Press Releases

The Springfield Science Museum’s large rooftop telescope will be open for public sky gazing on Friday, May 2 at 7:30 pm as part of the “Stars Over Springfield” observatory series. These programs are organized by the Museum and the Springfield Stars Club, and take place on the first Friday of each month. This will be the final Stars event until the series renews again in September.

The Springfield Museums’ monthly tour and lecture schedule continues in May with the popular Thursday Museums à la Carte lectures, held weekly at 12:15 pm in the Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts. Admission is $4 ($2 for members of the Springfield Museums); visitors are invited to bring lunch (cookies and coffee are provided). The programs are sponsored by Big Y World Class Market.

On Friday, a new exhibition of original pastel paintings by children’s book illustrator Gerald Purnell will go on display at the Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History. The paintings were created to accompany the acclaimed children’s book by Richard Andersen titled A Home Run for Bunny. Andersen is currently a professor of writing at Springfield College and lives in Montague, MA. Purnell’s original pastel paintings will be on display through September 14 in a new gallery located near the entrance to the Springfield History Library & Archives.

A counterfeit masterpiece is treated just like a fine work of art at the D'Amour Museum in Springfield, Mass. Curator Colette Loll makes sure even forgeries get the white glove treatment. Anthony Mason reports.

On Sunday, April 27 from 1-5 pm, the Springfield Museums will host a special “Meet the Artists” event in conjunction with their current exhibition Steampunk Springfield: Re-Imagining an Industrial City. The exhibition includes works by over forty artists from around the region, all on view at the Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History and the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum. The event is free with museum admission.

Jared visits the Springfield Museums for a preview of their ground-breaking exhibit, Intent to Deceive: Fakes and Forgeries in the Art World, and talks with playwright Melinda Lopez about her stirring new drama Becoming Cuba, opening Friday, March 28th, at the Huntington Theatre Company’s Calderwood Pavilion.

The Springfield Museums have announced their lineup of performances and activities for the upcoming school vacation week, April 21-25, 2014. This year’s Puppet Festival will feature performances by some of the region’s finest puppet ensembles, along with live animal demonstrations, interactive displays, planetarium shows, and hands-on art opportunities. All activities are free with museum admission unless noted.

In 1967, the aristocratic Hungarian art collector Elmyr de Hory told his neighbor a secret. All the modern masters on the walls of his Ibiza mansion were fakes; he was the real painter. Others that he’d made, including artwork attributed to Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, had been sold to museums around the world. He’d lost his family fortune with the Second World War. Forgery was how de Hory made his living.