Peabody Essex Museum
USINFO | 2013-05-31 15:53

 
The Peabody Essex Museum (est. 1992)[2] in Salem, Massachusetts, may be considered one of the oldest continuously operating museums in the United States. It combines the collections of the former Peabody Museum of Salem and the Essex Institute, located in the Downtown Salem District. The museum holds one of the major collections of Asian art in the US. Its total holdings include about 1.3 million pieces, as well as twenty-four historic buildings.

In 1992, the Peabody Museum of Salem merged with the Essex Institute to form the Peabody Essex Museum. Included in the merger was the legacy of the East India Marine Society, established in 1799 by a group of Salem-based captains and supercargoes. Members of the Society were required by the society's charter to collect "natural and artificial curiosities" from beyond the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn. Due to the institution's age, the items they donated to the collections are significant for their rare combination of age and provenance.

In 2003, it completed a massive $100 million dollar renovation and expansion resulting in the Peabody Essex Museum opening a new wing designed by Moshe Safdie, more than doubling the gallery space to 250,000 square feet (23,000 m²); this allowed the display of many items from its extensive holdings, which had previously been unknown to the public due to lack of capability to show them. At this time, the museum also opened to the public the Yin Yu Tang House, an early 19th century Chinese house from Anhui Province that had been removed from its original village and reconstructed in Salem.

In 2011, the Peabody Essex Museum announced it had raised $550 million with plans to raise an additional $100 million by 2016. The Boston Globe reported this was the largest capital campaign in the museum's history vaulting the Peabody Essex into the top tier of major art museums. The Peabody Essex Museum trustees co-chairs Sam Byrne and Sean Healey with board president Robert Shapiro led the campaign.$200 to $250 million will fund the museum’s 175,000-square-foot expansion bringing the total square footage to 425,000 square feet.  The museum is lead by Dan Monroe, The Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Director and CEO, with a FYE 12/2011 annual compensation of $578,254.00.
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