Wadsworth Atheneum, Morgan Great Hall
The Morgan Memorial Building, home to the Wadsworth Atheneum’s collection of American and European paintings and designed in 1907 by Beaux-Arts architect Benjamin Wistar Morris, was built by J. Pierpont Morgan between 1908 and 1915 in memory of his father, Junius Spencer Morgan.
In the 1960’s the Morgan Great Hall was painted a uniform shade of white from baseboard to barrel vaults robbing this great building of its architectural identity as a home for art.
In 1987 the Hall was evocatively restored with a salon style installation of paintings and sculpture fitting the character of the restoration. Due to this attentive restoration and installation, Morgan Great Hall is now a vastly successful multi-use space for the oldest public art museum in the United States.
