Benton Museum of Art

Pomona College established a separate School of Art and Design in 1892, and incorporated it into the college . In 1958, responding to increased postwar interest in the arts, the Gladys K. Montgomery Art Center was completed adjacent to the art department in Rembrandt Hall, enabling the college to present its permanent collection in one place for the first time. A $280,000 expansion (equivalent to $ million in ) completed in 1968 added a second story and nearly doubled its size. during which director Mowry Baden (class of 1958) and curators Hal Glicksman and Helene Winer staged a number of groundbreaking post-minimalist and conceptual exhibitions, including work by James Turrell (class of 1965), Judy Fiskin (class of 1966), Chris Burden (class of 1969), and Peter Shelton (class of 1973), all of whom would later achieve fame. Resistance from the more socially conservative administration, including to a controversial March 1972 performance by Wolfgang Stoerchle in which he urinated on a rug, led to a mass exodus of the art faculty in 1973. Art historian Thomas E. Crow later wrote that the works created and presented at the college during this period were arguably "as salient to art history as any being made and shown anywhere else in the world at that time." In 2001, the gallery acquired museum status. A more minor renovation was completed in 2006, adding a new entrance. In 2020, the museum moved to a new building, the Benton, constructed diagonally adjacent to the old Montgomery Gallery. The new facility, named after donor and trustee Janet Inskeep Benton (class of 1979), more than tripled the exhibition and storage space available to the museum. It overcame local opposition from Claremont residents who objected to the moving of a historic house to create space on the lot. It reopened to the public on May 25, 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic. == Design ==

The museum is located near the southwestern edge of Pomona's campus, adjacent to the Village, Claremont's downtown commercial district. It was designed to a LEED Gold standard. Critical reception of the museum's design was positive. Mick Rhodes of the Claremont Courier described the material palette as "clean and cool without being cold" and noted the spaciousness of the galleries. Brian T. Allen, reviewing for National Review, called the museum "a perfect gem". He wrote that "I've rarely seen a more thoughtful, comprehensive, economically efficient building project". Michael J. Lewis wrote in The Wall Street Journal that "its distinction is obvious; it is arrayed on three sides of an open plaza, its cast-in-place concrete walls suggesting an abstract classicism while the stained timber elements that form its portico and porch give it a stately and equally classical rhythm." ==Collections==

The Benton houses a collection of approximately including Italian Renaissance panel paintings, approximately 6,000 Pre-Columbian to 20th-century indigenous American art and artifacts, Many of the museum's exhibitions focus on Southern Californian artists. and Dividing the Light by James Turrell (2007). A statue by Alison Saar, Imbue, is located in the museum's courtyard; it depicts the Yoruba goddess of childbirth, Yemọja, carrying a large stack of pails on her head. File:Johnson spanish music 1916 4.jpg|The Spirit of Spanish Music (1916) by Burt Johnson|alt=The Spirit of Spanish Music, a bronze sculpture, in the center of Lebus Courtyard File:Prometheus (1930) de José Clemente Orozco en Pomona College.jpg|Prometheus (1930) by José Clemente Orozco File:Rico Lebrun's Genesis at Pomona College.jpg|alt=|Genesis (1960) by Rico Lebrun File:Pomona College Center for Athletics, Recreation, and Wellness entrance at night.jpg|In the Spirit of Excellence (1989) by Norman Hines File:Pomona College Skyspace 05.jpg|Dividing the Light (2007) by James Turrell ==See also==