| Lauren Rogers Museum of Art | |
| Coordinates: | 31.6963°N -89.1308°W |
| Established: | 1923 |
| Location: | 565 N. Fifth Avenue Laurel, Mississippi, United States |
| Type: | Art museum |
Mississippi's first art museum, the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is located in Laurel, Mississippi, United States. It was founded in 1923 in memory of Lauren Eastman Rogers.
The museum has an extensive collection of Native American baskets. It also has a selection of American art by Winslow Homer, Albert Bierstadt, and John Singer Sargent. It receives 32,000 visitors a year.[1] Its building's architect was Rathbone DeBuys of New Orleans, Louisiana.
The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art was opened in 1923 as a memorial to Lauren Eastman Rogers, the only son and only grandson of two of the town's founding families. Lauren died at the age of 23 in 1921 from complications of appendicitis, just months after marrying Lelia Hodson Rogers. After his death, Lauren's father, Wallace Brown Rogers, and his maternal grandfather, Lauren Chase Eastman, created the Eastman Memorial Foundation "to promote the public welfare by founding, endowing and having maintained a public library, museum, art gallery and educational institution, within the state of Mississippi." The museum opened its doors on May 1, 1923, in a building that was originally being constructed to be Lauren and Lelia's private residence.
The Eastman, Gardiner and Rogers families had migrated to Laurel, Mississippi, from Clinton, Iowa, in the 1890s for timber resources. Their influence was fundamental in the formation of the city of Laurel. The Rogers family built large residences on broad avenues in Laurel, and the family helped lay the foundation for public parks and schools that served the city for many generations. Lauren Rogers was being groomed by his parents and grandparents to take over the family lumber business and continue the families philanthropic legacy in Laurel. The Rogers and Eastman families did not let Lauren's legacy die with him. Instead, they created Lauren's legacy for him through the establishing of this museum in his honor.
Throughout the years the museum has served various purposes. The original building not only served as an art gallery, but it also housed the town library. The first collection featured in the museum gallery was a large basket collection that was donated in 1923 by Lauren Rogers' great-aunt, Catherine Marshall Gardiner. A new wing was completed in 1925 giving the museum five art galleries on the first floor and space for the Laurel Library Association on the lower level, where they stayed until 1979. These new galleries were eventually filled with nineteenth- and twentieth-century paintings that were donated by the Rogers and Eastman families. This collection which includes works by famous artists such as Winslow Homer, Albert Bierstadt, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, and Jean-François Millet became a part of the museum's permanent collection and can still be seen today. In 1953 Lelia Rogers added a Reading Room and filled it with furniture from her in-laws' home and a portrait of her deceased husband, Lauren.
The building's architect was Rathbone DeBuys of New Orleans, Louisiana.[2] The interior was designed by the Chicago firm of Watson and Walton. The walls are paneled in quarter-sawn golden oak, accented by hand-wrought ironwork by Samuel Yellin, and a ceiling of hand-molded plaster done by master craftsman Leon Hermant. The original museum floors were cork which has been continued throughout the various additions.
The collection of the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art consists of five specialized collections: American art, European paintings, Native American baskets, Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, and British Georgian silver.
Landscape paintings in the museum collection date primarily from the late 19th century onward. The museum owns late examples of Hudson River School painting, the first group of painters to exclusively focus on and celebrate the American landscape. Artists such as John Frederick Kensett and Albert Bierstadt, whose works are on display in the American gallery, are typical of this movement. These artists were inspired by the Romantic movement in art and literature and strove to glorify the wonders of nature through their art. The American Impressionists of the early 20th century used the image of the landscape as a means of personal expression as well as a vehicle for exploring the medium of painting itself. Artists like John Henry Twachtman chose to portray intimate settings and quiet places in his pictures, some of which border on the abstract in their painterly quality and emphasis on color and light over form and drawing. Since the 1930s, the museum has added more modern landscape paintings, particularly by Mississippi artists like Marie Hull and William Dunlap. We continue to build on this fine collection of American landscapes.
The term "Georgian" refers to the Georgian period, between 1714 and 1830. This time span saw a change in style; during the early 18th-century, English silver featured the abundant ornamentation of the Baroque and Rococo periods. By the end of the Georgian period, a restrained Neo-Classical style held sway, inspired by Classical forms and designs from ancient Greece and Rome.
The earliest work in the collection is an etching by Rembrandt van Rijn entitled Virgin and Child with Cat (1654), which depicts Mary and the infant Jesus in domestic interior. According to legend, the cat of the Madonna produced a litter of kittens in the stable where Christ was born; the cat of legend crouches next to the Madonna, as Joseph looks in through a window. This tiny etching is one of many Biblical illustrations produced by Rembrandt.
By 1923, when she donated her collection of almost 500 baskets to the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, she had amassed one of the most representative collections of North American Native basketry in the Southeastern United States. Over ten years later, Gardiner wrote, "It has been a work of great charm". In the intervening decades, the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art has added to the collection, particularly with baskets from the Southeast, but Gardiner's vision has remained the foundation of the collection.
As the city of Laurel has grown and changed, so has the museum. During the end of the 20th century and the next decades, some of the museum's architecture has been updated. Additional artistic holdings have been acquired. An addition (designed by Micheal Foil) was completed in 1983. This included a new gallery for visiting collections and a grand staircase made from Tennessee black marble. More recently, a large Dale Chihuly piece was added above this staircase. Another addition was completed in 2013 that added the Sanderson Gallery.
The museum continues to serve the community through various events and ongoing educational programs such as the annual Blues Bash and Museum Gala. During the summer months, the museum holds art camps and free family art days. The museum also conducts various activities within the community (such as city centers) and Artreach art camps.
In 2018, the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art celebrated its 95th year of operation. Admission to the museum is free, due to the continued support of donors and patrons; visitor donations are encouraged.