Our History

A 501(c)(3) organization, the Florence Griswold Museum has continuously maintained accreditation by the American Association of Museums since 1978, and in 1993 was designated a National Historic Landmark.

Over the last decade, the Museum has invested more than $16 million in a series of sweeping capital improvements designed to preserve the legacy of the Lyme Art Colony and the Museum’s important collections of American art and artifacts, while widening the public’s access to and interaction with these collections through technology and innovative programming.

Guided by strategic plans adopted by the Board of Trustees, the Museum has acquired significant portions of Florence Griswold’s original estate, restored her gardens and orchard, built an education center for hands-on children’s programs, constructed an award-winning exhibition gallery, and completed a thorough restoration of the Griswold House as a boardinghouse for artists, c. 1910.

In 2009 a historic 19th century barn immortalized in many art colony era paintings was transformed into the Rafal Landscape Center for educating the public on the role of the local landscape in the identity of the Lyme Region.