The Bowers Museum is an art museum located in Santa Ana, California. The museum’s permanent collection includes more than 100,000 objects, and features notable strengths in the areas of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, Native American art, the art of Asia, Africa, and Oceania, and California plein-air painting. The Bowers organizes and hosts special exhibitions from institutions throughout the world, and travels exhibitions nationally and internationally. The museum has a second campus two blocks south of the main site, Kidseum, a children’s museum with a focus on art and archaeology. The Bowers Museum and Kidseum are located in Santa Ana 6.4 km (four miles) south of Disneyland.
History
Ada Elvira Bowers and her husband, Charles W. Bowers, a late 19th-century Orange County citrus grower and land developer, donated the land on which the museum stands to the city of Santa Ana as well as $100,000 to build the museum. The building was completed in 1932 but was not fully operational for almost four years due to the economic downturn of the Great Depression. The Charles W. Bowers Memorial Museum finally opened its doors in 1936 as a city-run museum in a Mission Revival-style building devoted to the history of Orange County. The museum went through its first renovation beginning in 1973 adding a 12,500 square feet wing that brought the museum to 24,000 square feet. The expansion was kicked off by earlier bequests from Evylena Nunn Miller and Nan Preble, with additional funding coming from a countywide drive, the Museum Foundation, and the city of Santa Ana.
Main Street Entrance
In 1985 the Santa Ana City Council formed the Charles W. Bowers Museum Corporation to form a new governing board to run the museum and to handle fundraising. In 1986 a city study panel recommended an expansion in order to make the Bowers one of the region’s top cultural centers and the anchor of a planned future arts district for Santa Ana. The museum became institutionally severed from city governance in this year, becoming its own nonprofit corporation. Many of the museum’s galleries went dark in preparation for the renovation, finally closing in January 1989. The expansion plan included renovation of the original 1932 structure; a $6-million west wing addition adding over 51,000 square feet of space; and plans to demolish the 1974 addition.
In February 1990, the Bowers’ board president announced a new direction for the museum’s collection and programming as “the cultural arts of the Pacific Rim”. In April 1991, Peter C. Keller, Ph.D., associate director of public programs for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, was hired as director of the museum. The new museum building reopened on October 15, 1992, as the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art. Since then, the museum’s collections, programs, and exhibitions have continued to feature Orange County history, but now reflect the demographics of larger Southern California by celebrating its diverse cultural makeup, with major emphasis on the fine arts of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, and the Pacific Rim. The Bowers Museum was recognized in the July 1993 issue of U.S. News & World Report as one of nine “must see” museums in the United States.
The Dorothy and Donald Kennedy Wing
In February 2007, the Bowers Museum expanded again, adding the $14.6-million Dorothy and Donald Kennedy Wing, named for Donald P. Kennedy, an executive of the First American Corporation, and his wife. The new wing included a permanent Chinese art exhibition, a permanent Oceanic exhibition (opened in 2010), additional galleries for special exhibitions, spacious event venues, and a 300-seat auditorium. The museum now presents special exhibitions from collections and institutions throughout the world, has six permanent collection galleries and, in 2016, watched its membership grow to nearly 8,000 members. The museum has increased in size from its original 10,080 square feet to more than 100,000-square-feet today, with 45,000 square feet of exhibition space. The Bowers serves more than 80,000 school children annually through docent guided tours, community outreach programs, and participatory art classes. The museum has a free family festival on the first Sunday of each month and offers free general admission to Santa Ana residents, with proof of residency, each Sunday. The Bowers Museum is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.
Here’s a local business that supports the community
Google map- https://goo.gl/maps/Mie86iJpWVnXjnzS6
2522 N. Grande Ave Santa Ana, CA 92705
Site Title 