The Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History will once again open up their doors to all, with free admission Thursday evenings throughout March.
Spokesperson Leigh Kish said the free evenings are courtesy of the Jack Buncher Foundation.
“(The museums are) a big part of the community and we want everyone from the community to come in, knowing full well that price might be a barrier, or admission might (make it) difficult to bring a family,” Kish said.
In addition to access to the museums’ regular collections, Kish said visitors can check out some of the new temporary exhibits.
The Museum of Natural History’s exhibit Finding the Words: Pittsburgh and the early Civil Rights Movement was inspired by research done to prepare for last year’s RACE: Are We So Different? exhibit.
The exhibit uses archival material, artifacts, objects and text to tell the story of local efforts at understanding race on a scientific level.
“In the early 50s, Pittsburgh and the Natural History Museum were pivotal in trying to start a conversation about race, when people didn’t really know how to talk about it,” Kish said.
Also at the Natural History Museum is The Scientific Art of Charles R. Knight, which includes early drawings of dinosaurs, wooly mammoths, and other prehistoric animals.
“It’s art that’s about a hundred years old, and it’s really the first glimpse the general public had of what some of these prehistoric creatures looked like,” Kish said.
At the Museum of Art, visitors can look forward to getting a rare glimpse at four Vincent Van Gogh’s still life paintings beginning March 14.
“(The exhibit) highlights his painting Still Life, Basket of Apples. It’s on loan from the St. Louis Art Museum, so that’s a great opportunity since it’s an opportunity to see a Van Gogh that’s not normally in Pittsburgh,” Kish said.
And the new exhibit Sketch to Structure pulls back the curtain on the architectural process to show how buildings take shape, with sketches, plans, blueprints, rendering and models.
Admission will be free from 4-8pm on Thursdays and visitors can enjoy free tours of the museums at 6pm and 7pm. Parking will still be $6.
