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Thompson Family Foundation Gives $1 Million to Mystic Seaport

The Foundation's latest gift caps the $15.3 Million required to fund the Thompson Exhibition Building and the McGraw Gallery Quadrangle.

Donation Fulfills Goal for Major Capital Campaign

Mystic, Conn. (October 5, 2016) — Mystic Seaport announced today it has received a $1 million gift from the Thompson Family Foundation to support the Thompson Exhibition Building, the Museum’s first new exhibition building in more than four decades. The Thompson Building opened to visitors on September 24, 2016.

The Thompson Family Foundation’s latest gift caps the $15.3 million required to fund the exhibition building and the McGraw Gallery Quadrangle project. This fundraising effort was scheduled to conclude on December 31.

“We are extremely grateful for the continued generosity and confidence in the future direction of the Museum that the Thompson family has demonstrated with this gift,” said Steve White, president of Mystic Seaport. “Their support has been critical to the genesis and completion of the transformation of the Museum’s grounds and our capability to usher in a ‘New Era for Exhibitions’ at Mystic Seaport.”

The Thompson Building is the cornerstone and final element of the McGraw Gallery Quadrangle, a project which integrated existing buildings and grounds with new construction and unified the buildings of the north end of the Museum by focusing on their common role as formal exhibition galleries.

Wade Thompson was a Mystic Seaport trustee for 27 years who believed passionately in the need for contemporary exhibition space and its importance for the future of the Museum. The Thompson Building houses the Collins Gallery, a 5,000-square-foot hall featuring soaring ceilings and a flexible layout that provides the caliber of conditions required to curate not only exhibits from the Mystic Seaport collections, but also permit the borrowing of outstanding art and artifacts from other museums around the world.

“We are deeply appreciative to all donors who made extraordinary gifts to complete this ambitious project so vital to the Museum’s future sustainability and institutional growth, many of whom were inspired by Wade Thompson and his family’s example of philanthropy,” said Elisabeth Saxe, the Museum’s vice president for Advancement.

The first exhibit to be featured in the Thompson Building will be “Sea-Change,” a dramatic presentation of a range of beautiful and unique objects drawn from the collections of Mystic Seaport. A special grouping of these intriguing artifacts will be on display for the first time, and all will be presented in a new setting which reveals surprising stories of transformation that continue to impact a contemporary audience and its experience with the sea. The exhibit opens on December 10.

About Mystic Seaport
Mystic Seaport is the nation’s leading maritime museum. Founded in 1929, the Museum is home to four National Historic Landmark vessels, including the Charles W. Morgan, America’s oldest commercial ship and the last wooden whaleship in the world. The Museum’s collection of more than two million artifacts includes more than 500 historic vessels and one of the largest collections of maritime photography in the country. The newly opened Thompson Exhibition Building provides a state-of-the-art gallery to host compelling, world-class exhibits, beginning with SeaChange, which opens December 10, 2016. The Collections Research Center at Mystic Seaport provides scholars and researchers from around the world access to the Museum’s renowned archives. Mystic Seaport is located one mile south of Exit 90 off I-95 in Mystic, CT. Admission is $26 for adults and $17 for children ages 6-17. Museum members and children 5 and younger are admitted free. For more information, please visit https://mysticseaport.wpengine.com/  and follow Mystic Seaport on FacebookTwitterYouTube, and Instagram.

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