Get Cool Masks & Support Museums
The finish line may be in sight, but for the foreseeable future, we’re still wearing face masks and our favorite museums need our help. Fortunately, museum gift shops around the country have both bases covered with a wide array of colorful and creative face masks.
You enjoyed the first batch of fun, fanciful museum face masks, so here comes another round-up that you can buy from museum gift shops.
Creativity Explored
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, or SFMoMA, offers several masks in its Creativity Explored line. Each mask features work by a contemporary artist, from diverse faces by Antonio Benjamin to a wibbly-wobbly Golden Gate Bridge by Melody Lima.
Veggie Tales
The San Diego Museum of Art has got you covered, as they say, with a page of their store dedicated to face masks. You might opt for the trippy space vortex or the vintage Toulouse-Lautrec look. But our money is on the cabbage-and-cantaloupe mask. And in this case, we’re putting our money where our mouth is. And our nose. It goes over the nose, too.
It’s a Tsuna-mask
Over in Los Angeles, the de Young and Legion of Honor museum stores show off a handful of colorful masks. One of the most popular features the iconic Great Wave. It’s a great way to wave off Covid.
Can’t Do This on a Zoom Date
The robust selection of masks at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston includes familiar favorites like Edvard Munch’s The Scream, as well as four inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat. Perhaps the cheekiest, though, is the mask featuring Klimt’s The Kiss, a thing you most definitely should not be doing in any mask-wearing situation.
Panda Party
With nearly 50 different mask designs, the Smithsonian offers masks as diverse as its museums (and the National Zoo, of course). Channel the can-do attitude of Rosie the Riveter, festoon your face with a forest full of Bigfeet, or just wear a pile of pandas.
Hello to You Too
Over at the Brooklyn Museum, find two masks that really speak to you: Jeffrey Gibson’s many-colored LOVE mask, created exclusively for the museum, and a reversible mask featuring Deborah Kass’ OY.YO. Whether you’re feeling sociable or grappling with the state of the world, that mask knows just what to say.
Fight Covid
The Philadelphia Museum of Art has tapped local artisan Ana Thorne to design a lovely line of museum-exclusive masks for adults and kids. Philadelphians will appreciate the “Philly Philly” mask, and the Yoshitoshi Warrior mask presents a fearsome line of defense against the ol’ Corona.
Life’s a Picnic
Among Milwaukee Art Museum’s medley of masks, some brightly colored women caught our eye. Frida fans will enjoy these embroidered masks, handmade by a Fair Trade group of artisan women in Guatemala. And custom-made for the museum, On Duty, Not Driving features a fantastical mosaic-like scene by African-American Milwaukee artist Reginal Baylor.
Guilty as Charged
The High Museum of Art in Atlanta shop sells a slew of artsy masks, as well as a fun Personal Protection Kit with mask filters and two very unusual bars of soap: Andy Warhol’s “15 Minutes of Foam” and Frida Kahlo’s “Monkey Clean! Monkey Fresh!” Of course, you’re crazy if you think we’re not recommending Museum Nerd, the most relevant mask of all.
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Image credits: Lead photo by Yaroslav Danylchenko from Pexels; all masks via their respective museums