Staff file photo / Andy Gray Ryan MacLennan, director of operations and outreach for the Trumbull County Historical Society, is shown in August 2023 checking out a large robot created by Modern Props and donated to TCHS by the company’s cofounder, Warren native John Zabrucky. Works from the Zabrucky collection will be exhibited at Medici Museum of Art in advance of TCHS creating the Museum of Science Fiction and Fantasy Arts in Warren.

HOWLAND — The Boy Scouts of America art collection and its 65 Norman Rockwell works won’t leave until next week, but Medici Museum of Art’s executive director already is planning what’s next.

The museum will partner with the Trumbull County Historical Society to display some of the more than 400 props donated to the society by Warren native John Zabrucky, who co-founded Modern Props. Its work can be seen in hundreds of films and television series from the 1970s to the 2010s, and the collection ranges from small hand props to large-scale set pieces.

Those props are part of the permanent collection for the Museum of Science Fiction and Fantasy Arts, which TCHS is developing at 410 Main Ave. SW, Warren.

“I’m super excited about bringing this here,” Amendolara-Russo said.

TCHS Executive Director Meghan Reed said, “We know that we will not have the sci-fi building open and ready to the public for a few years, and we definitely want the public to have access to the collection and to build out momentum for the museum beforehand. We’re looking at local museums to help support this effort by either hosting exhibitions or allowing us to be a part of the exhibitions they currently have on view.”

Reed also is looking beyond the Mahoning Valley to create a traveling exhibition that could be shown nationwide and even internationally to both showcase the work of Zabrucky and Modern Props and generate awareness and interest in the Warren museum.

“We’re looking at partnerships, whether it’s art museums or science centers, that would be interested in John’s work, both from a science fiction and science perspective but also thinking of prop building as art,” Reed said.

Medici became custodians of the BSA collection, which includes works by Walt Disney, J.C. Leyendecker and other renowned artists in addition to Rockwell, in 2020, and the Rockwells have been on display since May of that year.

The art will be packed for shipping next week, and the first of several auctions is planned in November to liquidate the collection in order to compensate more than 64,000 former Scouts who have filed claims as abuse survivors. At the time Medici became custodians, the collection had been appraised at $130 million.

“It was a great start to have such a valuable and significant collection,” Medici director Katelyn Amendolara-Russo said. “This opens the door for new shows, and now we can collaborate with other organizations in the area.”

The collaboration between Medici and SciFan already was in the works, but with the Rockwells leaving, it will allow Amendolara-Russo to display the Zabrucky collection in the main gallery and devote more space to it.

“Initially, it was planned just in the back (in the museum expansion),” she said. “Now it will be where the Rockwells were and lead to the three smaller galleries in the back.”

Amendolara-Russo said she hopes to pair the collection with exhibitions by comic book artists and / or other complementary shows.

The Zabrucky exhibition tentatively is scheduled to open in December. Medici will be closed next week while representatives from Heritage Auctions catalog and crate the BSA collection. When the museum reopens Sept. 18, it will feature works from the private collection of John Anderson, who serves on the Foundation Medici board and was integral to establishing the museum. It will include linocuts by Pablo Picasso and works by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Julian Stanczak.

“They are some beautiful works that have never been displayed,” Amendolara-Russo said.

Medici has had a surge in attendance since it was announced that Sunday is the last day to see Rockwells and other BSA art on display.

“It was packed yesterday and today,” Amendolara-Russo said Friday. “Hopefully that continues with future exhibitions and more frequent exhibitions.”

Within minutes of opening on Friday, at least two dozen people were touring its galleries.

Jason Paisley of Howland, who is Scoutmaster of Troop 101, and his son, Colin, 14, were among those getting one last look.

“I told him, get up, you’re going to see something you’ll never see again,” said Jason Paisley, who was viewing the collection for the fourth time. “It’s so cool. I grew up doing all of this stuff (depicted in Rockwell’s paintings). It’s just a neat collection to see here a half mile from our house.”

Anne and Andy Morse made a trip from Hudson specifically to see the exhibition. They had toured Rockwell’s home in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, but had put off coming to see the paintings displayed at Medici.

“We procrastinated, like everyone,” Andy Morse said. “We’ll get there next week, next month.”

Medici, 9350 E. Market St., will be open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. today and Sunday, and those are the last opportunities to see the BSA collection.

Amendolara-Russo said 276 visited the museum on Friday with visitors coming from as far as Virginia, New York, Indiana, Illinois and Washington, D.C.