The remarkable works in the collection anytime, anywhere
Explore the Akron Art Museum’s Online Collection and discover further treasures from the archives and new information about your favorite pieces of art. Making the collection available online enables the museum to fulfill its mission of enriching lives through modern art and reach a broader audience to communicate the significance of its holdings. With the support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the museum is able to offer a new perspective that goes beyond the physical galleries. Access the Online Collection at http://www.AkronArtMuseum.org/collection.
Content available online contains many objects beyond those currently on view in the physical galleries and delves deep into the archives to highlight pieces even a faithful visitor might not have seen before. People can access extensive educational material, short essays for major works, exhibition histories, provenances and video interviews with artists. Years of documentation and research have gone into the online content.
An exciting feature is installation images of objects in the galleries to provide a sense of scale and relationship to other objects. For example, the entry for Sol Lewitt’s monumental wall work includes images of the artist’s initial drawing, people working on the wall and the completed piece taking up an entire wall in the museum’s grand lobby.
Included are all pieces currently on view in the museum allowing local educators to use the site in preparation for a school tour or explore particular objects in-depth after a tour. An enthusiastic visitor can now share a favorite piece with a family member across the country and art lovers on the other side of the planet can view a close-up of the surface texture of a painting they never would have been able to appreciate.
The Online Collection boasts a newly designed catalog of the collection, optimized for seamless searching at home and on mobile devices. The long term goal of digitizing the collection is to provide a continuing resource for art enthusiasts and students. To achieve this, it will be necessary to add new objects acquired by the museum each year and to expand and update content for existing objects. There are nearly 500 objects available with constant expansion planned, updating the site several times a month until virtual visitors will be able to access the entire 5,000 object collection.
