Skylands Museum of Art Hosts Opening Celebration of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA Exhibition

The Skylands Museum of Art hosted a Grand Opening Event on February 2, 2025, to launch its current exhibition, The Phantom of the Opera, featuring twenty-six original oil paintings by internationally recognized French surrealist artist Anne Bachelier. Bachelier painted the evocative oil paintings in 2007 in anticipation of Neil Zukerman/CFM Gallery's 2009 publication of Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera, in which her paintings served to illustrate and illuminate Leroux's original text. Select editions of the publications are now collector's items.

The temporary exhibition serendipitously coincided with the 100th anniversary of the original 1925 silent film and announcement of Andrew Lloyd Webber's new national Broadway tour of the iconic gothic love story to begin in November 2025.

In the spirit of the Grand Opening, the Skylands Museum provided guests with dramatic costume masks as favors - and as an homage to Bachelier and the enigmatic Phantom, many visitors wore their own costume pieces.

Visitors and Museum Members who attended the Grand Opening hailed from Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York State, Manhattan and throughout New Jersey to celebrate the collection, spurred by the recent announcement that Bachelier's Phantom paintings will return to France in 2025, never to be reunited in the USA in one setting again.

Museum founder Ailene Fields shared "I was privy to the fact that these paintings were leaving the country and immediately thought how wonderful it would be to keep them together a little longer - to share them with the world before they scatter."

The Phantom of the Opera exhibit culminates May 3, with a special event which includes an artist's reception and booksigning by the French Surrealist Anne Bachelier.