The Museum of Art | Fort Lauderdale is a destination and an experience. The dynamic hub of cultural life in South Florida, we are located in the heart of downtown Fort Lauderdale in a distinguished Edward Larrabee Barnes-designed modernist building, itself a reflection of this community’s civic commitment to excellence in arts and education.
The arts are woven into the Museum’s DNA, but our program is not limited to the visual arts – we work to ensure that the Museum is a destination for cultural and political forums, books clubs and discussions; a venue for the performing arts; a gathering place for friends and neighbors in our Café and Books & Books; and of course, as a center for exemplary art exhibitions and educational programs that range the gamut of the visual history of our civilization.
We believe that to be relevant in a busy, over-messaged, and modern society, the Museum must be vibrant with life, with people, and with content. What makes the opportunities before us truly exceptional is the Museum’s merger in July 2008 into Nova Southeastern University. This partnership builds upon NSU’s long-standing dedication to academic excellence. Already the Museum has developed a great collective action with other divisions of the University to solicit ideas, share programs, and build a larger audience. With the merger into NSU, we are inaugurating new programmatic approaches to expand the Museum’s position and public importance as an educational and cultural resource for the 21st century. We want to engage you in our progress and our programs as Museum of Art Members. I encourage you to join us today at whatever level you wish.
With Nova Southeastern University as our active partner, the Museum of Art is now better positioned than ever to be the intersection of art, ideas, and experiences – a goal that has been given even greater credence with the significant expansion and renaming of our Studio School as the AutoNation Academy of Art + Design. We are increasing our curriculum offerings to include painting, sculpture, drawing, ceramics, photography, digital media and the culinary arts. Our immediate goal is to serve 3,000 students annually by 2014.
Since the mid-19th century, museum schools throughout the country have supplemented the art educational needs of their communities. Some of the greatest art schools in the United States have grown out of museum schools, including the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Art Institute of Chicago, Houston’s Glassell School, and the San Francisco Art Institute. The need for art education has not diminished, but only increased. We see it as a critical resource with great growth potential as the Museum of Art moves through the 21st century.
We welcome your participation and invite you to take this journey with us.
Irvin M. Lippman
