The Block Museum has resumed public hours after completing an ambitious expansion project that has more than tripled the size of the original facility. The Block Museum's public hours are noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, and noon to 8 p.m. Thursday through Sunday.
Admission is free.
The new building can also accommodate a broad range of educational opportunities by means of the 150- seat James B. Pick and Rosalyn M. Laudati Auditorium, and the Ellen Philips Katz and Howard C. Katz Gallery. There also is a new print, drawing and photography study center that will allow faculty, area teachers, students and members of the public to access works in the museum's permanent collection, and a library that will contain art history resources and detailed information on the collection and exhibitions. This exhibition of approximately 100 works examines changing attitudes toward medieval manuscripts during the 18th and 19th centuries in England and France and the first half of the 20th century in the United States. Medieval illuminated paintings were sometimes cut out from books and reconfigured as collages, other times copied by artists for a burgeoning art market, and later distributed to a broad audience through new reproduction technologies. Sandra Hindman, professor of art history at Northwestern University, is the chief curator of the exhibition and co-author of the catalogue.