The Maryhill Museum of Art includes works by French master Auguste Rodin. (Photos from The Columbian files)Photo Gallery
This weekend, you can enjoy free admission to one of the most appealingly oddball art museums on the planet. The only price is whatever it costs you to drive about 100 miles into the Columbia River Gorge to the scenic oasis known as Maryhill.
Admission to the Maryhill Museum of Art is free this weekend for residents of Clark County — as well as residents of Cowlitz, Grays Harbor, Jefferson, Lewis, Pacific, San Juan and Wahkiahkum counties. Just show your driver’s license.
The normal price of admission is $9 for adults, $8 for seniors and $3 for youth ages 7 to 18. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday (and every day March 15 through Nov. 15).
Waiving that price for one weekend per year for each and every county in Washington and Oregon is a summer tradition at Maryhill, which is always hungry for visitors. Its perch on the north side of the Gorge, about 20 miles east of The Dalles, makes it a bit remote for, well, just about everyone. But that remote perch also makes for one spectacular viewpoint; this reporter recommends using your admission savings to purchase lunch and a local wine at the museum cafe, and taking it onto the south-facing terrace. You’ll feel totally on top of the world.
If You Go
• What: Maryhill Museum of Art’s “free counties” program. Free admission with driver's license from Clark County (also Cowlitz, Grays Harbor, Jefferson, Lewis, Pacific, San Juan and Wahkiahkum counties).
• When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 20 and 21.
• Where: 35 Maryhill Museum Drive (off state Highway 14), Goldendale.
“The site is whammo,” museum executive director Colleen Schafroth has said, choosing her words carefully.
Of course, the museum’s real appeal is what’s inside: a fascinating and admittedly strange collection with a history just as “whammo” as its environs.
The story begins with visionary road builder, world traveler and deep-pocketed Quaker eccentric Sam Hill. Hill’s original idea, circa 1907, was a mansion anchoring a 5,300-acre utopian agricultural community jointly named for his wife and daughter, both of whom were Mary.
That vision was torpedoed partially by World War I, and Hill was eventually convinced by his Francophile friend Loie Fuller, an American dancer who became famous in Paris, to make his unfinished mansion into a museum, and pursue the “betterment of French art in the far Northwest of America.” The museum opened in 1940.
Its rather random permanent collection reflects Hill’s European travels and friendships, as well as the region in which we live. It includes 87 bronzes, terracottas, plaster studies and watercolor sketches by French master sculptor Auguste Rodin; realist American paintings from the past century; and Victorian-era American and European paintings, including landscapes and portraits; historical chess sets from around the world; Russian-orthodox religious icons and art objects from the palaces of Queen Marie of Romania; posters, photographs and films from the career of dancer Fuller; and a huge collection of miniature fashion mannequins and stage sets from postwar France.
“We have so many fantastic things because of Sam Hill’s connections, all sorts of connections all over the world,” Schafroth said. “Museums are always wonderful things, but this one is completely unique.”
Maryhill is also strong on regional and other Native American artifacts and artworks, with a collection that includes everything from prehistoric petroglyphs and historical baskets and beadwork to paintings and other artworks by contemporary artists from all over North America.
Kaleidoscopic
That’s just the permanent collection. Now showing at Maryhill are also numerous special exhibitions, including:
• “A Kaleidoscope of Color: American Indian Trade Blankets” features more than 20, pre-1925 Indian-style, mass-produced blankets from a variety of historic manufacturers such as Pendelton Woolen Mills and Buell Manufacturers. This exhibit is drawn from private collections.
• “Animal Kingdom,” a show of animal-centric paintings from the permanent collection, featuring barnyard animals, birds, cats and dogs, and many more. “As modern life has distanced us from animals, they have disappeared from daily view and likewise have become largely invisible in the world of art. ‘Animal Kingdom’ looks back to a not-so-distant past, when human interaction with animals was common,” the museum website says.
• “American Art Pottery from the Fred L. Mitchell Collection” explores the art pottery movement in America and Britain during the late 19th century, featuring limited, hand-decorated pieces influenced by Asian and Art Nouveau styles.
• “Sam Hill and the Columbia River Highway” is photographs and films showcasing the construction of the world’s first “official” scenic roadway, on the other side of the Gorge. This year is the historic highway’s centennial.
The museum’s parklike setting also contains a permanent sculpture garden with more than one dozen large-scale works. And 4 miles to the east stands another monument to Sam Hill’s eccentricity: a full-size concrete replica of Stonehenge, the mysterious prehistoric English stone monument. Hill, a pacifist, commissioned it in 1918 as a tribute to the local dead of World War I.
It’s always free to visit the museum grounds and the Stonehenge replica. The Maryhill Museum was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
If it’s been a few years since you’ve been to Maryhill, be aware that a 25,500-square-foot expansion opened in 2012, including an education center for students, and the cafe and outdoor plaza.
“We’re in the business of bringing great things to people,” Schafroth said. “If you can’t get people here, you can’t fulfill that mission.”
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