The Muscarelle is currently closed as we begin our renovation and expansion — a project that will triple the size of the Museum and transform it into a state-of-the-art regional venue for art exploration.
While our building is closed, we continue to host exhibitions, workshops, events and more. Subscribe to our mailing list to stay up-to-date.


Join us as we celebrate wine, art, and Derby Day at our 12th Annual of Wine & Run for the Roses Auction on May 6, 2023, at the Williamsburg Lodge from 3:00 PM to 7:30 PM.
Fine and rare wines and extraordinary travel excursions are all at auction exclusively at this dynamic event. Featuring a wine reception with fabulous fare, a derby race raffle, and a giant screen telecast of The Kentucky Derby – you are sure to have marvelous time!
We are kicking off the celebration with a special wine dinner in the Regency Room at the Williamsburg Inn on Thursday, May 4, 2023 featuring wines from Cowhorn Vineyard and Johan Vineyards in Oregon .
Upcoming Events
The Invention of the Museum as Public Institution in the 18th and 19th Centuries
David Brashear, Museum Director
Mar 28, 2023 06:00:00 pm
Join us for the first lecture in our spring Selected Topics in Architecture series, which will focus on museum design through the ages. David Brashear, Director of the Muscarelle Museum of Art, will present “The Invention of the Museum as Public Institution in the 18th and 19th Centuries.” The concept of the modern museum was born in the Enlightenment that swept across Europe in the 18th century. The idea of a public museum gained traction in France in the 1770s, and designs by Étienne-Louis Boullée and Jean-Nicholas-Louis Durand paved the way for the remaking of the Louvre as a public […]
Museum Trip: Chrysler Museum
Danielle Moretti-Langholtz, Curator of Native American Art
Apr 01, 2023 11:30:00 am
This spring, visit some of the most exciting exhibitions coming to the region’s best museums, and leave the planning to us. On Saturday, April 1, we’ll travel to the Chrysler Museum with a group of William & Mary students to see Preston Singletary: Raven and the Box of Daylight, an immersive exhibition that merges visual art and theatrical storytelling. Featuring the work of internationally acclaimed glass artist Preston Singletary, the show tells the Native American story of Raven and his transformation of the world — bringing light to people by means of the stars, moon and sun. We’ll first gather […]
Abstract Watercolor Monotype Workshop | with Steve Prince
Steve Prince, Director of Engagement, Muscarelle Museum of Art
Apr 03, 2023 05:00:00 pm
Join artist Steve Prince in this exciting hands-on workshop that explores the expressive power of abstract art through the medium of watercolor monotypes! Participants will create dynamic watercolor templates on Yupo paper, cut and arrange the dried color materials on an acrylic sheet, and utilize water-saturated archival paper to reconstitute the watercolors to create unique, multicolored prints. All materials will be provided, and all skill and experience levels are welcome; just bring your imagination! Youth aged 6-12 welcome with an accompanying adult. Location: Matoaka Art Studio, William & Mary Workshop fee: Muscarelle Members, W&M Staff, Faculty, and Students $10; Non-Members […]
Introducing Abstract Expressionism: The American Movement
David Brashear, Museum Director
Apr 04, 2023 06:00:00 pm
David Brashear, Director of the Muscarelle Museum of Art, will set the stage for our spring Muscarelle Explorations series, Modern Masters at the Margins. As the United States worked its way through the Great Depression, an artistic energy was developed in New York, in part driven by the WPA’s public art program. A group of artists, working both uptown and downtown, began to move away from representational art and focus their efforts on new approaches to abstraction. Some were more established, and some were relative newcomers. Some were older, and some were younger. Many were men, but some were women […]
Norman Lewis, Ad Reinhardt, Adolph Gottlieb, Dorothy Dehner: Our Pictographic and Skeuomorphic Era
Andrianna Campbell-LaFleur
Apr 17, 2023 05:00:00 pm
Andrianna Campbell-LaFleur joins us from Yale University for our second talk in the spring Muscarelle Explorations series, Modern Masters at the Margins. Painters such as Norman Lewis, Ad Reinhardt, Adolph Gottlieb and Dorothy Dehner looked to notational stand-ins for meaning. The stick figures and simplified marks were graphic interfaces developed to be capable descriptors of more complex language systems. Following the research of post-structuralist anthropologists such as Claude Levi-Strauss, Zora Neale Hurston and Margaret Mead in the 1940s, artists paired these ideas with instinctive line-making. For them these rational and id-based notation systems were places of universal sympathetic convergence. As […]
Museum Trip: Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art
Apr 20, 2023 08:30:00 am
This spring, visit some of the most exciting exhibitions coming to the region’s best museums, and leave the planning to us. On Thursday, April 20, we’ll travel to the VA MOCA in Virginia Beach to see the newly opened exhibition Kara Walker: Cut to the Quick. Featuring more than 80 works from the collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer, the exhibition offers a broad overview of Walker’s career. “A leading artist of her generation, Kara Walker (b. 1969) works in a range of mediums, including prints, drawings, paintings, sculpture, film, and the large-scale silhouette cutouts for which she is perhaps most […]
The Art of the Book Workshop
Steve Prince, Director of Engagement, Muscarelle Museum of Art and Meghan Bryant, Head of Public Services & Instruction, Special Collections Research Center
Apr 24, 2023 10:00:00 am
In this two-day intensive workshop, participants will explore and study the exciting world of the history of books in Swem Library’s Special Collections Research Center. Participants will examine rare books in Special Collections, learn about the history of the book, and create a collaborative artwork using one of the oldest forms of book making through relief printmaking. Participants will receive the finished design as both a print on paper and a T-shirt upon completing the class. Lunch will be provided each day. April 24-25 10 AM – 3 PM All materials will be provided, and all skill levels are welcome; […]
The Life and Work of Abstract Expressionist Lee Krasner: A Biographer’s View
Gail Levin
Apr 25, 2023 06:00:00 pm
Art historian and scholar Gail Levin will join us for the third talk in our spring Muscarelle Explorations series, Modern Masters at the Margins. Lee Krasner once said, “I think my painting is so autobiographical, if anyone can take the trouble to read it.” Her friend and biographer, art historian Gail Levin, who first interviewed the artist when she was a twenty-two year-old graduate student, guides us on an illustrated journey from Krasner’s birth in 1908 Brooklyn to her love of nature on the Eastern End of New York’s Long Island. Levin will not only give art historical analysis, but […]
Abstract Artist Lynne Mapp Drexler’s Journey from Virginia to Maine
Gail Levin
Apr 27, 2023 06:00:00 pm
Art historian and scholar Gail Levin will join us for the fourth talk in our spring Muscarelle Explorations series, Modern Masters at the Margins. Imagine a story of an artist who escaped from an art world rife with competition and her struggle to find herself, landing on an enchanted island, where she lived happily ever after, painting, though forgotten, for the rest of her life. She went so far as to write to a friend what her dealer could tell collectors who inquired about her: “advise them I’d become a hermit — an eccentric one and that I come to […]
Large Format View Camera Demonstration
May 13, 2023 09:00:00 am
Participants in this demonstration will be introduced to the large format view camera, and its abilities in producing a portrait. After capturing an image, film will be processed, and the group will gather in the darkroom to see a finished silver gelatin print emerge from the operation. Instructor: Eliot Dudik, Lecturer in Photography in the Department of Art & Art History, William & Mary Date: Saturday, May 13 — 9:00 AM until 1:00 PM Workshop fee: Muscarelle Members, W&M Faculty, Staff and Students $125; Non-Members $150 Please note that space is limited to 15 participants and advance registration is required.
Muscarelle Reads: Ninth Street Women
David Brashear, Muscarelle Director, and Gary Ryan, Director and CEO of the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art
May 16, 2023 06:00:00 pm
As part of our spring Muscarelle Explorations series, Modern Masters at the Margins, join us for a virtual discussion of Ninth Street Women by Mary Gabriel, which chronicles the experiences of five women who dared to enter the male-dominated world of twentieth-century abstract painting — not as muses but as artists. Museum Director David Brashear will be joined by Gary Ryan, Director and CEO of the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, for a Zoom-based discussion of the book. No need to read the book in order to attend — bring your questions and enjoy the discussion! ABOUT THE BOOK: Five […]
Large Format Photography Workshop
May 22, 2023 09:00:00 am
Participants in this intensive, weeklong workshop will be introduced to large format photography, and will proceed to develop skills in composing with the view camera, exposing large format 4×5 inch sheet film, and creating beautiful silver gelatin prints in the darkroom. Large format 4×5 view cameras and materials will be provided for participants during the workshop. Dates: May 22-26, 9 AM – 3 PM daily Instructor: Eliot Dudik, Lecturer in Photography in the Department of Art & Art History, William & Mary Workshop fee: Muscarelle Members, W&M Faculty, Staff and Students $850; Non-Members $950 Please note that space is limited […]
Turning the Feather Around: The Life and Work of George Morrison
Danielle Moretti-Langholtz, Curator of Native American Art
May 23, 2023 05:00:00 pm
Dr. Danielle Moretti-Langholtz, Curator of Native American Art at the Muscarelle, will present the final talk in our spring Muscarelle Explorations series, Modern Masters at the Margins, with a talk about artist George Morrison. Born and raised near the Grand Portage Indian Reservation in Minnesota, George Morrison (Ojibwe) had a long and distinguished career as an Abstract Expressionist painter and sculptor. This presentation will follow Morrison’s life story and his foray into the inner circle of some of the most prominent American expressionists of the day, including Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, and his return to Minnesota during the […]