Arizona, March 9-13. Details and an itinerary will be sent Dec. 1 to the members mailing list. To learn more about the Art Museum of WVU, visit artmuseum.wvu.edu. For information on how to become a Friend or be more involved, contact Jess Crighton at jess.crighton@mail.wvu.edu.