Member Highlight: Sabrina Fadial, Executive Director of The T. W. Wood Gallery
What's the story behind the gallery? How long has it been around and where has it been housed over the years?
On August 8th, 1895, the Wood Gallery of Art was created by a deed of gift in trust by Montpelier artist Thomas Waterman Wood. This was a gift of art to the residents of Montpelier. T.W. Wood’s donated works including copies of paintings that he did of many of the Great European Masters. These copies of works by Rembrandt, Turner and more were created by Wood with the intention of sharing this classic art with local Vermonters who wouldn’t have had the opportunity to see the work of European artists.
T.W. Wood Gallery was originally located in the Montpelier YMCA and Vermont Mutual Insurance Company on State Street. In 1896, Wood's friend Professor John W. Burgess felt that the Gallery deserved its own building. Professor Burgess taught at Columbia College, was a summer resident of Montpelier living at Redstone, and was married to Montpelier native Ruth Payne who was a student of Wood. Burgess financed the purchase and renovation of a property on State Street (a part of today’s Capitol Plaza). The Gallery had its opening reception for its new building on July 27, 1897.
In 1948, the Kellogg-Hubbard Library approached the Gallery with a desire to join the two cultural enterprises of the city into one building. In 1953 the Gallery moved into a location on the upper story of the library. One of its notable installations in this space was a series of friezes that ran along the top ceilings of the gallery. Gifted to the museum in 1896, the Wood friezes consisted of plaster copies of friezes from the Parthenon, from the façade of the organ gallery in the Florence Cathedral sculpted by Donatello Bardi, and from the same cathedral which were sculpted between 1431 and 1440 by Luca Della Robbia. The friezes were gifted by the Gallery to Kellogg-Hubbard and are still on view at the library. The partnership of the two community organizations was a successful one for years until the expansion of both institutions indicated a need for a venue change.
In 1985, Vermont College at Norwich University invited the Wood Gallery to move into College Hall. The Gallery stayed at that location until 2012 when we found our permanent home at 46 Barre St. in Montpelier, VT. The building was a joint purchase of T.W. Wood Gallery, Monteverdi Music School, and the River Rock School. The Center for Arts and Learning was created at the time as a nonprofit organization to manage the building for the partner-owners. In 2020, T.W. Wood Gallery bought out River Rock’s share of the building.
The building was originally a convent built in the early 20th century with an attached elementary school from the 1950s. The convent houses the Center for Arts and Learning and Monteverdi Music School. T.W. Wood Gallery occupies the two-story former elementary school with galleries and exhibition space on the second floor and classrooms for youth and adult education on the first.
What has changed with the gallery's mission and programming over the past?
In the past 130 years we have maintained our mission that art should be available to all. In the mid 1950’s the Federal Government decided that we should be the caretakers of the Vermont WPA Collection. We are one of a few museums who have dedicated space to this program. The addition of contemporary exhibition spaces and a thriving art education program for youth and adults has brought us to where we are today.
We loved the Community Mural Art Project started at your summer Art Camp and completed during the Independence Day celebration on the statehouse lawn. The final mural is hanging outside at the Montpelier Transit Center for all to enjoy. What are some creative projects and directions for the Gallery you are planning?
As the oldest museum of American Art in the state, it is surprising how few people know what a gem we have in the TW Wood Gallery. With that in mind I have been working closely with Montpelier Alive to bring the Gallery around the corner into downtown activities. We projected images of the collection on the side of Walgreens for T.W.’s 200th birthday celebration. We host a monthly Drink, Draw, and Doodle at Bent Nails Bistro. We also received funding to provide scholarships to refugee families welcoming the newest members of our community.
Project project projects! Well, we’ve got Murder at the Museum: A Mystery Fundraiser on November 1. I am getting ready for free community Lantern workshops November 2nd and 9th, in preparation for the Parade on November 16th. In the spring I will be dependent on community volunteers to help me paint a mural in Julio's parking lot. I’ve got a few more ideas percolating and I don't want to give anything away too soon.
What do you like most about Montpelier?
I fell in love with Montpelier in February of 1999 when I arrived for my first MFA residency at the then Vermont College of Norwich University. Driving down East State street, my car loaded with art, a tear escaped down my cheek as I thought to myself “Why can’t my life be Vermont?” 10 years later it was. I love the size of the town, the people, the work ethic, the pace, beauty, the list goes on and on.