On Main Street in Ridgefield, a contemporary art museum with big-city ambitions and a small-town front door.
Ready to celebrate its 60th Anniversary on April 20, 2025, the Aldrich, at 258 Main Street in Ridgefield, is a museum that is at one time both important and accessible.
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum was founded by Larry Aldrich, the child of immigrants from Eastern Europe, who grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and made his fortune producing a line of women’s professional workwear. He had a weekend residence on the current site of the Museum, and owned another property in downtown Ridgefield. What is now the Administrative Office for the Museum was once a General Store and then a Christian Science Church. In or around 1964, Aldrich met the artist Robert Indiana, who credits Aldrich as an inspiration for his work, and quickly became so interested and focused on young artists of his time that he sold his collection of Impressionists and determined to open and operate The Aldrich Museum to display Contemporary Art.
When Aldrich died, in 1999, he’d been collecting for over 50 years and, in order to fulfill Aldrich’s vision, The Aldrich began a process of culling the collection in order to refine the focus on Contemporary Art, selling many of the other works to museums such as the Whitney and the Museum of Modern Art, and returning some works to their artists. Utilizing the proceeds from such sales, funds left by Aldrich, and monies from important supporters, like the Henry and Irma Lier Foundation (Henry and Irma were good friends of Aldrich), The Aldrich managed to construct the 20,000 square foot museum building that was opened in 2004.
It was most important to Aldrich that the Museum be accessible for the community. His vision of being able to stop by a first-class art exhibition while walking the dog or on a stroll into town…is now reality!
“It’s really quite amazing,” says Cybele Maylone, who’s been The Aldrich’s Executive Director since 2018. She’s from Evanston, Illinois, and majored in Art History at Earlham College. She lives in Ridgefield with her husband, Steven Seltz, who teaches Economics at Ridgefield High School, and their two children, Marina and Amalia, who both attend Ridgefield public schools. “Larry Aldrich would be proud! We produce a steady diet of exhibitions featuring an array of artists, including a large number who are young or under-recognized in life or death. Though there is no one style, it’s all ‘contemporary,’ meaning new and au courant. And our indoor and outdoor exhibits are totally accessible. We’re not trying to be the MoMA, but we are a ‘big-city museum’ that just happens to be located in a leafy suburb. I’d like to think we’re on a level with contemporary art museums in big cities like Boston or Houston. When Aldrich was alive, artists like Frank Stella exhibited here. We believe we’re continuing in the same tradition…and that tomorrow’s Stella is on exhibit at The Aldrich today.”
Amy Smith-Stewart is The Aldrich’s Chief Curator. She lives in Katonah and joined The Aldrich in 2013, having had significant curatorial experience at MoMA PS1. She was appointed Chief Curator at The Aldrich in 2022. She explains, “While we usually have three or four or five separate exhibitions going on at The Aldrich at any given time, each exhibition represents a years-long process of discovering, researching, and understanding each artist, and planning and then presenting each collection of work. We stay at arm’s length from the commercial sector, preferring to independently identify and value artists to be exhibited, and then we work very closely with each artist to ensure that their work is displayed as they intend it to be seen by our viewers.”
Amy continues, “Each of our artists has a unique story and each artist’s work requires particular attention. One of our primary objectives is to showcase and expose great contemporary artists:
- After including Loie Hollowell’s work in a large group exhibition that The Aldrich presented in 2021 titled 52 Artists: A Feminist Milestone, we determined to present the 2024 exhibition of Space Between: A Survey of Ten Years, which explores Hollowell’s work over time. We’re pleased that the exhibition is now on view at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, where it will be on view through 2025.
- In 2023, we presented the first solo museum show of large-scale textile works by Hangama Amiri, an Afghan-Canadian artist whose work has been shown around the world.
- Now a household name, the artist KAWS had his first museum exhibition at The Aldrich in 2010.
And, of course, The Aldrich is proud to continue its tradition of presenting some of the most famous contemporary artists of our time. As The Aldrich was one of the first museums to exhibit the work of Frank Stella, we were particularly thrilled to present Frank Stella’s Stars, A Survey, a focused exhibition that looked at the star form as an enduring motif in his work over time…Stella’s last significant exhibition before his death earlier this year.”
The Aldrich has a robust Membership Program, a staff of about twenty, plus a group of Museum Educators and a group of Museum Attendants, and is governed by a Board of Directors with 18 Members, at least two of whom are themselves artists. The Museum is a part of Connecticut’s designated State Cultural Area in Ridgefield and does receive grant funding from the State, the National Endowment for the Arts, and other important sponsors, but the Museum nevertheless depends on private philanthropy in order to continue to flourish.
Most exciting, The Aldrich broke ground this Summer on a total redevelopment of their three-acre outdoor space and Sculpture Garden on the back section of the Museum property. With an anticipated re-opening in November, the Sculpture Garden will surely be a favorite daily respite for locals and the highlight of a weekend art tour for out-of-town enthusiasts.
The Aldrich is, indeed, quite popular!
Attendance was strong as soon as The Aldrich opened back up after closing as required for Covid, and has been increasing steadily ever since. The vast majority of visits are on weekends, but there’s a steady flow of visitors on weekdays as well, and Summer is high season. The Aldrich hosts a lot of school visits, including a broad list of Title I schools, and has regular and special programs for Seniors and Charitable Associations. The Museum is only closed on Tuesdays, and while there is a regular charge of $15 for admission for Adults, it’s free to visit on the 3rd Saturday of each month, and Children are always free.