Thank you for being a part of the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts’ Community.

Your support helped us bring powerful experiences with art to more than 45,000

people this year. Your gift to our annual fund before year-end will ensure that 2026 is

just as impactful. As a free museum, your help is an essential part of our budget. Your

donation directly benefits your community, allowing us to present powerful exhibitions

and create compelling and innovative programs that bring people together.

What does exposure to art do? Entire research studies and books have been written

about the positive impact of art on psychological and intellectual wellbeing. Visiting the

museum helps you think, learn, grow, wonder, and feel; it improves your health both

mentally and physically. Studies also show that children with access to arts education

perform better in school. When you support the museum, you share all those benefits with the rest of your community.

For much of 2025 our exhibition program focused on women—beginning the year with

Floating Beauty: Women in the Art of Ukiyo-e, then exploring trailblazing minds in

E. O. Hoppé: Women, followed by Frida Kahlo: Picturing an Icon, which immersed us in

the fascinating, compelling story of Frida Kahlo’s all-too-brief life. One visitor left this

note in the reflection area at the end of Frida Kahlo: Picturing an Icon:

You have encouraged me to believe I have a valuable amount of strength.

The benefits of museums are many and range from the very personal to the collective.Like the person

quoted above, a visit to the museum might set you on a journey of self-discovery, or it may be a space for

social connection and a unique combination of fun, learning, enrichment, and friends. Museums

cumulatively effect the greater good—by supporting education, and acting as civic centers, economicengines, and town squares

.

Running parallel to our 2025 exhibitions, your support helped us continue our

commitment to local creativity and youth education with our Cumberland Valley Artists

and Cumberland Valley Photographers exhibitions, our always delightful exhibition of

Washington County Public School Students’ work, and our free youth education programs:

The Saturday Morning Youth Program (for elementary students), Explore & Express Yourself

(for middle schoolers), and Teen Studio (for high school students).

This year we also ran a full-week of Frida-themed summer camp, and a series of

adaptive arts programs tailored to youth, teens, and adults with special needs, which combined

exploration of Frida Kahlo: Picturing an Icon with hands-on activities grounded in learning and

self-expression for all abilities.

We also enjoyed music and danced together at our summer Garden Nights series. Our September night, with the Silver Tones Swing Band combined with the opening of In Nature’s Studio: Two Centuries of American Landscape Painting welcomed a record crowd of 385 people to our Kaylor Rose Garden. These evenings are particularly special—everyone seems to shed the worries of the week, come together and enjoy the beauty of the park, the beauty of the museum, and the beauty of shared experience. During one of these perfect summer evenings, a museum benefactor introduced himself and shook my hand.                                                                                                                                                     

I’m a museum benefactor and I am proud to be part of making events like this happen

I know you will feel that same sort of pride when you read this recent note from a Virginia visitor:

Great exhibition! Rivals many of the big museums in DC!

Notes, messages, and those personal handshakes are gratifying and let me know (and feel) the impact of the museum, and I hope I have passed some of that along to you. I also hope this letter reminds you of some museum experiences that were personally meaningful to you this year, and that you will join me (yes, I also give back to the museum) in supporting the work of the museum through your contribution. It’s the stewardship of our community that has ensured that the museum has become a beacon for arts and culture in the region and has remained free and open to all for 94 years.

Your support for the museum’s annual fund will help us amplify our impact—strengthening community through the power of art. Telephone the museum at 301‐739‐5727 or make a gift online https://wcmfa.donation.veevartapp.com/donation/view/home

With warm regards and gratitude, I hope to see you in the museum soon!

Sarah J. Hall

Executive Director