On April 17, almost 300 friends and supporters of the Yale Peabody Museum gathered in its new Central Gallery to celebrate its reopening, surrounded by fossils, living plants, and cultural artifacts. David Skelly, director of the Peabody and the Frank R. Oastler Professor of Ecology, recounted how the museum’s top-to-bottom renovation, which was more than a decade in the making and drew extensively from the expertise of the museum staff, came to be. After a new gem and mineral hall was created in 2016 thanks to a gift from David Friend ’69, the possibilities for redesigning the rest of the museum’s galleries became clear.

Ed Bass ’67, who provided the $160 million lead gift for the renovation, saw an opportunity to reimagine the museum in its entirety. Other major donors included Coleman P. Burke ’63, who died in 2020, and Tom Jaffe ’71.

Mark Simon, principal architect at Centerbrook Architects and Planners—which was responsible for the renovation designs—also spoke, noting that the new museum, even with fifty percent more exhibition space, uses only half the energy of the previous building. And Alison Richard, a former director of the Peabody and the current chair of its leadership council (as well as a former provost of Yale), noted the importance of the museum’s extensive collections and its curators: “It is the value and the preciousness of the collections that make this entire enterprise the magical place that it is.”

“Ed Bass’s generosity through this project extends our scientific research, our ability to teach, and our accessibility to visitors from all over the world,” said President Peter Salovey ’86 PhD. He noted that the museum is the most-visited place by Connecticut schoolchildren; as such, he said, the Peabody Museum is arguably Yale’s front door. He also announced that the Yale Corporation had reappointed Skelly as the museum’s director for another five years.
 
During his remarks, Salovey noted that during the 1925 dedication of the Peabody Museum, those present celebrated the search for new truth. He said, “This comprehensive renovation supports and continues that ambition, which is as relevant today as it was one hundred years ago.”