The Eleanor D. Wilson Museum is a premiere arts destination in the Roanoke Valley. It features the work of internationally renowned artists and emerging and regional artists. The museum also presents work from Hollins’ permanent collection and mounts exhibitions that explore currents in contemporary art. The museum provides a place to look at art and to talk about it, enhancing both the life of the university and the community beyond.

About the facility
Located on the first floor of the Richard Wetherill Visual Arts Center, the museum is a state-of-the-art climate-controlled facility. The museum has three interconnected galleries of different sizes totaling approximately 4000 square feet of exhibition space. Through the generosity of a grant from Roanoke County, the museum now houses a dedicated permanent Collection and Educational Resource Center, which is available to students, teachers, and other patrons who are interested in furthering their study of art in the museum’s permanent collection. It also functions as a small educational center for groups and classes, providing a forum for discussion, workshops, and projects based on exhibitions.

Educational programming
Since opening in fall 2004, the museum has presented more than 60 exhibitions with supplementary programs, including tours, lectures, workshops, gallery talks, and classroom instruction. The museum enriches the university’s curricular offerings through internships, volunteer opportunities, and courses on museum management to promote cross-disciplinary learning and visual literacy.

Outside recognition
The Eleanor D. Wilson Museum and Anstey-Hodge Advertising Group were winners of two prizes in the 2010 American Association of Museums' Publication Design Competition. The Wilson Museum and Anstey-Hodge were honored for their Fall 2009 and Winter & Spring 2010 Calendars of Art Exhibitions & Events. These publications will also be on display at the convention center during the 2010 AAM Annual Meeting and MuseumExpo™ in Los Angeles, May 23–26.

The Museum was recognized in the March, 2009 edition of Roanoke’s City Magazine for having the Best Art Exhibition of the last twelve months, for the exhibit Talia Logan: Georgianna Waxes.

The Museum has also been featured recently in US Airways Magazine’s Profile: Roanoke (2009), and in three separate interviews on radio station WVTF, among others.

For a link to these (and other) interviews, please see the Newsroom page.

Photo, above, work by Eleanor Delaney “Siddy” Wilson.

The Wilson Museum is pleased to participate in Blue Star Museums, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts which recognizes our service men and women. From Memorial Day through Labor Day of this year, over 600 museums in all 50 states will provide free admission to active duty military personnel and their families. The Wilson Museum is free to everyone all the time, so instead we are offering a discount of 50% off of catalog purchases, and extending the offer until December 31, 2010. For more information on the Blue Star Museums program or to see a list of participating museums, please visit their Web site at http://www.arts.gov/bluestarmuseums.