2012 Annual Report - The Wadsworth Atheneum

The museum’s Community Engagement Initiative remains the primary
agent for transforming our relationship with our visitors and surrounding
communities. Over the past year, a wide array of programs, including gallery
talks and lectures, Second Saturdays, Community Days, and Sunday Serenades,
engaged seventy visual artists, storytellers, musical groups, dance troupes,
community organizations, and scholars in the greater Hartford community
and beyond. Educational programming and tours accounted for 36 percent of
the museum’s annual attendance of nearly one-hundred thousand visitors. In
addition, attendance at special programs such as First Thursdays, Second Saturdays,
and the Film Series all saw substantial increases over the prior year.
Marquee programs such as Museum on the Move proved that art
could have a transformational impact on students’ visual literacy and writing
skills. Last year, the museum significantly expanded Museum on the Move,
doubling the number of schools served from four to eight. The six-part program
includes two in-classroom lessons, two art classroom lessons, a docent
classroom visit, and a trip to the museum for a docent-guided tour. In order
to measure student growth, writing assessments are used at the beginning and
the end of the program; the results demonstrate that art not only has the power
to inspire but also the ability to profoundly impact learning.
The potentially negative implications of the continued economic
downturn on the museum’s operational budget were offset by an 11 percent
increase in revenue—a truly remarkable feat that enabled the museum to end
its fiscal year on budget for the fifth straight year. Part of this increase was
driven by a number of large grant awards, many from prestigious national funders
such as the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment
for the Humanities, in addition to substantial awards from the Hartford
Foundation for Public Giving, the State of Connecticut, and numerous private
and corporate foundations.
As we strive to continue our time-honored traditions of artistic excellence,
innovation, and leadership, both locally and internationally, we have
you, our most dedicated supporters, to thank. Your embrace of our mission
and support for our aspirations inspires and energizes all of us every day. We
look forward to continuing this journey of transformation together and to another
extraordinarily successful year at the Wadsworth Atheneum.
D a v i d W. D a n g r e m o n d
S u s a n L . Ta l b o t t
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