Find hours & admissions information, how to get here, where to stay, what to do, information about the museum store and café, facility rental, and group tours.
Ongiong exhibits of the permanent collection and special exhibits.
Programs, workshops, presentations and performances for students, teachers and families.
History of the museum, the museum building, gardens and ranch.
Maryhill Museum of Art, believing that art enrichment is for everyone and that learning is a lifelong process, is fully committed to providing quality educational programs, resources and materials that inform, invoke and inspire.
Liz Cranston, teacher at North Sherman Elementary School in Wasco, makes art at Maryhill Museum with Annalee Anglin of The Dalles. Photography: Nayland Wilkins.
Educators may make arrangements to visit Maryhill by calling the Museum at +1 (509) 773-3733 or by emailing the Education Office. Educational programs are offered at the Museum on weekdays by appointment. Regular student admission is $2 per student. Admission plus an educational program is $2.50 per student. Teachers and chaperones are free. Additional adults are $2.50.
Payment is made at the admission desk upon arrival. Checks, credit cards or purchase orders are acceptable. Picnic grounds including restrooms are located to the west of the Museum building. Bus parking is available. All exhibit areas and restrooms in the Museum are handicapped accessible.
The following programs are offered at Maryhill Museum Monday through Friday. They are approximately 30–45 minutes long. After the program students may explore the Museum with their chaperones.
Native People of North America Meet the Columbia River People Best for Grades 4–12.
Explore the Native American culture of the Columbia River People through this unique blend of traditional and contemporary Plateau area basketry, tools, clothing and art.
Auguste Rodin (French, 1840–1917), Crying Lion, 1881. Terracotta. Photography: Mary Harrsch.
Rodin Gallery Art in Three Dimensions Best for Grades 4–12.
Maryhill Museum has over eighty works of art by Auguste Rodin, the father of modern sculpture. Classrooms are invited to follow Rodin's life journey from a young, idealistic art student to the creator of the emotional, controversial forms of his later life. What made him a great sculptor? Why do we know his work? Included is a sculpture art making activity.
Stained and White Ivory Chess Set depicting actors as Manchurians China 19th century. Photography: Mary Harrsch.
Chess Exhibition Checkmate!
Suitable for all ages.
Maryhill Museum exhibits over 100 chess sets from around the world. Students are invited to explore diverse cultures through Maryhill's collection of chess sets. This program includes a slide presentation on the history of chess and how chess sets reflect the beliefs, cultures and interests of societies worldwide.
At Stonehenge America's Stonehenge
Best for Grades 4-12.
Why did Sam Hill, a Quaker, choose to build a replica of England's Stonehenge on the bluffs overlooking the Columbia River Gorge? (Stonehenge Memorial is located three miles east of the museum).
Making use of Maryhill’s galleries and collections, students and the museum educator discuss and observe how museums display objects, why objects are presented in diverse ways, and how collections are interpreted and cared for.
Art Discovery Self-Guided Activity Books
Suitable for all ages.
Students can learn about the museum's unique collections and history through this self-guided activity. Through Art Discovery, students are given the mission to look, question and discover as they explore the museum. Activity Guides are Maryhill Favorites, Sculpture, Columbia River People, The Art of Percy Manser(March 15–July 6, 2008) and Famous Faces (July 19–Nov. 15, 2008). Show your completed booklet to the front desk for a free postcard! Download a PDF version of the Art Discovery Self-Guided Booklets by clicking on the titles above.
Pat Courtney Gold (Wasco-Tlingit, 1939 – ), Sally’s Hidden Secret, 1999. Cotton and chenille yarn, beads and denim rim. Photographer: Nayland Wilkins.
Making Beauty: Contemporary American Indian Art from the Plateau Suitable for all ages.
Using original works of art by contemporary American Indian artists Pat Courtney Gold, Lillian Pitt, Kevin Peters, Alyne De Coteau, and Maynard White Owl Lavadour, this traveling exhibit explores the continuing art forms of the Plateau region. An Educator's Guide accompanies the exhibit. The exhibit is free to regional schools. To have the exhibit come to your school call +1 509 773-3733 or email the Education Office.
Museum Week All About Me
October 13–16 and October 20–23, 2008
Suitable for 3rd and 4th Grades
Third and fourth grade classes come for one day of exploration and fun around the theme of self-expression. Students will be making self-portraits, exploring printmaking and more! Cost: $3 per student. Featured will be the exhibit Andy Warhol and Other Famous Faces from the collection of Jordan D. Schnizter and his family foundation. Teachers and chaperones are free. Special bus fund assistance is available. To make reservations call at +1 509 773-3733 or email the Education Office.
Sponsored by: Sue and Paul Laughlin
Barbara and Rob McCormick
Gene and Mary Sayler
Just for Teachers
In 2008, teachers are able to receive clock hours through Washington State Education Service District 105 (ESD 105) by participating in one or all of the following programs: En Plein Air! Painting Workshop with Eric Jacobsen, Print Making Workshop with Frank Janzen and the Summer Art Institute. Call +1 (509) 773-3733 or email the Museum Educator for more information about individual programs.
Summer Art Institute The Printed Page
July 21–25, 2008
This weeklong Institute is available to everyone. Taught at Maryhill the week features lectures, study of original art and hands-on art studio sessions. The art of printmaking is a special theme of the week. The Art Institute is co-taught by artist Alice Bonham and Colleen Schafroth, executive director of Maryhill Museum of Art.
Besides printmaking, Bonham is also a watercolorist and graphic designer. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Art and Graphic Design from Oregon State University and has extensive experience teaching children and adults in the Columbia Gorge. Recently, she has been the Director of the Cathedral Arts Program at Trinity Cathedral in Portland where she directed Trinity's Arts Program including instructional art classes for children and adults, fine art exhibits, a crafts festival, and summer art camps for children.
Schafroth is an award winning educator who has published, developed educational materials for Maryhill, and helped to develop and co-teach the Art Institute since it began in 1993.
Special guests include Mary Cooper, a national consultant in art education and a classroom teacher for over thirty years.Also, the Art Institute is honored to be hosting Artistic Director of the Oregon Greek Theatre, Keith Scales who will be presenting a program on writing and literature. Field trips and special events make this an unforgettable learning experience.
College credit or clock hours are available for teachers through the Graduate School of Education/Continuing Education, Portland State University. Clock hours are also available through Washington ESD 105. Maryhill’s Summer Art Institute is in its 15th year of providing participants teaching strategies to bring art into the classroom as well as enriching experiences in the arts.
Robert Douglas Hunter, The Little Leaguer, 1956. Photography: Mary Harrsch.
Families coming to Maryhill Museum of Art have many ways to explore its exhibits and programs to choose from that engages the mind, bring passion to the heart, and employ the hands. Join us on an adventure of discovery.
Art Discovery Activity Guides Daily, March 15 – November 15 New Ways for Families to Explore Maryhill Museum
Do I like this art? Why did the artist do that? What does this piece mean? How am I feeling about this gallery? A visit to Maryhill Museum invites families to question art, its meaning and its impact upon their lives. Maryhill offers a new way for families to explore our collections using Art Discovery Activity Guides.
Families can learn about the museum's unique collections and history through this self-guided activity. Through Art Discovery, students are given the mission to look, question and discover as they explore the museum. Activity Guides are Maryhill Favorites, Sculpture, Columbia River People, The Art of Percy Manser(March 15–July 6, 2008) and Famous Faces (July 19–Nov. 15, 2008). Keep the booklet as a souvenir! Art Discovery can be picked up near the front desk or in the EyeSEE Resource Room. Or download it as a PDF in advance of your visit by simply clicking on the titles above.
Sponsored by: Judy Lackstrom and Robert Morrow
EyeSEE Resource Room
Daily, March 15 – November 15
This child-friendly room offers a spot to reflect, look at a book, create some art, study hands-on objects, relax, explore, and wonder. Located on the upper level in a northwest gallery space, the EyeSEE Resource Room features games, special kid-friendly exhibits, art work by kids from throughout the region, and of course, the museum’s Art Discovery self-guided booklets.
Maryhill Museum of Art presents Family Fun Days designed exclusively with families in mind. Many of our Family Fun Days are part of larger events – so there is fun for everyone. Join us for one or more of these great fun days at Maryhill Museum of Art from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. Participation is free for kids under the age of 17 with one adult admission.
Family Fun Day: All About Collage
March 15, 2008
Express your creativity through the art of “collage” with award winning art educator, Mary Cooper. Using basic art techniques, you will make a landscape based upon your unique use of color, line, balance and perspective. This Family Fun Day coincides with the museum’s Opening Day Program that features gallery walks and presentations.
Family Fun Day: All About Landscapes
May 17, 2008
Be inspired by landscapes of the gorge created by Percy Manser as well as other traditional and contemporary images of the natural world. Next, create your own landscape using oil pastels. The museum educator and volunteers will be on hand to guide you. This Family Fun Day coincides with the museum’s annual Members’ Day programs that feature gallery walks and presentations.
Family Fun Day: All About Loie Fuller
June 21, 2008
1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Free for Children ages 6–16 with one adult admission
Loïe Fuller was a favorite subject of the great printmakers of France — from Jules Chéret to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec — and their printed images made her famous throughout the world. A hands-on activity for families will allow participants to explore her life and times through dance and art. Participants are invited to experiment with the moves found in Fuller's dances led by Portland artist and dancer, Alisa Looney. The museum will provide the music and costumes. Then drawing on this experience, participants can create and print their own image of Fuller.
Jody Sperling interpretng the dance of Loïe Fuller. Photography: Alex Fuchs.
A day-long dance festival in honor of one of its founders, modern dance pioneer Loïe Fuller. Activities include dance performances and programs on Loïe Fuller that illuminate her work and life. A highlight of the day will be a special lecture by author Ann Cooper Albright who will discuss her new book, Traces of Light: Absence and Presence in the Work of Loïe Fuller.
An Evening With Loïe will be presented at The Dalles-Wahtonka High School Auditorium in The Dalles, Oregon. Download the program. General Admission is $10/Museum Members $7.
Sponsored by: Dorothea M. Lensch Fund of the Oregon Community Foundation
Walter Bailey Foundation
Judy and Martin Kelley
Comfort Inn
Family Fun Day: All About Andy Warhol
July 19, 2007
You can be a famous face, too! Inspired by the portraits in the exhibit Andy Warhol and Other Famous Faces this program will help you to make your own self-portrait prints using Andy Warhol’s “blotted line technique.” As a commercial artist in New York in the 1950’s, Andy used this technique to create illustrations of everything from his early advertising work to his whimsical drawings of animals. In the evening the museum is presenting W.B. Yeats at Stonehenge. So come for the day, bring a picnic dinner, and join the fun at Stonehenge.
Teachers: You can receive clock hours for attending or participating in one or more of these programs. Call +1 (509) 773-3733 or email the Museum Educator for more information about individual programs.
Art Workshops
En Plein Air! Painting Workshop with Eric Jacobsen
May 10, 2008, 9:00 am – 12:00noon
$50 advance registration required; materials list supplied upon registration.
En plein air is a French expression meaning “in the open air.” Join Columbia Gorge award winning artist Eric Jacobsen in the gardens at Maryhill for an introduction to en plein air painting! Space is limited to fifteen students for this four-hour long workshop. To register, contact the museum. Eric Jacobsen is a “plein air” painter and his true inspiration is the amazing beauty that he sees in nature. He takes his oils wherever he goes, setting up on site, working until his painting is finished.
Eric shows his work nationally and has won several awards including the Yankee Magazine, Robb Sagendorph Memorial Award from the Copley Society in Boston, The Award of Merit at the Oil Painters of America Northwest Regional Exhibition held at the Howard/Mandville Gallery in Kirkland, Washington, and was honored as one of the Top 16 emerging artists of 2001 by Arts & antiques Magazine.
Print Making Workshop with Frank Janzen
August 2, 2008, 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
$50 registration plus $10 materials fee. Advance registration
required.
The museum is offering an in-depth mono-print printmaking workshop to those interested in printmaking. It will be taught by Frank Janzen from Crow’s Shadow’s Institute for the Arts. Frank moved to the Pendleton area from Vancouver Island, British Columbia to become Crow's Shadow's first full-time resident master printer. He is an artist in his own right, working mainly in printmaking and painting, and has collaborated with numerous artists in the U.S., Canada and South Africa in the creation of limited edition lithographs. Founded by artist James Lavadour and a group of supporters in 1992, Crow's Shadow Institute is a non-profit art facility designed to bring technology, instruction and cultural exchange to artists on the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Eastern Oregon.
Each year Maryhill presents a wide variety of performances, programs and presentations for the general public. Some are free and others are fee based.
Andy Warhol, Postmodern Persona
Lecture with Art critic Sue Taylor
July 24, 2008, 7:00-8:30 p.m. Free with admission. Members are Free.
Art critic Sue Taylor will present Andy Warhol, Postmodern Persona in a public lecture that highlights Andy Warhol and his impact to art and pop culture. Before becoming a professor of art history at Portland State University, Sue Taylor was a museum curator and newspaper critic. Devoted to the study of modern and contemporary art, she has written articles, encyclopedia entries, and exhibition and book reviews for American Art, American Craft, Art Journal, Art News, Chicago Sun-Times, Dialogue, New Art Examiner, and the Oregonian. She is corresponding editor from Portland for Art in America. Professor Taylor’s book on German-born Surrealist Hans Bellmer, The Anatomy of Anxiety (MIT Press), appeared in 2000. Scholarly essays on Jackson Pollock and Grant Wood followed, both from a psychological perspective. Her essay "Grant Wood's Family Album" won the Smithsonian’s Patricia and Philip Frost Prize for 2005. She is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the American Association of University Women, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center, American Psychoanalytic Association, and Society for the Preservation of American Modernists.
W.B. Yeats at Stonehenge!
Saturday Evening, July 19, 2008
7 p.m.
Free with $7 admission. Members are Free.
Come see this dramatic presentation under a full moon at Stonehenge! Keith Scales, Artistic Director of the Oregon Greek Theater is bringing to regional audiences the work of the well-known 19th century Irish poet, W.B. Yeats. The program W. B. Yeats: The Uncontrollable Mystery presents carefully integrated poetry, prose, anecdotal, historical and biographical material that provides a comprehensive introduction to the life and work of W.B. Yeats. T.S. Eliot described Irish writer William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939) as "...the greatest poet of our time — certainly the greatest in this language and, as far as I am able to tell, in any language..." Yeats was also a remarkable playwright whose strange and powerful ritual dramas still stand as landmarks in the development of European theatre. Yeats was largely responsible for a cultural renaissance in Ireland at the turn of the 20th century. In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Sponsored by: Windy Point Partners, LLC
Diane Plumridge and Art Dodd
En plein air is a French expression meaning “in the open air.” Join Columbia Gorge award winning artist Eric Jacobsen in the gardens at Maryhill for an introduction to en plein air painting! Space is limited to fifteen students for this four-hour long workshop. 
To register, contact the museum. Eric Jacobsen is a “plein air” painter and his true inspiration is the amazing beauty that he sees in nature. He takes his oils wherever he goes, setting up on site, working until his painting is finished. 
Art critic Sue Taylor will present Andy Warhol, Postmodern Persona in a public lecture that highlights Andy Warhol and his impact to art and pop culture. Before becoming a professor of art history at Portland State University, Sue Taylor was a museum curator and newspaper critic. Devoted to the study of modern and contemporary art, she has written articles, encyclopedia entries, and exhibition and book reviews for American Art, American Craft, Art Journal, Art News, Chicago Sun-Times, Dialogue, New Art Examiner, and the Oregonian. She is corresponding editor from Portland for Art in America. Professor Taylor’s book on German-born Surrealist Hans Bellmer, The Anatomy of Anxiety (MIT Press), appeared in 2000. Scholarly essays on Jackson Pollock and Grant Wood followed, both from a psychological perspective. Her essay "Grant Wood's Family Album" won the Smithsonian’s Patricia and Philip Frost Prize for 2005. She is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the American Association of University Women, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center, American Psychoanalytic Association, and Society for the Preservation of American Modernists.
