A jewel in the center of the Diamond State, the Biggs Museum of American Art is a treasure trove of fine and decorative works located in Dover, Del.

The museum's 14 galleries house a remarkable collection assembled over the past 60 years by its namesake, the late Sewell C. Biggs, AS '38. Its director is another UD graduate, Karol Schmiegel, AS '75M.

Until his death at 88 in January, Mr. Biggs remained an active collector, acquiring items for his home and the museum by visiting antique shows and auctions.

As a youngster, Mr. Biggs was known to have charged family friends a nickel to visit his room and see his boyhood collections of seashells and World War I artifacts. As a teenager attending Wilmington Friends School, he began collecting on weekends, when he often drove his mother and her friends to antique shows.

A trip around the world after college graduation further whetted his appetite for art, architecture and the art of collecting. Although he had hoped to pursue a career in architecture, Mr. Biggs bowed to his father's wishes and earned a law degree from the University of Virginia. After a stint in the Army Air Corps in World War II, he became a professional collector. A world traveler, he encouraged many students he met on his travels to attend UD, sponsoring them with a one-year scholarship to the University. He also spent time encouraging young artists, and in the late 1970s, he opened an art gallery in Wilmington's Grand Opera House, dedicated to works by emerging artists.

In 1998, Mr. Biggs established the Sewell C. Biggs Chair in Art History at UD.

The museum in Dover opened in 1993 on the top two floors of the Delaware Visitor's Center and State Museum. At that time, the collection was valued at approximately $6 million, with some 500 objects, including paintings, furniture and silver. Most items have a connection to the Delaware Valley area.

Schmiegel, who grew up in North Carolina and still retains a hint of her Southern accent, earned her undergraduate degree in art history from Smith College in 1966 and a master's degree in the same subject at UD nine years later. After working in member programming at the Baltimore Museum
of Art, she joined the staff at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware, where she was first associate registrar and then the registrar. She met Mr. Biggs when works he collected were included in an exhibit mounted in 1981 in Odessa, Del., by Winterthur staff. After leaving Winterthur in 1995, Schmiegel consulted for the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia as well as that city's Please Touch Museum. When the Biggs Museum began searching for a new curator, she asked to be considered and, six months later, landed the job.

Since then, she has been named director and has worked hard to expand the museum's services. She has instituted innovative programming for children, expanded special events offered in conjunction with exhibits and created community programming such as special activities with the annual First Night event. She also oversaw the publication of the two-volume The Sewell C. Biggs Collection of American Art: A Catalogue.

Each of the museum's galleries showcases a specific part of the collection. For example, gallery one presents the earliest objects in the collection, including a set of 18th-century chairs and a collection of delft pottery, while gallery two holds later 18th-century objects, including a high chest made for the Read family of New Castle. Other galleries feature Federal period pieces by the Janvier family of cabinetmakers, who worked in Appoquinimink, Del., paintings by the extraordinary Peale family and a tribute to Wilmington illustrator Frank Schoonover. Yet more rooms exhibit sculpture, watercolors, various trends in American landscape painting in the mid-19th century and examples of 20th-century American impressionism.

In addition to the regular exhibits, the museum hosts special shows. Most recently, the exhibition "From Tankards to Teacups: The Art of Serving Beverages in Early America" drew on the museum's collection of decorative arts. Events held in conjunction with the exhibit included a mother-daughter tea party and a lecture on the history of etiquette.

Other past exhibits
have included "Almost Forgotten: Delaware Women Artists 1900-1950" and "Picturing Chivalry: Knights, Ladies, and Castles."

--Beth Thomas