HARTFORD — “Old Masters/New Directions: A Decade of Collecting” has opened at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art this weekend and will remain on view through January 15.

“Old Masters/New Directions” showcases approximately 120 works drawn from more than 2,100 gifts, bequests and purchases of the past ten years. Half of the objects selected have never before been shown by the museum. The sheer quality and range of fine and decorative arts at the museum places it among the top dozen art museums in the United States.

Some highlights include eight works by Joseph Cornell. In 1935, the Wadsworth was the first museum to show Cornell’s work; three years later, it was the first to buy one — the now-famous “Soap Bubble Set,” 1936.

Today, the museum owns 37 poetically charged, collage-based works by this American artist, largely due to gifts received from The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation in 1996 and 2002.

Highlights from The Richard and Georgette A. Koopman Collection of Dutch Delft will be on view.

The eclectic collection formed by the American illustrator and author Edward Gorey underscores his affinity for the whimsically sinister or coolly macabre. Sixteen works on paper from Gorey’s collection include works by Atget, Burchfield, Goya, Klee, Manet, Munch and Redon, as well as “sand paintings” by anonymous American artists.

Rare costumes and textiles will include one of only six “petal stoles” ever created by fashion designer Charles James, a ballet costume designed by Pop artist Peter Max, two fiber art studies by Sheila Hicks, a heavily embroidered wall hanging from Italy, circa 1700; and a gossamer “Fantasy Evening Dress” by British fashion doyenne Zandra Rhodes.

Jean-Léon Gérôme’s “Bust of Sarah Bernhardt,” which was purchased by the atheneum at Sotheby’s July 8 auction in London, is a unique sculpture in plaster of the great French actress.

The museum’s most painting acquisitions of the past decade includes Hendrick Goltzius’s “Adam,” which is one of only about 50 paintings known to exist by this Baroque artist.

Other important paintings will include Paul Cézanne’s “Rustic House,” Alfred Sisley’s “The Pike,” Marsden Hartley’s “Down East Young Blades Considered,” and Alfred Jensen’s “The World As It Really Is (Per I-V, An Experience of Harmony),” a monumental five-panel painting organized in optically charged and alternating white and black grounds.

Getting Surreal On October 6

To honor the return of its signature Surrealist works from a triumphant national tour of nearly two years, the Wadsworth will present “Dalí, Picasso, and The Surrealist Vision,” opening on October 6.

For this exhibition, the museum’s works by famous artists such as Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, Max Ernst and Joán Miró has been augmented with twice as many loans from private collections.  In total, 188 Surrealist paintings, sculptures, drawings, collages, and photographs, complemented by a gallery of four Surrealist film classics, all of which retain the power to confound, amuse, and impress. 

For spellbinding insights into the Surrealist’s use of illusionism, symbolism, and abstraction, the public is invited to attend a 6 pm gallery talk with Eric M. Zafran, the Wadsworth Atheneum’s Susan Morse Hilles Curator of European Art, that evening.

A strolling musician will be at the museum and live music performed by The Paul Brown Quartet will run from 5 to 8 pm.

The Museum Café will be open for a la carte dinner; call 860-838-4042 for reservations.

At 7:30 pm a double feature of Iranian films will be screened. First will be the Surrealist, romantic fantasy Gabbeh (1996) followed immediately by The Day I Became A Woman (2000).

“Dali, Picasso and The Surrealist Vision” will remain in view until December 31.

Admission for First Thursday museum hours is just $5, although there is an additional movie ticket charge of $8 for a dults, $6 for seniors and students with ID.

Regular museum admission is $10 for adults, $8 for visitors age 62 and over, and $5 for students. Guests ages 12 and under are admitted free of charge.

The Wadsworth Atheneum is at 600 Main Street in Hartford.

For more information call 860-278-2670, TDD 860-278-0294, or visit              www.WadsworthAtheneum.org.