Help us build a new home for the Shaker Museum.

In the News

Featured
Artnet: Frances McDormand Helps Bring Shaker Culture Back Into the Spotlight
Artnet: Frances McDormand Helps Bring Shaker Culture Back Into the Spotlight

Of the Kinderhook show focus, which was inspired in part by research of the Shaker Museum archives, McDormand said she loved “the idea that they built something that could hold an infirm or elderly person, who was bedridden, and that it was a communal act of giving to rock them and comfort them.”

“As a piece of furniture, the cradle has to involve other people,” said Bocanegra. “One person is in it, but it has to be activated by another person, otherwise it doesn’t work.”

Read More →
NYT: Shaker Cradles for Adults? They Rocked Frances McDormand’s Mind
NYT: Shaker Cradles for Adults? They Rocked Frances McDormand’s Mind

On a Thursday afternoon in late summer Frances McDormand, the actor, and Suzanne Bocanegra, a conceptual artist, were testing out a Shaker cradle for adults. The exhibit of these little-known furniture items that they put together for Shaker Museum’s pop-up gallery was days from opening in the Kinderhook Knitting Mill — a converted historic space in Columbia County, N.Y.

Read More →
Chronogram: Fall 2024 Art Exhibits
Chronogram: Fall 2024 Art Exhibits

Actress Frances McDormand has teamed up with conceptual artist Suzanne Bocanegra for “Cradled,” a thought-provoking exhibition in collaboration with the Shaker Museum that illuminates the core Shaker values of compassionate care at the Kinderhook Knitting Mill. Shakers built adult-size cradles to provide nurturing care and respect at the end of life. This exhibition showcases the craft of both adult and child-sized Shaker cradles through the curation of objects, soundscapes, lighting, ephemera, and experience.

Read More →

Exhibitions

Featured
In Kinderhook: Cradled
In Kinderhook: Cradled

Artists Frances McDormand and Suzanne Bocanegra have joined forces with Shaker Museum to present Cradled, a thought-provoking exhibition that explores the transcendent impact of the Shakers’ communal embrace from cradle to grave through objects, values, and inspired modern-day artistic expression.

Read More →

Breaking Ground in March 2025:

A New Shaker Museum

At the Shaker Museum, home is where the collection is. For most of its existence, it’s been on Shaker Museum Road in Old Chatham, in ramshackle farm buildings once owned by John S. Williams, the founder.

Now we’re building a new home

Designed by New York City-based Seldorf Architects, the new Shaker Museum will be a four-floor facility connecting modern and historic wings, and public gardens. With more than 27,000 square feet of new and renovated space for exhibitions, events, workshops, and public use, the Museum will be a welcoming place.

The museum will be a Shaker educational hub and an community anchor for Chatham, NY, while attracting a global audience of design enthusiasts, educators, school children, families, and cultural historians and the like. The museum is anticipated to attract more than 30,000 visitors a year, bringing economic opportunities to Columbia County and the region.

Groundbreaking is slated for March of 2025. Stay tuned.

Capital Campaign Progress

Featured
Shaker Museum Awarded $2.456 Million NYSCA Grant
Shaker Museum Awarded $2.456 Million NYSCA Grant

Shaker Museum, which stewards the most comprehensive collection of Shaker material culture and archives, announced today a grant award totaling $2,456,000 from the New York State Council on the Arts’ (NYSCA) Capital Projects Fund. Shaker Museum will use the generous state funding to build its new museum home designed by Selldorf Architects in Chatham, NY

Read More →
$1.6 Million Shaker Museum Library, Archives, and Administrative Offices to Open
$1.6 Million Shaker Museum Library, Archives, and Administrative Offices to Open

Newly Renovated Building Donated By Jack Shear To Open Later This year

Shaker Museum, which stewards the most comprehensive collection of Shaker material culture and archives, announced today that it will open a new Library, Archives and Administrative facility at 29 Jones Avenue in Chatham, New York. The property and the costs to completely renovate the building were donated by longtime Shaker Museum supporter Jack Shear and represent a $1.6 million investment in the future of the museum.

Read More →
Shaker Museum Receives $1,100,000 Gift from the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation for its new Facility in Chatham, NY
Shaker Museum Receives $1,100,000 Gift from the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation for its new Facility in Chatham, NY

Shaker Museum, which stewards the most comprehensive collection of Shaker material culture and archives, announced today that the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation has generously made a $1 million dollar gift to support the construction of the museum’s new home in Chatham, NY.

Read More →
Public Notice: Regarding the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Section 106 Review of Building a New Shaker Museum
Public Notice: Regarding the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Section 106 Review of Building a New Shaker Museum

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has offered the Shaker Museum and Library a grant to construct a construct and outfit a climate-controlled collections storage facility in its new museum building. NEH is an independent grant-making agency of the United States government dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities.

Read More →