My daughter was a little over a year old when she first noticed a piece of art. On a family trip to the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts, my husband and I relished the woodland paths with elegant works by Paul Matisse and Andy Goldsworthy. Juniper the toddler, though, took a shine to a dripping, oozing fluorescent yellow blob by Aaron Curry called—rather aptly, I think—“Ugly Mess.”
Juniper was transfixed, wandering around the steel sculpture for what seemed like hours. At first I felt impatient, but then I realized I was a witness to baby’s first appreciation of art. My daughter had an aha moment, which helped me see the piece with fresh eyes.
Sparking kids’ creativity and love for travel with art isn’t new. “From a very young age, children start looking extremely closely at the things around them with curiosity and attention,” says Olga Hubbard, a professor of arts education of the Teachers College at Columbia University. This makes museums and other cultural institutions focus on engaging the next generation of sculpture and painting fans with research-backed activities and challenging exhibits designed to appeal to developing brains.
These trips and tips can get your kids into art on your next vacation. They might ignite a renewed sense of wonder in the grown-ups as well. “Spaces like museums can invite adults to have the kind of attention that young children naturally have for the outside world,” says Hubbard.
Because kids naturally like to look—it’s just a matter of finding fresh things to see.
Step into a storybook
The easiest way to introduce a child to an art museum might be through a familiar face, be it the googly eyed Very Hungry Caterpillar or a fairy tale villain. “Picture books are often a child’s first introduction to art,” says Courtney Waring, director of education at the Eric Carle Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts.
At the Carle, original works by the author/illustrator of Caterpillar are displayed along with revolving exhibits devoted to other kid-lit stars. Picture book pages are framed and hung on the walls, presented as priceless artifacts. Little ones can’t touch the originals, but they can paw through thousands of books in the nearby museum library.
“They immediately make connections between the art they see in books and the art they see in our galleries,” says Waring. Not only can this give children a deeper connection to their bookshelves at home, it also may encourage them to form “human connections across time and space,” says Hubbard.
Children see or sense that their favorite stories came from real people and places, and this goes beyond commercial attractions devoted to Harry Potter. In Kassel, Germany, where Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm gathered and published fairy tales in the 19th century, the contemporary museum Grimmwelt Kassel tells kids not only about classic stories (Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella), but also about the language and history they contain.
In a Buckinghamshire village north of London, England, the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre pays tribute to the late writer of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Fabulous Mr. Fox with exhibits and activities in his former home.
Museum professionals emphasize that provoking intense responses—a fit of giggles at a painting of a familiar Brothers Grimm fable, an awestruck gaze at a way-larger-than-life caterpillar cutout—can give parents insight into what kids intuitively find exciting, beautiful, or strange. Observe these moments, and later, at home, encourage your children to recall what made a big impression by revisiting the trip through photos or books.
Learn by playing around
The tactical, colorful aspects of art appeal to kids, often inspiring them to DIY their own masterpieces when they get home. Exploring their creativity helps children develop cognitively and physically.
Museums with please-touch exhibits and hands-on art projects “help kids make meaning,” says Sharon Shaffer, who served as the Director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Early Enrichment Center for 24 years. “Even if they don’t have the words, ask them questions to help further their thinking. Children see things that adults miss.”
At the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, children can whack helium-filled metallic balloons in the artist’s iconic “Floating Clouds” installation or learn rudimentary filmmaking techniques via the “Screen Test Machine.” Some galleries (e.g. the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Ohio’s Dayton Art Institute) offer gallery guides and other tools for young patrons; as the pandemic ebbs, museums including the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., will again host drop-in art workshops for kids.
Parents can make museum trips more engaging for children by pre-picking artworks and even bringing small bag of props. “If you’re visiting a painting that shows a tightrope walker, put down a piece of string on the ground and let them try to imagine being high above a circus,” says Shaffer. If you’re not sure what’s on view that might appeal to children, ask at the front desk.
“Families shouldn’t feel shy about taking up space, making a bit of noise, and enjoying a visit on their terms,” says Grace Attlee, who runs educational programs at the kid-friendly House of Illustration in London, set to open in a new space in 2022. “Contrary to popular belief, most museums and galleries want little people in them.”
While it’s my impulse to direct my daughter’s attention towards pieces that enchant me, experts agree that parents shouldn’t try to control their kid’s museum visit. Ask them open and probing questions, but don’t demand answers. Says Shaffer, “Nobody likes a quiz. Interactions with art are all about quality, not quantity, something we can forget as adults.”
Think outside the gallery
Kids these days are digital natives, so they may be interested in seeing art on different terms. Exhibits that harness video and sound can provoke wonder in younger children.
Meow Wolf, an interactive art space in Santa Fe, New Mexico, ushers families into a music-, mystery-, and art-filled former bowling alley where they crawl through washing machines, dance on lights, and try to solve puzzles. The collective that founded it also has newer installations in Denver and Las Vegas.
The touring Van Gogh Immersive show uses virtual reality to turn the Impressionist painter’s wild colors and heavy brushstrokes into a trippy, high-tech extravaganza. Next year, cities including London and Washington, D.C., will host a similar video and virtual reality attraction, Mexican Geniuses, which recasts and reimagines the art of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.
These unconventional exhibits can reinforce the link in your kids brains between art and fun. “A lot of it is simply exposure,” says Shaffer. If your children aren’t around art, they can’t learn to enjoy it. “Whenever you go somewhere new, take advantage of what’s in the environment,” she says.
Appeal to their interests
Experts agree that playing to your child’s interests is another key to helping them enjoy art. My own kid loves the woods and mildly scary monsters. That’s why, this past summer, we ended up at the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden in Boothbay, with its rollicking display of large-scale wooden troll sculptures by Danish artist Thomas Dambo. “I make my art playful because I want it to speak to everybody,” he says. “I want to spread my message about taking care of nature.”
Dambo’s mediums—recycled wood and other “trash”—let him pack environmentalist ideas into delightful shapes. My toddler daughter isn’t old enough to get the point, though she did respond with joyful screams—and attempts to imitate the statues’ expressions—whenever she spotted a troll among the trees. In those moments, she was a dancer, an actor, and a patron of the arts.
It may be tempting to dismiss activities like troll hunting as child’s play, but Shaffer points out, these years of exploration are incredibly important. “Brain research has told us that 80 percent of the child’s personality, intellect, and skills develop in the first five years of life,” she says. “It’s the power of the brain to make sense of the world.”
Katy Kelleher is a Maine-based writer. Her work also appears in The Paris Review and Longreads. Follow her on Instagram or Twitter.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
In a case that has sent shockwaves through the Vancouver Island art community, a local art dealer has been charged with one count of fraud over $5,000. Calvin Lucyshyn, the former operator of the now-closed Winchester Galleries in Oak Bay, faces the charge after police seized hundreds of artworks, valued in the tens of millions of dollars, from various storage sites in the Greater Victoria area.
Alleged Fraud Scheme
Police allege that Lucyshyn had been taking valuable art from members of the public under the guise of appraising or consigning the pieces for sale, only to cut off all communication with the owners. This investigation began in April 2022, when police received a complaint from an individual who had provided four paintings to Lucyshyn, including three works by renowned British Columbia artist Emily Carr, and had not received any updates on their sale.
Further investigation by the Saanich Police Department revealed that this was not an isolated incident. Detectives found other alleged victims who had similar experiences with Winchester Galleries, leading police to execute search warrants at three separate storage locations across Greater Victoria.
Massive Seizure of Artworks
In what has become one of the largest art fraud investigations in recent Canadian history, authorities seized approximately 1,100 pieces of art, including more than 600 pieces from a storage site in Saanich, over 300 in Langford, and more than 100 in Oak Bay. Some of the more valuable pieces, according to police, were estimated to be worth $85,000 each.
Lucyshyn was arrested on April 21, 2022, but was later released from custody. In May 2024, a fraud charge was formally laid against him.
Artwork Returned, but Some Remain Unclaimed
In a statement released on Monday, the Saanich Police Department confirmed that 1,050 of the seized artworks have been returned to their rightful owners. However, several pieces remain unclaimed, and police continue their efforts to track down the owners of these works.
Court Proceedings Ongoing
The criminal charge against Lucyshyn has not yet been tested in court, and he has publicly stated his intention to defend himself against any pending allegations. His next court appearance is scheduled for September 10, 2024.
Impact on the Local Art Community
The news of Lucyshyn’s alleged fraud has deeply affected Vancouver Island’s art community, particularly collectors, galleries, and artists who may have been impacted by the gallery’s operations. With high-value pieces from artists like Emily Carr involved, the case underscores the vulnerabilities that can exist in art transactions.
For many art collectors, the investigation has raised concerns about the potential for fraud in the art world, particularly when it comes to dealing with private galleries and dealers. The seizure of such a vast collection of artworks has also led to questions about the management and oversight of valuable art pieces, as well as the importance of transparency and trust in the industry.
As the case continues to unfold in court, it will likely serve as a cautionary tale for collectors and galleries alike, highlighting the need for due diligence in the sale and appraisal of high-value artworks.
While much of the seized artwork has been returned, the full scale of the alleged fraud is still being unraveled. Lucyshyn’s upcoming court appearances will be closely watched, not only by the legal community but also by the wider art world, as it navigates the fallout from one of Canada’s most significant art fraud cases in recent memory.
Art collectors and individuals who believe they may have been affected by this case are encouraged to contact the Saanich Police Department to inquire about any unclaimed pieces. Additionally, the case serves as a reminder for anyone involved in high-value art transactions to work with reputable dealers and to keep thorough documentation of all transactions.
As with any investment, whether in art or other ventures, it is crucial to be cautious and informed. Art fraud can devastate personal collections and finances, but by taking steps to verify authenticity, provenance, and the reputation of dealers, collectors can help safeguard their valuable pieces.
