Puppetry Journal’s Top 10 Puppet Collections By Steve Abrams
P
uppetry Journal’s top 10 puppet collections: There are about 70 museums out there with puppets: Some have six or 10, some have a hundred or two, and a few have more than a thousand. The top 10 include places where the public can see a large collection of puppets, and four more major collections online or in print. Center for Puppetry Arts, Atlanta, Georgia, features the amazing Worlds of Puppetry Museum, including the Jim Henson Gallery and the Global Collection Gallery, a comprehensive international collection assembled by Nancy Staub, and an essential collection of work by 20th century artists. The center has online PDFs of 25 exhibit catalogs that made a major contribution to the history of
puppetry.
https://puppet.org/about/all-
resources/?type=catalog/ Museum of the Moving Image, Queens, New York, is the only place in New York City to see a permanent exhibit of puppets!
http://www.movingimage.us/ exhibitions/2017/07/22/detail/the-jim- henson-exhibition/ Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, Storrs, Connecticut, presents three or four illuminating exhibits each year at its gallery space on the main street of Storrs. The exhibits draw from the museum’s extensive collection, as well as carefully chosen work borrowed from artists and collectors. https://bimp.uconn. edu/online-experiences/ Bread and Puppet Theater Museum, Glover, Vermont, provides an
unforgettable experience in a barn filled with the work of Peter Schumann. (see inside back cover ) https://breadandpuppet. org/about-bread-and-puppet/photo-gallery/ museum-images
Charles H. MacNider Art Museum, Mason City, Iowa, features Bil Baird’s World of Puppets
http://macniderart.org/ exhibitions/permanet-collection/bil-bairds- world-of-puppets/ Vent Haven Museum, Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, which opened in 1973, has about 900 ventriloquist figures. https://
www.atlasobscura.com/places/vent-haven- museum
Online or in Print Canadian Museum of History (formerly Canadian Museum of Civilization), Gatineau, Quebec, features The History of Puppetry in Canada, with extensive, easy-to-read details based on the collection of puppets gifted to the museum in 1994 by the Ontario Puppetry Association. One of the very best online collections. https://theatre.
historymuseum.ca/narratives/details. php?lvl2=4810&language=english National Museum of American
Ice Skaters (1930s), Harry Burnett, Turn- about/Yale Puppeteers, Cook/Marks Col- lection at the Northwest Puppet Center. Photo: Jacqueline Marks.
18
Puppets for Oedpius Rex (1931) created by Remo Bufano. Detroit Institute of Arts. Photo: Alan Cook.
History of the Smithsonian presented the exhibit Puppets in America in 2014. https://
americanhistory.si.edu/exhibitions/artifact- walls-puppetry-america The Detroit Institute of Arts has one of the most important puppet collections in the country. The Paul McPharlin Collection was gifted to the museum in 1951. Although the museum exhibits only a few puppets at any one time, you can see 200 of the collection’s puppets online, including work by Daniel Meader, Tony Sarg, Remo Bufano, Helen Haiman Joseph, Perry Dilley, Paul McPharlin, Marjorie Batchelder McPharlin, Rufus Rose, Martin Stevens, Jero Magon, Ralph Chessé, Basil
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44
