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By TRACEY O SHAUGHNESSY Republican-American
February 20, 2021
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Established in 1877 as the Mattatuck Historical Society, the museum opened its collection to the public in 1912. Then housed ar the Kendrick building, a red brick Italianate house on the green, the museum focused primarily on the history of the Naugatuck Valley and the artists of Connecticut. In 1986, it moved across the street to a former Masonic Hall building at 144 West Main Street.
Read about the grand reopening of the Mattatuck Museum here.
Although the museum is still legally known as the Mattatuck Historical Society, it became known as the Mattatuck Museum and in the early 2000s called itself the Mattatuck Museum Art and History Center, its executive director Bob Burns said. Since then, it has increasingly broadened its mission from a concentration of Connecticut artists, such as like Frederic Church, Alexander Calder, John Trumbull and Kay Sage, to American art. Since the hiring of Burns in 2012, the museu