"Firsts" by The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art has an astounding list of “firsts” that have kept it at the forefront of the cultural world since its founding in 1842.

These include:
· The first public art museum in America
· The first museum in America to begin collecting what was then “contemporary American art” - resulting in our world renowned Hudson River School collection ·  The museum staged the first retrospective of Pablo Picasso in America
· The museum bought the first Caravaggio to enter an American museum
· The Wadsworth was the first museum to both exhibit and purchase works by Surrealist artists – today almost every exhibition about Surrealism includes borrowed works from our collection
· The Wadsworth was the first art museum to also have a theater – where the first performance of Gertrude Stein’s Four Saints & 3 Acts was held – which the museum also produced.
· The Wadsworth was the first to embrace the idea of contemporary art in an “encyclopedic” museum through its MATRIX program, which began in 1975 as a series of single-artist exhibitions. Today the series has showcased more than 150 artists, providing many with their first solo museum exhibition in the United States.

http://www.thewadsworth.org/