This is a historic year for both Colby College and the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine. Colby celebrates its bicentennial and the capstone is the grand opening of the Alfond-Lunder Family Pavilion and the reopening of the entire museum in July, with a public celebration on Sunday, July 14.

In 2007, Peter '56 and Paula Lunder, longtime benefactors of Colby, promised their collection of more than 500 works of art, including 464 by American artists, to the Colby College Museum of Art.

This gift, valued at more than $100 million and announced as part of Colby's Reaching the World campaign, is the largest gift in Colby's history. Included in the gift is an internationally important collection of more than 200 etchings and more than 20 oils, pastels, and drawings by James McNeill Whistler. The collection also encompasses a small group of 19th-century French paintings and the Lunder-Colville Chinese Art Collection of early Chinese works.

The emphasis of the Lunder Collection is American art, with prime examples of painting, sculpture, and works on paper from the late 18th to the 21st century. Highlights include works by Benjamin West, Alfred Jacob Miller, George Caleb Bingham, Sanford Robinson Gifford, George Inness, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, William Merritt Chase, Edward Hopper, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Jacob Lawrence; sculptures by Henry Kirke Brown, Frederic Remington, and Alexander Calder; and important contemporary works by Donald Judd, Louise Nevelson, Claes Oldenburg, John Chamberlain, Jenny Holzer, and Maya Lin. In addition to Whistler, American masters John La Farge, Winslow Homer, and John Singer Sargent are represented in depth in the collection, as are sculptors Elie Nadelman, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and Paul Manship.

Opening in July, the exhibition The Lunder Collection: A Gift of Art to Colby College will present more than 280 works from the collection in the galleries of the Lunder Wing and the new Alfond-Lunder Family Pavilion.

Named in recognition of a gift from the Harold Alfond Foundation and the partnership and friendship between Harold Alfond and Peter Lunder '56, the Alfond-Lunder Family Pavilion opens to the public in July. Designed by Frederick Fisher and Partners, the Alfond-Lunder Family Pavilion joins two other buildings, the Lunder Wing and the Crawford Studios, designed by Fisher for the Colby museum and the College's art department, respectively. Completed in 1999, the Lunder Wing houses the museum's 18th- and 19th-century American collections and was designed to reflect the historic Shaker influence in central Maine, while honoring the neo-Georgian architecture of Colby's campus.

Consistent with their use of repeating forms, the Crawford Studios are of similar scale and design as the Lunder Wing. The Alfond-Lunder Family Pavilion is a 21st-century statement, with a three-story glass-walled structure that will be illuminated at night, serving as a beacon for the campus community and its visitors. "This new pavilion is conceived as a glass prism that will reflect its natural and architectural context in continuously changing images," says architect Frederick Fisher. "The reflecting nature of the glass expresses the theme that art provides the opportunity to reflect on life. This was central to the museum?s position as a center for creativity and innovation on campus." 

At 26,000 square feet, the Pavilion includes 10,000 square feet of new exhibition space, a new lobby and sculpture terrace, an education classroom, staff offices, and expanded storage facilities. The third floor will house studio facilities for the art department's painting, photography, and foundations classes, along with faculty offices