In celebration of the Art Complex Museum’s fiftieth year, the new Founders Room is a tribute to co-founders and collectors Carl and Edith Weyerhaeuser, whose vision was to create a space that “inspired curiosity, where people from the community could gather, enjoy beauty, and learn about the arts.”
The Founders Room is an interactive space for visitors to learn about the Art Complex’s story and to explore a sampling of the museum’s offerings.
History Wall
Visitors can explore a timeline of the museum’s history and gain an understanding of how the Weyerhaeuser’s collection began and how the museum came to be. Some objects from the collection are in the drawers along the timeline, and visitors can open them for up-close viewing. Also available for viewing is the Rembrandt print that was one of the first objects collected by Carl Weyerhaeuser.
The Permanent Collection
The museum’s permanent collection includes American paintings, and American and European works on paper, Shaker furniture, Asian art and ceramics, and additional treasures. The Founders Room provides a sampling of art and objects from the collection. Visitors also can explore the collection through several interactive components in the room.
Tea Ceremony Area
The Japanese tea ceremony is a tradition that the Weyerhaeusers greatly admired, and their appreciation of it led to the collection of many of the tea-related objects in the museum’s Asian art collection. In the Founders Room, visitors can learn about the tradition and view a short video of the ceremony.
The museum hosts a traditional ceremony three times per year in the Shofuan—or Wind in the Pines—tea hut on the museum grounds.
Reference Library
Museum co-founder Carl Weyerhaeuser amassed an extensive collection of art-related books and publications over many years, and they formed a rich reference library. For many years of the museum’s history, the library occupied the space that is now the Founders Room.
A curated selection of the library books are now available in the Founders Room. While the museum is not a lending library, visitors may peruse the books in the room’s comfortable seating area.
