OPEN: WED – SUN | HOURS: 10 AM – 5 PM EST
Who We Are
Nearly 100 years ago, the museum’s namesake founders, Moody and Hannah Currier, envisioned a world-class art museum in the footprint of their former home – a cultural center of the city for generations to come. As the Currier Museum looks ahead to its centennial, that legacy lives on.
Today, the Currier is a place where art, people, and ideas converge. With proud New England roots and a rising global reputation, the museum invites visitors of all backgrounds to make a personal connection with great art, encounter new possibilities, and be part of the timeless story of human creativity.
History
Since its founding in 1929, the Currier Museum of Art has been a cultural cornerstone for the city and state. Moody Currier and his wife Hannah Slade conceived the idea of founding an art museum in the 1890s. A former governor of the state, Moody died in 1898, and Hannah in 1915.
Their estate and house formed the basis of the Currier Gallery of Art, which was chartered by the state legislature in 1919. The museum building opened in October 1929, a few days before the great stock market crash ushered in the Great Depression.
The museum’s community art school started in 1939. In 1982, new galleries designed by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer opened. A new atrium and special exhibition galleries by Ann Beha were completed in 2008. In the 1950s, Frank Lloyd Wright designed homes for two local doctors in Manchester. The Zimmerman House was bequeathed to the museum in 1988, while the Kalil House was purchased by the museum in 2019.
Currier Leadership
Get to know some of the people who bring to life
the Currier’s mission of great arts experiences accessible for all