Walters Art Museum - Baltimore

The Walters Art Museum is result of the art collecting of father and son William T. and Henry Walters.  The collection of over 22,000 works of art from around the world.

Mid February 2017 I decided I needed to escape Connecticut and flee to my Baltimore friends, Wilda and Ed Newman.  We started as one always starts a trip to Baltimore - crabs at Timbuktu.

     It is comforting to return to places of your youth with good friends.  The only thing that has changed at Timbuktu is the fact in the past we were able to eat both crab cakes on the platter in one seating with several beers - this trip it was one beer with one crab cake.  The second crab cake was taken home and enjoyed with a glass of wine.

     Wilda and I decided that rather than traveling to DC to visit a museum, we would go to Baltimore. Given our time restraint and also the fact that the museum is undergoing some renovation, we decided to concentrate of the top floor where the history of the museum was outlined.

Both of the Walters were very successful business who developed and interest in art collection. In 1931, Henry donated the core collection of the museum to the City of Baltimore.  The Museum itself is located in the historic Mt. Vernon Cultural Diction of Baltimore.

William Thompson Walters

Henry Walters

     "William Thompson Walters (1819-94), a native of the village of Liverpool in central Pennsylvania, was drawn to Baltimore in 1841. Initially Walters became a grain merchant, but by 1852 he had established a wholesale liquor house that was to become one of the largest firms of its kind anywhere. Six years later, Walters moved to a house on Mount Vernon Place."

     "At about this time, William began to collect art seriously".

     "In 1889 Henry Walters moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, to serve as general manager of his father's railroad. Following William's death in 1894, he was elected president of the Atlantic Coast Line Company and transferred the line's headquarters to New York."  Henry "lived with Pembroke and Sarah Jones, a couple he had met in Wilmington".  He married Sarah three years after Pembroke died.

The original gallery which is reassembled in the museum

     "As early as 1874 William Walters opened the Mount Vernon Place residence to the public. Every spring, with few exceptions, he continued this civic-minded practice, charging a fee of 50 cents, with the proceeds contributed to charity. Within a decade, when the collection had outgrown the house, he acquired an adjacent property and added a picture gallery."

    "When William Walters died in 1894, he bequeathed his collection to his son, Henry Walters, who would follow in his father's footsteps.  Henry Walters continued to augment his holdings, buying both in New York and abroad."

   "Henry soon had the site of three buildings he had purchased in 1900 transformed in to a palazzo like building, which opened to the public in 1909. He died in 1931, bequeathing the building and its contents to the mayor and city council of Baltimore "for the benefit of the public."

Our visit to the Walters Museum was very brief but I had the sense that it was a well-run progressive museum.  The ability to watch and converse with a conservator is just a hint of the innovations.

For that reason I can't wait for the opportunity to visit and explore more of the four floors.