Group Tours

Ready to shake up your group or team’s thinking?  A visit to the art museum can do it.  Rena leads interactive, thoughtful, exuberant tours, custom designed to your agenda.

“This was the best tour—Rena is a lot of fun; great stories, terrific knowledge, never a dull moment. I’ll never look at this art the same way again. People all over the museum wanted to listen in. Highly recommend.”
                                                                                                      Nora M., February 2019

“Rena gave a tour of the Pre-Raphaelites that was exceptional. Her knowledge made it even more enjoyable, and we could listen to her explanations all day. In all, a wonderful experience!”                                                                                                                                                                         Delaware Art Museum Visitor, November 2010

“On a recent girls’ getaway with my mother and my sister, we were blown away by the Delaware Art Museum. The museum was nice, but it was the tour guide that was absolutely spectacular. If there were an Academy Award for “Tour Guide of the Year”, the Oscar would go to Rena Tobey! Who knew that a little museum tucked away in a small neighborhood in Wilmington, DE would house such a brilliant tour guide. This rather unassuming, modest woman literally pulled us right into the art. She had us entertained and intrigued, all the while engaging each of our senses. She was an actress, storyteller, and mystery theater hostess all wrapped into one, and I hung on every word she said. My heart beat with excitement over what I might experience next.”                                                                                                                                                   A blog post, April 2011

 

Lilly Martin Spencer, Young Wife, First Stew, 1854

 

 

 

Contact Rena today to learn more about her American Wing tours at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

 

 

 

 

 

Scenes from the Collection Tours
This Zoom tour features highlights from the stunning permanent collection of the Jewish Museum, focusing on the intersection of art and Jewish culture. Come discover fascinating intersections between historic and contemporary objects and the diversity of the Jewish experience.

For a digital tour with Rena, please contact Frazier at the museum.

Tours include:
  • Scenes: Highlights of the Permanent Collection
  • The Sassoons
  • Chagall: Love, War, and Exile about his exile in New York
  • Edith Halpert, about a New York art dealer who shaped the modern art world
  • Hare with Amber Eyes, about the Ephrussi family and their art collections and diaspora
  • Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art
  • Florine Stettheimer: Painting Poetry
  • Tissot and the Bible
  • New York, 1962-64
1109 5th Ave, enter on 92nd St
New York, NY 10128
212-423-3200
 
 
 
Now Digital! Tours of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
 
 

Thomas Cole, The Oxbow, 1836

Private Tours, American Wing, Metropolitan Museum of Art:
 
Tour #1
Shaping the American Identity
Paintings often tell more complex stories than we see at first glance. This tour takes a deep dive with works that portray who we were and have become as Americans.
 
 
  • Discover what clothing in Colonial portraits says about the sitter and the formation of a new nation
  • Read landscapes to explore what they reveal about the future of America
  • Pull apart American myths
  • Uncover the signs of trouble around the Civil War
  • Laugh over coded paintings about the changing roles of men and women in the 19th century

Tour #2
American Women’s Lives

John Singleton Copley, Mrs. John Winthrop, 1773

What was daily life like for American women during the Colonial period? How did that change with the growth of the marketplace economy? How did roles evolve, so that women’s artists voices were added to American painting?

By exploring the paintings in the American Wing and the Modern and Contemporary galleries, we learn how women navigated societal expectations with their own passions and drives. The results are surprising, delightful, and insightful. Come explore the stories told and learn whether you, too, are a New Woman.

 

“This was the best tour—Rena is a lot of fun; great stories, terrific knowledge, never a dull moment. I’ll never look at this art the same way again. People all over the museum wanted to listen in. Highly recommend.” Nora M., February 2019

Contact Rena for more information and scheduled tour dates today!

 
 
Lively Mind: Home Edition – Now offered on Zoom!
Gather a group and bring Rena Tobey to your home! Offering the following multi-session courses and more:
 
  • Shaping the American Identity
  • Many Voices of American Art
  • Land-People-City
  • Painting New York
  • Giving Voice to American Women Artists
  • Women Artists from the Renaissance to the U.S.
  • American Artist Families
  • Books and Storytelling in American Art
  • Secular Baroque

“Your presentations are superb, and if I can remember even half of all the new names and works of art we saw, I will consider myself well ahead of the game. What a glorious world of women’s art.” Dorothy D, February 2019

Contact Rena to learn more!

Plus

ARTFULL LOOKING

Sage, Shivering Mountain

Kay Sage, Shivering Mountain, 1943

Have you ever been especially drawn to a work of art you’ve seen in a museum?  Here’s an opportunity to build on that experience, and more.  Artfull Looking is a facilitated, gallery learning adventure that combines in-depth looking and problem solving.

Art communicates powerfully with careful looking, enriched by illuminating back stories that add layers to our understanding.  Artfull Looking takes that understanding to a new level.  Here’s how it works.  Volunteers from a museum learning group choose an issue they would like insights about and then let a masterwork help reveal the answers.

Through ‘slow looking’ guided by art educator Rena Tobey, the volunteer, and then the rest of the group, digs deep into one work of art, unveiling compelling new connections.  Build a special relationship with a masterpiece.  Its meaning will always be yours to own.

Contact Rena today for other learning-filled Artfull Looking in museums.

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