Growing up in central Massachusetts, I remember the Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester as a beloved weekend destination and the kind of school field trip that was a big deal – one that inspired pretend sword fights and battles with imaginary dragons. I recall running amongst hundreds of medieval objects on display in the setting of a grand castle hall, complete with stonework and stained glass, gazing at jousting suits on lifesize models of horses and saying hello to a dog in a suit of armor (named Helmutt) made by a Metropolitan Museum of Art armorer curator.
The collection, one of the largest of its kind in America, came from John Woodman Higgins, a Worcester industrialist and owner of Worcester Pressed Steel. He opened the Higgins Armory Museum in 1931. The museum shuttered in 2013.
I recently asked a coworker at my restaurant job if he knew of the Higgins Armory. He responded, “That was one of the saddest days of my life when that closed.” This weekend marks the first time in 12 years that this collection is on display to the public in two new galleries at the Worcester Art Museum.
One of the centerpieces of the permanent exhibition “Arms and Armor” is three suits of armor assembled under a massive backlit chainmail chandelier of sorts. Jeffrey Forgeng, a curator of arms and armor and medieval art at the museum, explained he selected these three figures to frame the gallery as a global collection and to set WAM’s gallery apart from the rest…