Monmouth Museum

17 May 2025

Lincroft, NJ

Monmouth Museum is located within Brookdale Community College and is a small family friendly museum.

Upon entering, we began with the gallery that exhibited sewing birds. It has one of the largest collections in North America. It even had remnants of an old wedding dress on display with a photo of the original owner of the dress on her wedding day.

After the sewing birds exhibit, we went to the main gallery that was currently exhibiting Fred Staloff's works.

Fred Staloff Exhibit

There were numerous eye-catching oil on canvas pieces, and a few sketches. We also found paintings of his wife and a self-portrait by the entrance of the gallery.

All these works were on loan from The Butler Institute of American Art in Ohio. In a few weeks they will be returning to the museum where the entire collection of Fred Staloff is currently housed. His works captured the beauty of the moment and places with the use of vibrant colors and tranquil scenery. When we were admiring his work, we felt calm and at peace. We like to imagine that that is how he felt while he was painting them.

Aside from enjoying the beautiful works on display, we had a huge surprise and were fortunate enough to walk into the wife of the late artist. She told us about her husband and a bit about the history of his works. We even learned that by chance they met while he was in Paris studying Fine Arts. From then, she became a strong supporter of her husband's works, and she continues to support them even after his passing.

She was kind enough to take a photo with us by the very paintings of herself and of his self- portrait. It was a pleasure to meet her and be able to share stories that we would not have heard had we not been in the gallery at the same time. It is without a doubt that his works will continue to be enjoyed by countless people thanks to his talent and her support. We hope to one day also visit the gallery featuring his full collection in Ohio.

Another exhibit we explored was the Becker STEAM wing. This area housed an area dedicated to fossils and an area dedicated to air and space (The Garrett Reisman Center for Air & Space).

The Becker STEAM Wing -

Dinosaur/Fossils

When we explored the dinosaur and fossil wing, one of our favorite parts was looking at various teeth and claws under a microscope. A visitor can dig through a small sandpit to look for various shark teeth and then examine them under the microscope. We were lucky enough to also look at larger samples thanks to one of the weekend managers working at the museum. He had another collection (not found in the sandpit) that he would provide short explanations on to any interested visitors. It was interesting to see the grain of the samples and how different they appear when under high magnification. This area of the wing also had various 3D models depicting sizes of different dinosaurs, a tracking tablet for horseshoe crabs, and more.

The Becker STEAM Wing - Air & Space

Within the Becker STEAM wing, we encountered the Garrett Reisman Center for Air & Space where there were countless items on display, thanks to a New Jersey native NASA astronaut, Garrett Reisman. The exhibit had Reisman’s flightsuit, NASA artifacts, Lego models, and countless facts on past expeditions to space. There was even a replica of a capsule and tablets to learn about and test gravity of different planets. Another interesting replica in this wing was of a rescue helicopter cockpit and a spaceship pod.

Playground - The Wonder Wing

The last wing we visited was the playground. The playground was cute and it featured ropes for children to climb on, decorations of sharks and sunken treasure, and fun facts for children to read.

Overall, we had a great time visiting Monmouth Museum, and we look forward to visiting again in the future. It was an honor to meet Janette Staloff. Getting to meet her and learning about her husband's story was the highlight of our day.

Monmouth Museum

765 Newman Springs Road,

Lincroft, NJ 07738