Bowdoin College Museum of Art. The Bowdoin College Museum of Art is an art museum located in Brunswick, Maine. Included on the National Register of Historic Places, the museum is located in a building on the campus of Bowdoin College designed by the architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White. The museum's collection originated from separate donations of art from James Bowdoin III in 1811 and 1826. Having been housed in a number of different locations during its history, the museum found a permanent home in the Walker Art Building in 1894. While the building had been renovated once in 1974, the $20.8 million renovation by architects Machado and Silvetti Associates of Boston that finished in 2007 received a great deal of publicity for its creation of a new modern entrance to the museum while preserving the structural integrity of the original building.