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The Tennessee State Museum and State of Tennessee Real Estate Asset Management Division (STREAM) of the Department of General Services broke ground yesterday on a 65,000 square storage facility for the Museum’s collection of art and artifacts. Designed by Gobbell Hays Architects (GHP), the building will be constructed by T.W. Frierson and is expected to be completed in 18-22 months at a cost of $32.5 million. The facility, to be located off Ellington Parkway on state property near the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, will house approximately 140,000 artifacts from the Museum collection, most of which are currently stored in the James K. Polk Building.

Throughout the month of February, the Tennessee State Museum will honor the stories of some of Tennessee's most noteworthy historic Black businesses with "The Legacy of Black Entrepreneurship in Tennessee" series. Each Thursday as part of its Lunch & Learn program, beginning February 2, a guest will join the Museum’s curator of social history, Tranae Chatman, for a conversation on how they continue the legacy of their family businesses. Visitors will learn the history of these businesses from a new generation of leaders as they share their own experience and insight into their family history. Events will take place at 12 p.m. Central Time in the Museum's Digital Learning Center, and be livestreamed on the Museum's website at TNMuseum.org/Videos, except where noted.

In 2023, the Tennessee State Museum will focus on sharing the histories and legacies of what were known as Rosenwald schools, with two temporary exhibitions.

The Tennessee State Museum is the recipient of the 2022 Southeastern Museums Conference (SEMC) Silver Award in the over $100,000 budget category for its current exhibition, "Painting the Smokies: Art, Community, and the Making of a National Park." The SEMC Exhibition Competition showcases the best in our profession and provides benchmarks for regional exhibition efforts in southeastern museums.

Home to the most-visited national park in America, the Great Smoky Mountains have enchanted tourists, nature-lovers and artists for generations. A new exhibition at the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville, Painting the Smokies: Art, Community, and the Making of a National Park, invites visitors to examine the history of the park through the work of five visual artists active around the time of its creation, about 1900 to 1940. Placing art in conversation with artifacts, the two-gallery, 8,000 square foot show will open April 22, 2022, and run through January 16, 2023. The exhibition will be complemented by a variety of public programming and digital offerings to be announced soon.

— The Tennessee State Museum and Tennessee Craft invite the public to "Craft Day at the Museum,” a family-day holiday celebration and demonstration with some of Tennessee’s best craft artists, on Saturday, December 11 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Tennessee Craft and the Tennessee State Museum are pleased to announce the winners of the 2021 Best of Tennessee Craft Exhibition, on view at the Museum through February 20, 2022. This juried exhibition celebrates and showcases the exceptional contemporary and traditional craft our state has to offer, providing public visibility and recognition for the quality and diversity of craft found throughout Tennessee. Best in Show went to Nashville’s Beizar Aradini for her fiber/textile work, "My Existence is Political." She is the first Kurdish American to win the exhibition’s top prize.

Three years after the Tennessee State Museum opened in its new location on the corner of Rosa L. Parks Blvd. and Jefferson Street in Nashville, the building housing it was dedicated this morning as the Bill Haslam Center.

The Tennessee State Museum will commemorate the 225th anniversary of Tennessee’s statehood in 2021 with Tennessee at 225: Highlights from the Collection, a self-guided tour within the Museum’s galleries complemented by an online exhibition, showcasing 100 artifacts from the Museum’s collection across five key themes.

Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right Vote, the Tennessee State Museum’s exhibition commemorating the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, originally scheduled to close this spring, will be extended through September 26, 2021.

The Tennessee State Museum has received an Excellence in Development Award from the Nashville Chapter of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) in the Large Public Sector Project category. The Museum was one of seven private- and public-sector projects to be recognized at ULI-Nashville’s virtual award gala on Tuesday, September 29.

The Tennessee State Museum will commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the founding of the United Nations by recognizing Tennessee-native Cordell Hull, whom President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called “The Father of the United Nations,” with a special temporary display from October 13-24, 2020. Titled Cordell Hull: Tennessee’s Father of the United Nations, the display will include the rare exhibition of Hull’s 1945 Nobel Peace Prize medal, on loan from the Friends of Cordell Hull, Pickett County, Tennessee. Born near present-day Byrdstown, Tennessee, Hull was awarded the medal in 1945 in recognition of his work creating the United Nations. It will be displayed along with several other items on loan from the Friends of Cordell Hull, Picket County, including Hull’s Nobel Peace Prize certificate and a bound first charter of the United Nations signed by Hull and others. A portrait of Hull by Casimir Gregory Stapko painted about 1945 from the State Museum’s collection will also be on exhibit.

The Tennessee State Museum will reopen to the public beginning on Wednesday, July 1, 2020 at 10 a.m., welcoming visitors back to experience Tennessee history, art, and culture from the state’s natural history beginnings through the present day. The Museum has taken the Tennessee Pledge and is committed to protecting the customers that it serves. In preparation for its reopening, the Museum is sharing the following important information, also made available on the Museum’s website at TNMuseum.org.

– The Tennessee State Museum has received prestigious recognition from two major national museum organizations. The Museum has been re-accredited by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), the highest national recognition signifying excellence afforded the nation’s museums. In addition, the Museum is a recipient of an Award of Excellence from The American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) for its 2019-20 exhibition, Let’s Eat! Origins and Evolutions of Tennessee Food. The AASLH Leadership in History Awards, now in its 75th year, is the most prestigious recognition for achievement in the preservation and interpretation of state and local history.

In an abundance of caution for the protection of our visitors and our collection, the Tennessee State Museum will close to the public effective at 5:00 p.m. today, March 13 and remain closed through April 3. A public closure allows for the proper disinfecting protocol without damage to the artifacts and their displays. The closure also includes the Military Branch of the Museum at War Memorial.