Press Room:
AGE OF ARMOR: From the Higgins Armory Museum

For more information contact:
Emily Fraize, 501-396-0308
efraize@arkarts.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

AGE OF ARMOR: From the Higgins Armory Museum
Little Rock - The exhibition Age of Armor: from the Higgins Armory Museum opens at the Arkansas Arts Center on March 12 and runs through May 16, 2004.

Age of Armor will draw on the rich collections of the Higgins Armory Museum, located in Worcester, Mass., the United States' sole dedicated museum of armor. The exhibition begins with an overview of the history of personal armor as far back as the Trojan War. The exhibition's concentration is on plate armor's classical age, from about 1350 to 1650, a period corresponding to the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Some five-dozen pieces, ranging from a simple, yet elegant infantryman's breastplate from the hammer of the master craftsmen of Milan to elaborately etched and gilded elements of horse armor from Southern Germany will be on view. The centerpieces of the exhibition are seven suits of armor, ranging from the early sixteenth century to the mid-seventeenth, including some of the most admired pieces from the Higgins' current displays. Such topics as the shaping and decorating of armor, its diverse uses and the various criteria that are used by scholars to understand and assess these artifacts are examined in noteworthy pieces from the Higgins collection.

For ancient Greeks, personal armor was a symbol of an aristocratic warrior's identity and social importance, as well as a practical means of increasing one's chances of survival on the battlefield. Armor was adapted to suit a variety of purposes and it played a significant role in the social, technological, military, and cultural life of the society that produced it.

The Higgins Armory Museum, founded in 1928, seeks to present the history of arms and armor in a broad cultural context; preserving, researching, exhibiting and interpreting its collections for the benefit of the general public and specialized audiences. The Museum contains one of the largest collections of ancient, medieval and Renaissance arms and armor in the nation. It is the only one of the grand, pre-World War II collections that survives undisturbed in its original home.

The showing in Little Rock is part of a seventeen city national tour over a four year period. The tour was developed and managed by Smith Kramer Fine Art Services, an exhibition tour development company in Kansas City, Missouri.

GENERAL INFORMATION
Contact: 501-372-4000
Location: Arkansas Arts Center - 9th and Commerce, Little Rock, AR 72202
Free Admission.
Gallery Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday
11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday
Closed Monday and major holidays