Talking Art Museum

The Talking Art Museum is one of our most creative and cherished events. Every year our fourth-grade students are put into pairs. Each pair is assigned a famous artist to study. The students are assigned books to read and a short report to write about their artist. They then present this to their homeroom teachers and classes.

In art class, each pair of students looks through paintings by their artist and picks their favorite one to re-create. They spend the next few weeks sketching and painting their chosen work of art on a large piece of 2’ x 3’ foam core board.  Once the art replication is complete, a hole is then cut in the painting the size of a face and one of the students becomes the painting with their face actually painted to appear as part of the original artwork. The other student in the pair becomes the artist and dresses to look and act like the artist for their presentation.

In a typical year, we invite parents, students, and the community to come into the gym where each painting and artist is set up at a station. Guests are welcome to walk around the gym, stopping at each station and asking questions to the artists and their paintings.  The artists can answer questions about where they lived, how they created their art, and what their personality was like. There is a button on the painting that guests can push, and the painting will tell them about its own history: what year it was painted, what medium was used, and who painted it. 

The Talking Art Museum is so much fun and our entire school looks forward to it every year.