Museum

Donna Summer's family says the singer died of lung cancer even though she wasn't a smoker. TMZ says the diva believed she contracted the disease by breathing in toxic air after the Sept. 11 attacks in New York. Summer, who died Thursday at 63 in Naples, Fla., lived near ground zero. Summer's family rep, Brian Edwards, also said on Friday that the singer's funeral would be private and declined to disclose a time or place for the event. J-Lo: I'm undecided Jennifer Lopez denies she's already quit American Idol.

Location: Media Armory (beneath Trader Joe's), 12 East State St., Media Hours: Thursday through Sunday, 12 to 5 p.m. Admission: Free Call 610-566-0788 to schedule a group or school tour. Visit for more information or to make a donation to the museum.

The Please Touch Museum's Traveling Trunk Show came to the Willow Grove Park mall Tuesday morning as part of the mall's "Make the Most of Your Morning" program, which runs every Tuesday from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m.

The Business Partners Program at the James A. Michener Art Museum is 43 members strong and growing as it enters its second year. Most of the members are small businesses that have donated $250, $500 or $1,500. "In the wake of cutbacks in government funding, it's very important to acknowledge and be grateful to the private sector," said Linda Milanesi, public-relations director for the Doylestown Borough museum. "Businesses are providing for the arts a lifeline for survival.

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is temporarily closing its Museum of American Art on North Broad Street to spiff up and modernize the 1871 structure. The Annual Student Exhibition, opening tomorrow, will be the last public show. Renovation is due to begin May 28, the day after the student show closes, with the public reopening tentatively set for Nov. 11. The grand structure will be made more user-friendly, both in its public spaces and behind the scenes. Plans include a new museum cafe, as well as entrance lobby and orientation center, plus expansion of the museum's popular gift shop.

If only the canteen could talk. Although the dark oak container looks inconsequential next to the original Declaration of Independence, it carries the inscription, "Carried at the Battle of the Brandywine. " The date: Sept. 11 - of the year 1777. In other words, it's a big deal. So are thousands of other artifacts - including a fowling firearm carved from curly maple; Washington's tents at Valley Forge; a list of soldiers from Massachusetts, some barely old enough to shave - destined for display at the Museum of the American Revolution, slated to open in Old City in 2015.

Volunteers inside the distinctive two-story Georgian Revival building at 11 Veterans Square in Media are working feverishly these days at "accessioning. " In the language of museums, the term means writing descriptions, assigning numbers and cataloguing exhibit materials, of which the Delaware County Institute of Science, the building's owner and occupant, has thousands, maybe millions. The institute was founded in 1833, according to its bylaws, "to promote the study and diffusion of general knowledge and the establishment of a museum, and to serve as a nonprofit organization for the people of Delaware County and adjoining areas.

SOFIA, Bulgaria - Giant statues of Soviet dictators Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin. Paintings of enthusiastic socialist laborers. A huge red star that graced Communist Party headquarters. As Europe marks the 20th anniversary of the Soviet collapse, this nation that's still shaking off its troubled communist legacy is opening a museum dedicated to the totalitarian past. A debate is raging on whether the museum romanticizes the Soviet era or teaches new generations about its horrors.

Bruce Katsiff, who has overseen the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown for 22 years, will retire next year, a museum spokeswoman said Monday. During Katsiff's tenure as director and chief operating officer, the museum's collection has grown from 115 works to more than 2,500, and attendance has increased from 11,500 visitors a year to 120,000. The museum, housed in the former Bucks County Prison, has expanded from 11,000 square feet to more than 63,000, and the $5 million Edgar N. Putnam Event Pavilion is scheduled to open in May 2012.

The Rosenbach Museum and Library has accused its former director of misappropriating more than $250,000 worth of rare letters and manuscripts, and of selling them to a Massachusetts autograph dealer. In a civil complaint filed Wednesday, the museum alleged that Clive E. Driver, former director of the Rosenbach and now an art consultant living in Massachusetts, had for two years systematically purloined at least 30 letters written by Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and other famous Americans.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is free to the public today. The Art Museum's website says admission will be free all day in celebration of International Museum Day. The free admission includes the Museum-administered Park Houses, Cedar Grove and Mount Pleasant. Normally, admission is $16 for adults, $14 for seniors, $12 for students, and $12 for children ages 13-18. Children under 12 are normally free. Doors are open 10 a.m. through 8:45 p.m.

Art Museums & Institutions African American Heritage Museum 661 Jackson Rd., Newtonville; 609-704-5495. www.aahmsnj.org . Tue.-Fri. 10 am-3 pm. Barnes Foundation 300 North Latchs La., Merion Station; 610-667-0290. www.barnesfoundation.org . $15 (reservations required), free for active duty military families 5/30-9/5. Thu.-Sun. 9:30 am-5 pm. Brandywine River Museum Rte. 1 & Rte. 100, Chadds Ford; 610-388-2700. www.brandywinemuseum.org . Scribner's Magazine: The Early Years in Illustration.

When I was in high school, students were almost entirely ignorant of the fact that the Americas were already densely populated when Columbus bumped into the island of Hispaniola in 1492. Some of these civilizations, particularly the Aztecs, the Maya, and the Inca, were as sophisticated as any pre-Columbian European cultures, in some instances more so. As it was, I and my cohorts accepted the "conquistadors-and-Indians" version of American history as right and true. Where am I going with this?

By Nicholas M. Tinari Jr.   The opening of the Barnes Foundation gallery in Philadelphia raises two emotions for me. The first is anger at the gross betrayal of Albert Barnes' remarkable gift, and the second is sadness — for something truly unique is gone, not only an art collection in the perfect setting, but an original idea. Barnes established the foundation in 1922 with an Indenture of Trust to ensure its primary function of systematic education through direct interaction with the art collection.

CHILDREN'S AUTHOR Maurice Sendak began his life in Brooklyn and lived in Connecticut until his death Tuesday, but his heart — his work — lives on in Philadelphia at the Rosenbach Museum and Library . The museum has more than 10,000 pieces of Sendak's work, spanning his career from the '40s to the early 21st century, and will mount a memorial exhibition in June. Reacting to the beloved author's death, the museum opened its doors for free to the public yesterday and will again Wednesday from noon to 8 p.m. The gallery is exhibiting "From Pen to Publisher: The Life of Three Sendak Picture Books.

Fine Arts Maya 2012: Lords of Time. The origins of intricate Maya timekeeping systems are an integral part of the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology's exploration of a civilization that flourished, with cities already in existence by 500 B.C., in what is now southern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, and El Salvador. At 10 a.m. Saturday, Porfirio Lobo Sosa, president of Honduras, will join Penn Museum director Richard Hodges at a ceremony to open the exhibition. — Sally Friedman Exhibition hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Sunday, through Jan. 13 at 3260 South St. Timed tickets, which include admission to the rest of the museum, are $22.50, $18.50 for ages 65 and older and military, and $16.50 for students (full-time with ID)

For those worried about an apocalypse supposedly predicted by the Maya calendar and coming at the end of the year 2012, there's very good news at a spectacular exhibition that opens in the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology this weekend. That notion of the world's end is firmly debunked in "Maya 2012: Lords of Time. " So those stressed about what might happen come late December can exhale, thanks to the scholars involved in this fascinating study of the Maya culture - and their calendar.

Since it opened in 1988, the James A. Michener Art Museum has assiduously promoted the art of Bucks County, particularly the New Hope colony, and American art in general. It's a bit of a jolt, then, to walk into the museum's special exhibitions space and encounter a display of European Old Master art, most of it Italian and all of it religious. The 43 paintings and two tapestries come from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, one of the world's most celebrated museums and home to a matchless collection of Italian art. The exhibition is both the Michener's first international project and outgoing director Bruce Katsiff's valedictory.