Michele & Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts

I love museums so hard to give one a bad review. The art is mediocre here… but moreover, the museum needs a facelift. I expect just painting the walls would help the art to stand out more. And some of the art looks like it needs a good cleaning. The whole museum is just stuffy, dull… nothing vibrant about the place, the space, the art.

There has been a Museum of Fine Arts in Springfield for the better part of a century, and some years back it was renamed to honor the generosity of Michele and Donald D’Amour who came to its rescue as the city’s demographics changed and its art-​museum going population declined. The D’Amour, as it is now known, features a highly educational and accessible collection of European and American paintings ranging from 14^th and 15^th century Spanish and Italian panels through contemporary American works. Located in a culture quadrangle that includes another art and decorative art museum (the George Walter Vincent Smith), a science museum, an historic house and a library, it is worthy of a stop for the culturally curious passing through on nearby Interstate 91 and deserves more support from local residents.
The museum dates to a time when every self-​respecting northeastern U.S. city felt its population should have the benefits of an art museum and traces its origin to a bequest by local business couple James and Julia Gray. It is housed in a purpose-​built Art Deco (Moderne) building. In addition to painted works on various media the collection includes helpful examples of sculpture and decorative arts from the Renaissance through the Art Deco periods which are included in the largely chronological installation in nicely repainted and well lit rooms. Some of the works have been reattributed to «school of» over the decades, but they nonetheless provide an instructive and attractive overview of the development of western art and continue to include oils by many recognized European masters, among them Goswin van der Weyden, Sebastiano Ricci, van de Velde, de Witte, Bol, G.B. Tiepolo, Chardin, Courbet, Gerome, Pissarro, Luce and Monet, and by popular Americans including Copley, Stuart, Chase, Bierstadt, Sargent, Homer, O’Keeffe, Marsh, Bellows and Frankenthaler.
The museum is particularly known for its important collection of works by the American Erastus Salisbury Field (1805 – 1900) including his legendary (and immense!) Historical Monument of the American Republic (1867 and 1888). More recently the collection was enhanced through significant gifts of prints by Currier and Ives displayed in the Alpert Gallery and from works in many media given by the late Channing Blake, a collector of singular taste whose donation of Baroque masterpieces included The Mocking of Christ by the follower of Caravaggio, Bartolomeo Manfredi (1580 – 1620) and Allegories of Architecture and Painting by Francesco Trevisani (1656 – 1746). The D’Amour also usually features a traveling special exhibition and children’s area. Those with limited mobility may need to request assistance to access some areas. Ticketing and a gift shop are handled in a common facility shared by all of the museums; off-​street parking is available.