Touring Exhibitions

Age of Armor

Curator: Jeffrey L. Forgeng
2004 through 2008 at various venues (see schedule below)
The image of the “knight in shining armor” has a deeply evocative power, and surviving examples of the armorer’s craft fascinate museum audiences who find them at once familiar and mysterious artifacts. The Age of Armor introduces audiences to the most recent interpretations of the age of personal armor in Europe, with emphasis on the plate armor of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. The exhibit will be on tour across the country through September 2008 when it returns to the Higgins for one last showing at its home museum.

Upcoming Venues
Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, AL
June 10 – August 19, 2007

Florida International Museum, St. Petersburg, FL
September 16 – December 31, 2007

Arts Midland: Midland Center for the Arts, Midland, MI
January 13 – March 25, 2008

Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI
April 19 – June 22, 2008

Walton Arts Center, Fayetteville, AR
July 13 – September 21, 2008


Past Venues
Museum of Arts and Sciences, Daytona Beach, FL
November 30, 2003 – February 8, 2004

The Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR
March 4 – May 16, 2004

Avampato Discovery Musuem, Charleston, WV
June 13 – August 29, 2004

Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL
September 19 – December 5, 2004

Dane G. Hansen Memorial Museum, Logan, KS
January 2 – March 13, 2005

Dennos Museum Center, Traverse City, MI
April 10 – September 25, 2005

Columbus Museum of Art
October 23, 2005 – January 1, 2006

Evansville Museum of Arts and Sciences, Evansville, IN
January 29 – April 9, 2006

The Haggin Museum, Stockton, CA
May 7 – July 16, 2006

Muskegon Museum of Art, Muskegon, MI
August 13 – October 22, 2006

Frank H. McClung Museum, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN
March 4 – May 13, 2007

Now Thrive the Armorers: Arms and Armor in Shakespeare

Curator: Jeffrey L. Forgeng
Academic consultant: Professor Virginia Vaughan, Clark University
June through October 2008 at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC
Although people associate armor with the Middle Ages, most surviving armor actually dates to the age of William Shakespeare, a period when the traditions inherited from the Middle Ages were coming into conflict with the social, economic, and technological realities of an increasingly modern world. Shakespeare’s works are filled with the imagery and reality of arms and armor that bring life to perennial themes of chivalry, warfare, conflict, and honor; this exhibition will explore the resonances between Shakespeare’s words and the Higgins Armory Museum’s extensive collection of artifacts from Shakespeare’s age.

A Double-Edged Weapon: The Sword as Icon and Artifact

Curator: Jeffrey L. Forgeng
2008 through 2010 at various venues (see schedule below)
From the European knight to the Japanese samurai, from the Book of Genesis to Star Wars, the sword has held a unique fascination for people around the world. The Higgins Armory Museum’s traveling exhibition A Double-Edged Weapon: The Sword as Icon and Artifact offers the public a chance to see both representative and unusual swords from the Higgins collection, emphasizing at once the diverse forms and meanings of the artifact and its surprising universality across time and in different cultures. The exhibition addresses the interests of a general audience to which the sword is a perennial and familiar icon, while offering substantive learning opportunities even for the specialist. The exhibition consists of some seventy artifacts, ranging from the medieval warrior to the modern Freemason, and from the time of the Trojan War to the twentieth century, including examples from such places as Montenegro, Kenya, and India.

For information on borrowing this exhibit, please contact the Registrar, Barbara Edsall at 508-853-6015, ext. 21.

Upcoming Venues
Historic Arkansas Museum, Little Rock, AR
November 13, 2008- April 26, 2009

Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX
May 17 - October 25, 2009

Littleton Historical Museum, Littleton, CO
November 15, 2009 - January 24, 2010

University Art Museum, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA
September 17 - November 28, 2010