Envisioning New England: Treasures From Community Art Museums

At New Britain Museum of American Art

NEW BRITAIN — Artistic treasures from some of New England’s premier community art museums will be on view from January 9 through March 21 in an exhibition that will be unveiled for the first time at the New Britain Museum of American Art.

The Consortium of New England Community Art Museums’ “Envisioning New England: Treasures from Community Art Museums” is a traveling exhibition of 47 oil paintings from the collections of 14 of the region’s top community art museums. An opening reception for the exhibition will be held from 2 to 4 pm on Sunday, January 11, at NBMAA.  Upon closing in New Britain, the exhibition will travel to five other museums in the Consortium during the next two years.

Included in “Envisioning New England” are works by George Inness, Albert Bierstadt, Martin Johnson Heade, Eastman Johnson, Julian Alden Weir, Childe Hassam, Henry Ward Ranger, Frank Weston Benson, George Bellows, Edward Hopper, Grandma Moses, Thomas Hart Benton and others.

The exhibition reveals 100 years of New England heritage as interpreted by artists through changing images of the landscape and its inhabitants. The paintings also reveal Connecticut history as a microcosm of the development of the nation as a whole.

Represented in the exhibition are works from Mattatuck Museum, New Britain Museum of American Art, Florence Griswold Museum, and Lyman Allyn Art Museum in Connecticut; the Newport Art Museum in Rhode Island; The Bennington Museum in Vermont; and the Cape Museum of Fine Arts, Provincetown Art Association & Museum, Art Complex Museum, Fuller Museum of Art, Danforth Museum of Art, Fruitlands Museums, and Fitchburg Art Museum in Massachusetts.

The exhibition, arranged chronologically, will be broken into three themes: “The Virtues of Rural Life,” “Art Colonies in New England” and “Modern Voices on the New England Landscape.”

The concept for the exhibition was proposed by NBMAA Director Douglas Hyland, when he served as president of the Consortium of New England Museums a few years ago.

“When you consider that many of the members of the Consortium are among the oldest and finest institutions of their type in the country, it is understandable that the collections of these institutions are so strong and there is so much breadth and depth,” Mr Hyland noted.  “In this, our 100th anniversary year, it is most fitting that NBMAA should plan to showcase some of the most illustrious and eloquent of our nation’s painters as they view our New England surroundings.”

The Consortium’s hope is that, through this exhibition and other cooperative ventures, each museum will become better known throughout the region and throughout the country.

In addition to NBMAA, member museums of the Consortium are Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme,  and Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London, Conn.; Newport Art Museum in Newport, R.I.; Bennington Museum in Bennington, Vt.; Cape Museum of Fine Arts, Dennis, Mass.; Provincetown Art Association & Museum, Provincetown, Mass.; Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, Mass.; Fuller Museum of Art, Brockton, Mass.; Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, Mass.; Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, Mass.; Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, Mass.; and Farnsworth Museum & Library, Rockland, Me.

“Envisioning New England” was curated by Nancy Whipple Grinnell, curator of Newport Art Museum, and Jack Becker, a former curator of Florence Griswold Museum and now director of the Cheekwood Museum of Art.

Accompanying the exhibition is a catalogue published by the University Press of New England with an introduction by William H. Truettner, senior curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art.

Special programming related to the exhibition will include three events on Wednesday, January 17. From 4 to 7 pm the museum will host an Educators’ Afternoon, from 5:30 to 7 pm will be an Art Happy Hour reception, and guest speaker Douglas Hyland will offer a lecture, “Defining New England – The Survival of Regional Character” at 6 pm.

On Wednesday, February 11, Theodore Stebbins will offer a lecture, “The Imaginary New England Landscape: Frederic Church, Martin Johnson Heade & George Inness,” at 5:30 pm, as part of the museum’s Charles B. Ferguson Lecture Series. Mr Stebbins is a Distinguished Fellow and consultative curator of American Art with Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University. There will be a fee for the lecture; contact the museum for details or reservations.

Then on Wednesday, March 17, another Art Happy Hour will offer a guest speaker with a program related to “Envisioning New England.” The Happy Hour will run from 5:30 to 7 pm; Anne Cubberly, a resident artist for NBMAA, will discuss “Envisioning New England: Community Art and The Environment” at 6 pm.

Additional exhibition-related programs may be scheduled. Contact the museum or visit its website for updates.

Following its presentation at NBMAA the exhibition will be presented at other museums in New England. An independent, not-for-profit organization that has been celebrating its centennial year in 2003, New Britain Museum of American Art was founded by private citizens for the enjoyment and education of the public. Located in a turn-of-the-century house since 1937, the museum has since expanded its space to 19 galleries.

Museum leadership embraced the idea early on that the collection would focus exclusively on American art. Today, after 100 years of steady growth, the collection numbers nearly 5,000 oils, watercolors, drawings, graphics and sculpture, spanning more than 250 years of American art.

Visitors can experience an entire survey of the nation’s art history from John Singleton Copley, Frederic Church, Thomas Cole, the Thomas Hart Benton murals, Arts of Life in America, and Sol LeWitt, to name a few. The collection is especially rich in American Impressionism. Mary Cassatt, William Merritt Chase, Theodore Robinson, Childe Hassam, John Henry Twachtman, Julian Alden Weir, Willard Metcalf, Frank Benson, Frederick Frieseke, Richard Miller, Arthur Clifton Goodwin, Ernest Lawson, Maurice Prendergast, and Guy Wiggins are all well represented.

New Britain Museum of American Art is at 56 Lexington Street in New Britain. Regular museum hours are Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday from noon to 5 pm; Wednesday from noon to 7 pm; and Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm. The museum is handicapped accessible.

Docent-guided tours for adults and children are available by appointment during the morning and public hours. Sunday gallery talks are scheduled throughout the year.

Additional information is available by calling 860-229-0257 or visiting www.NBMAA.org.