Staff photo / Andy Gray Katelyn Amendolara-Russo, director of the Medici Museum of Art in Howland, talks about the museum’s expansion and exhibitions featured in the new space.

HOWLAND — The new galleries at the Medici Museum of Art are finished and filled with art, even if its official grand opening won’t be until October.

The $1.6 million expansion doubles the number of galleries at the East Market Street museum as well as increasing its storage and classroom space.

The Norman Rockwell collection from the Boy Scouts of America remains in the museum’s original galleries. “One Nation: Strength, Unity & Heroism,” an exhibition organized in conjunction with the museum’s event to commemorate the 20th anniversary of 9/11, opens Saturday in the gallery housing the mural by Pierre Soulages.

Opening the new space are two additional exhibitions culled from the Boy Scouts collection as well as “The Collection of Renie and James Grohl.”

One of the BSA exhibits is a retrospective of the work of Joseph Csatari, who succeeded Rockwell as the official artist of the Boy Scouts.

“With the expansion now complete, we’re able to showcase to the public all of Joseph Csatari’s work, which bears a striking resemblance to Norman Rockwell’s,” Medici Director Katelyn Amendolara-Russo said.

But Csatari’s paintings also reflect a more modern sensibility than Rockwell’s work, she said.

“When you walk through the Rockwell collection, even if you have no connection to Scouting, there are great stories that unfold throughout Rockwell’s 50 years of painting for the BSA,” Amendolara-Russo said. “Then you can venture back to see Joseph Csatari’s take on modern times. You’ll see the connection from the work here to the Rockwells in the front gallery.”

Csatari, who is 92 and lives in New Jersey, is planning a visit to the gallery, and he and his son, Jeff, have helped curate the exhibition and provide information on the art.

The BSA collection currently housed at Medici includes about 360 works. “Highlights from the Boy Scouts of America Collection” with previously undisplayed pieces, including works by well-known illustrators Dean Cornwell and Jeff Segler.

“We wanted to pull some of the best works in the collection and put them on display that carry out the themes of leadership to family to American values and the American spirit,” Amendolara-Russo said.

But Medici doesn’t want to be just a museum for Boy Scout-themed art, and the current bankruptcy proceedings involving the BSA put the long-term future of the custodianship agreement in jeopardy.

“The Collection of Renie and James Grohl” hints at the future direction the Medici Museum. James Grohl, who lived in Howland at the time of his death in 2014, is the father of Dave Grohl, a two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee as a member of the band Nirvana and the founder of Foo Fighters. The collection he and his wife, Renie, amassed ranges from Asian art to prints by American artist Alexander Calder and French artist Henri Matisse.

“It’s such a great variety of works,” Amendolara-Russo said. “It’s really exciting. I was promised five (pieces) and it turned into two full galleries.”

Several of the works are by Japanese printmaker Tetsuya Noda.

“His work is a visual diary to his life and seeing the beauty in the ordinary,” she said.

The images range from the whimsical (a pair of glasses on top of a pumpkin) to the grotesque (a large print of an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts).

“Tetsuya wanted his son to quit smoking. ‘If I create a print so large that displays the ugliness of smoking, maybe my son will see this and stop,'” she explained.

In addition to displaying art, Medici plans to offer classes for adults and children, art lectures, musical performances and wellness programs, such as yoga classes in the galleries or on the lawn. Those schedules will be announced closer to the official opening in October. The new gift shop also should be open in October.

“I’m excited about having the additional space,” Amendolara-Russo said. “I want to keep shows circulating in and out to bring people in. That’s what’s going to support the economy, having new shows and having more people walk through our doors. It will cultivate the culture in our community, and it will drive more people to Warren, which I think is really beneficial.”