After a 14-month, $34 million renovation and reinstallation, the Milwaukee Art Museum announced that it will reopen its collection galleries to the public on Nov. 24. 

The renovation adds 25,000 square feet of exhibition space, allowing the museum to install and display 2,500 pieces of art – almost 1,000 more than have been previously on view at one time. The MAM's collection holds 30,000. The project also included the 1957 War Memorial Center, as well as the 1975 addition designed by David Kahler. 

"The new Milwaukee Art Museum is poised to set the standard for a twenty-first-century museum at the heart of a great city," said Museum Director Daniel Keegan. "This project began essentially as an intervention, to save the collections and the buildings for future generations. But we expanded our vision to improve accessibility, rejuvenate the building and art collections. We fundamentally transformed how visitors experience the incredible works of art we hold in trust. Milwaukee and the region have embraced the Museum, and we can now provide the community with a most magnificent setting to appreciate art."

The renovations to the Milwaukee Art Museum include a new entrance and cafe along the waterfront connecting the museum to the pedestrian lakefront path, doubling the size of particular areas – like those dedicated the European and American art – and adding new ones dedicated to photography, media arts and design: the Herzfeld Center for Photography and Media Arts, and the 20th and 21st Century Design Galleries, supported by Jane and George Kaiser and the Demmer Charitable Trust. There will also be a new changing exhibition space, the Bradley Galleries, which will open with "Sam Francis: Master Printmaker."

All of the areas will also feature innovative displays combining old favorites with new acquisitions and rarely seen collection pieces. 

"The Museum Trustees are proud of the leadership that worked tirelessly to save the collections through this reinstallation and further reunited our campus," said Donald W. Layden, Jr., President of the Board of Trustees. "Finally, after more than 125 years, the public will be able to marvel at the full depth and breadth of the Milwaukee Art Museum."