Rice Gallery to participate in 15th annual Museum District Day Sept. 17

FROM RICE NEWS STAFF REPORTS

The Rice Gallery will join other area museums Sept. 17 in welcoming visitors on Museum District Day. The free annual event is hosted by the Houston Museum District Association (HMDA), whose member museums include Rice Gallery and 17 others within the two-mile radius around Mecom Fountain.

Rice Gallery will provide an assortment of free Blue Bell ice cream and chilled, bottled water (while supplies last). Although the gallery’s fall exhibition, Ana Serrano’s “Salon of Beauty,” is not scheduled to open until Sept. 29, visitors will have the unique opportunity to see the artist creating her installation on-site — a behind-the-scenes view often hidden to visitors at other museums.

Rice Gallery has participated in Museum District Day since 1998. Last year, 1,039 visitors — many of them first-time visitors to the Rice campus — came to the gallery; it was the largest turnout since 2006.

This year, all HMDA museums, except for the Houston Zoo, will waive their admission fees, and free, air-conditioned shuttle buses will take visitors to the different venues. Rice Gallery student attendants and Rice Ambassadors will greet visitors and discuss the current exhibition.

Rice Gallery will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.