Parrish museum moves to Water Mill, expands

The Parrish Art Museum will welcome the public to its spacious new home in Water Mill on Nov. 10.

The new $26.2-million museum will be housed in a 34,000-square-foot building that's longer than two football fields. It sits on a 14-acre site planted with native Long Island trees, shrubbery and grasses. The space "puts the creative legacy of the East End in context," said museum director Terrie Sultan. "The Parrish has never had the chance to show how important it is. Now we can."

The inaugural special exhibition in the new museum is "Malcolm Morley: On Paper," which will explore the English-born painter's versatility in paper media -- from watercolors to etchings, from screen print to monotype. Morley has lived and worked in Bellport since 1983.

But the star of the new museum, and one of the major reasons the Parrish undertook the project, is its permanent collection. Too often the Parrish's 2,600 artworks languished in the vault of its current Jobs Lane, circa-1898 museum in Southampton Village. "Now for the first time," said chief curator Alicia Longwell, "we will have the wherewithal to make available our distinguished collection of American art on a permanent basis."

The collection is highlighted by masterworks from American Impressionist William Merritt Chase and post-World War II realist Fairfield Porter. Over the years, the Parrish has added works by leading East End art figures, including Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Roy Lichtenstein, Chuck Close and April Gornik.