New Britain Museum of American Art
Encyclopedia
The New Britain Museum of American Art is an art museum in New Britain, Connecticut
. Founded in 1903, it is the first museum in the country dedicated to American art.
A total of 72,000 visits were made to the museum in the year ending June 30, 2009, and another 16,000 visits were made to the museum's satellite gallery at TheatreWorks in Hartford, Connecticut
.
Walnut Hill Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, is next to the museum.
A wealthy widow, Grace Judd Landers, expected to donate a large amount of money to the museum, but she lost her money in the stock market crash of 1929, and so donated her house as a museum in 1934.
Sanford B. D. Low, a son-in-law of William H. Hart, at one time president of New Britain's Stanley Works
, was the museum's first director. He acquired a number of works by his friend, Thomas Hart Benton
, for the museum.
Both Low and Benton were part of a high-spirited circle of friends (including James Cagney
) who spent summers at Hart Haven, William Hart's summer place on Martha's Vinyard where both Low and Benton painted together (Hart was no relation to Thomas Hart Benton). In the late 1940s, Low found out that the Whitney Museum in New York City was rumored to be ready to sell Benton's "The Arts of Life in America" series, which was out of fashion as representational art. Benton had believed he was cheated when he sold the murals to the Whitney's director, Juliana Force. Low arranged to have the New Britain museum acquire the works for $500, paid for by Alix Stanley, a member of the family which founded Stanley Works. The purchase price was less than it cost to hire a crane for the move and transport the pictures.
In 1964 the Sanford B. D. Low Memorial Illustration Collection was inaugurated. The first museum collection of American illustration in the United States, it now holds over 1,700 works dating from the 19th century.
Douglas Hyland became executive director of the museum in 1999 after having been director of the San Antonio Museum. He raised funds from new donors outside of New Britain, including the Walton Family Foundation and the Henry Luce Foundation. In 2003, the 43000 square feet (3,994.8 m²) Chase Family Building was constructed, doubling the museum's size. During Hyland's tenure (as of 2009), the New Britain museum building was renovated, and the museum doubled its collection to 10,000 objects, doubled its full-time staff to 24 employees, doubled its docents to 100 and nearly tripled memberships from 1,200 to 3,500.
The museum's $3.92 million in income for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009, revenue was up slightly from the $3.86 million of the previous fiscal year.
, American Impressionists and the Ash Can School. The collection includes works by John Singleton Copley
, Frederic Church, Thomas Cole
, Rockwell Kent
, Georgia O'Keeffe
, N.C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth
, and Sol LeWitt
.
American Colonial and Federal-era portraits are represented with works by John Smibert, John Trumbull
, Mather Brown
, John Singleton Copley
, Charles Willson Peale
, Sarah Peale, Gilbert Stuart
, and Ralph Earl. The museum's holdings of early and late Hudson River School
paintings include landscapes by Thomas Cole
, Thomas Doughty
, Asher B. Durand, Fitz Hugh Lane
, Martin Johnson Heade
, John Kensett, Albert Bierstadt
, and Frederic Church.
Nineteenth-century still life works at the museum include paintings by Raphaelle Peale
, Severin Roesen
, William Harnett
, John Peto, John Haberle
, and John La Farge. Genre painting and sculpture is represented by John Quidor
, William Sidney Mount
, Lilly Martin Spencer
, John George Brown
, and John Rogers
. The museum's holdings in post-Civil War figural painting and sculpture, include works by Winslow Homer
, Thomas Eakins
, Mary Cassatt
, John Singer Sargent
, J. Alden Weir
, George de Forest Brush
, Joseph DeCamp
, Frank Benson
, William Paxton
, Elizabeth Nourse
, and 19 plasters and bronzes by Solon Borglum
.
Works by American Impressionists at the museum include a pastel by Mary Cassatt and works by Theodore Robinson
, John Henry Twachtman
, J. Alden Weir
, Willard Metcalf
, and 11 oil paintings by Childe Hassam
. Among the later Impressionist works are paintings by William Glackens
, Ernest Lawson
, Frederick Carl Frieseke
, Louis Ritman
, Richard Emil Miller, and Maurice Prendergast
.
The collection also includes the mural series "The Arts of Life in America" by Thomas Hart Benton
. The museum's contemporary art holdings include works by Chuck Close
, Dan Flavin
, Eva Hesse
, Julie Heffernan
, Walton Ford
and Graydon Parrish
. Graydon Parrish's large realist painting The Cycle of Terror and Tragedy
is also part of the collection. The painting is an allegorical tribute to those lost in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
New Britain, Connecticut
New Britain is a city in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. It is located approximately 9 miles southwest of Hartford. According to 2006 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city is 71,254....
. Founded in 1903, it is the first museum in the country dedicated to American art.
A total of 72,000 visits were made to the museum in the year ending June 30, 2009, and another 16,000 visits were made to the museum's satellite gallery at TheatreWorks in Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...
.
Walnut Hill Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, is next to the museum.
History
The museum's origins are in the "New Britain Institute", chartered in 1853 with the goal of fostering education and art in the city, especially among its immigrant population. In 1903, the museum received a bequest of $25,000 to acquire "original modern oil paintings either by native or foreign artists". Bryson Burroughs, then curator of paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, suggested to museum officials that directing their efforts at acquiring American art would be most cost-effective. The museum took his advice and seldom spent more than $1,000 for any artwork, amassing a collection now worth millions.A wealthy widow, Grace Judd Landers, expected to donate a large amount of money to the museum, but she lost her money in the stock market crash of 1929, and so donated her house as a museum in 1934.
Sanford B. D. Low, a son-in-law of William H. Hart, at one time president of New Britain's Stanley Works
Stanley Works
Stanley Black & Decker , formerly known as The Stanley Works, is a manufacturer of tools and hardware and provider of security products and locks headquartered in New Britain, Connecticut...
, was the museum's first director. He acquired a number of works by his friend, Thomas Hart Benton
Thomas Hart Benton (painter)
Thomas Hart Benton was an American painter and muralist. Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. His fluid, almost sculpted paintings showed everyday scenes of life in the United States...
, for the museum.
Both Low and Benton were part of a high-spirited circle of friends (including James Cagney
James Cagney
James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American actor, first on stage, then in film, where he had his greatest impact. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth...
) who spent summers at Hart Haven, William Hart's summer place on Martha's Vinyard where both Low and Benton painted together (Hart was no relation to Thomas Hart Benton). In the late 1940s, Low found out that the Whitney Museum in New York City was rumored to be ready to sell Benton's "The Arts of Life in America" series, which was out of fashion as representational art. Benton had believed he was cheated when he sold the murals to the Whitney's director, Juliana Force. Low arranged to have the New Britain museum acquire the works for $500, paid for by Alix Stanley, a member of the family which founded Stanley Works. The purchase price was less than it cost to hire a crane for the move and transport the pictures.
In 1964 the Sanford B. D. Low Memorial Illustration Collection was inaugurated. The first museum collection of American illustration in the United States, it now holds over 1,700 works dating from the 19th century.
Douglas Hyland became executive director of the museum in 1999 after having been director of the San Antonio Museum. He raised funds from new donors outside of New Britain, including the Walton Family Foundation and the Henry Luce Foundation. In 2003, the 43000 square feet (3,994.8 m²) Chase Family Building was constructed, doubling the museum's size. During Hyland's tenure (as of 2009), the New Britain museum building was renovated, and the museum doubled its collection to 10,000 objects, doubled its full-time staff to 24 employees, doubled its docents to 100 and nearly tripled memberships from 1,200 to 3,500.
The museum's $3.92 million in income for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009, revenue was up slightly from the $3.86 million of the previous fiscal year.
Collection
The permanent collection includes colonial portraits, works from the Hudson River SchoolHudson River school
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by romanticism...
, American Impressionists and the Ash Can School. The collection includes works by John Singleton Copley
John Singleton Copley
John Singleton Copley was an American painter, born presumably in Boston, Massachusetts, and a son of Richard and Mary Singleton Copley, both Irish. He is famous for his portrait paintings of important figures in colonial New England, depicting in particular middle-class subjects...
, Frederic Church, Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist. He is regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School, an American art movement that flourished in the mid-19th century...
, Rockwell Kent
Rockwell Kent
Rockwell Kent was an American painter, printmaker, illustrator, and writer.- Biography :Rockwell Kent was born in Tarrytown, New York, the same year as fellow American artists George Bellows and Edward Hopper...
, Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia Totto O'Keeffe was an American artist.Born near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, O'Keeffe first came to the attention of the New York art community in 1916, several decades before women had gained access to art training in America’s colleges and universities, and before any of its women artists...
, N.C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth
Andrew Wyeth
Andrew Newell Wyeth was a visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century....
, and Sol LeWitt
Sol LeWitt
Solomon "Sol" LeWitt was an American artist linked to various movements, including Conceptual art and Minimalism....
.
American Colonial and Federal-era portraits are represented with works by John Smibert, John Trumbull
John Trumbull
John Trumbull was an American artist during the period of the American Revolutionary War and was notable for his historical paintings...
, Mather Brown
Mather Brown
Mather Brown was a portrait and historical painter, born in Boston, Massachusetts, but active in England....
, John Singleton Copley
John Singleton Copley
John Singleton Copley was an American painter, born presumably in Boston, Massachusetts, and a son of Richard and Mary Singleton Copley, both Irish. He is famous for his portrait paintings of important figures in colonial New England, depicting in particular middle-class subjects...
, Charles Willson Peale
Charles Willson Peale
Charles Willson Peale was an American painter, soldier and naturalist. He is best remembered for his portrait paintings of leading figures of the American Revolution, as well as establishing one of the first museums....
, Sarah Peale, Gilbert Stuart
Gilbert Stuart
Gilbert Charles Stuart was an American painter from Rhode Island.Gilbert Stuart is widely considered to be one of America's foremost portraitists...
, and Ralph Earl. The museum's holdings of early and late Hudson River School
Hudson River school
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by romanticism...
paintings include landscapes by Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist. He is regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School, an American art movement that flourished in the mid-19th century...
, Thomas Doughty
Thomas Doughty
Thomas Doughty may refer to:*Thomas Doughty , English explorer, d.1578*Thomas Doughty , American artist...
, Asher B. Durand, Fitz Hugh Lane
Fitz Hugh Lane
Fitz Henry Lane was an American painter and printmaker of a style that would later be called Luminism, for its use of pervasive light....
, Martin Johnson Heade
Martin Johnson Heade
Martin Johnson Heade was a prolific American painter known for his salt marsh landscapes, seascapes, portraits of tropical birds, and still lifes...
, John Kensett, Albert Bierstadt
Albert Bierstadt
Albert Bierstadt was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. In obtaining the subject matter for these works, Bierstadt joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion...
, and Frederic Church.
Nineteenth-century still life works at the museum include paintings by Raphaelle Peale
Raphaelle Peale
Raphaelle Peale is considered the first professional American painter of still-life.-Biography:...
, Severin Roesen
Severin Roesen
Severin Roesen is a painter known for his abundant fruit and flower still lifes and is today recognized as one of the major American still-life painters of the mid-nineteenth century.-Life:...
, William Harnett
William Harnett
William Michael Harnett was an Irish-American painter known for his trompe l'oeil still lifes of ordinary objects.-Early life:...
, John Peto, John Haberle
John Haberle
John Haberle was a 19th-century American painter in the trompe l'oeil style. His still lifes of ordinary objects are painted in such a way that the painting can be mistaken for the objects themselves. He is considered one of the three major figures—together with William Harnett and John F...
, and John La Farge. Genre painting and sculpture is represented by John Quidor
John Quidor
John Quidor was an American painter of historical and literary subjects.-Biography:Quidor was born in Gloucester County, New Jersey...
, William Sidney Mount
William Sidney Mount
William Sidney Mount was an American genre painter and contemporary of the Hudson River School.-Biography:...
, Lilly Martin Spencer
Lilly Martin Spencer
Lilly Martin Spencer was one of the most popular and widely reproduced American female genre painters in the mid-nineteenth century. She painted domestic scenes, women and children in a warm happy atmosphere...
, John George Brown
John George Brown
John George Brown , British and American painter, was born in Durham, England, on 11 November 1831. He studied at Newcastle-on-Tyne, in the Edinburgh Academy. His parents apprenticed him to a glass worker at the age of fourteen, in an attempt to dissuade him from pursuing painting...
, and John Rogers
John Rogers
-Europeans:*John Rogers , editor and part translator of the Matthew Bible, and the first English Protestant martyr under Queen Mary...
. The museum's holdings in post-Civil War figural painting and sculpture, include works by Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th century America and a preeminent figure in American art....
, Thomas Eakins
Thomas Eakins
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator...
, Mary Cassatt
Mary Cassatt
Mary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She lived much of her adult life in France, where she first befriended Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the Impressionists...
, John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...
, J. Alden Weir
J. Alden Weir
Julian Alden Weir was an American impressionist painter and member of the Cos Cob Art Colony near Greenwich, Connecticut...
, George de Forest Brush
George de Forest Brush
George de Forest Brush was an American painter. In collaboration with his friend, the artist Abbott H. Thayer, he made contributions to military camouflage, as did his wife, aviator and artist Mary Taylor Brush, and their son, the sculptor Gerome Brush.-Background:Although Brush was born in...
, Joseph DeCamp
Joseph DeCamp
Joseph Rodefer DeCamp was an American painter.-Biography:Born in Cincinnati, Ohio where he studied with Frank Duveneck. In the second half of the 1870s he went with Duveneck and fellow students to the Royal Academy of Munich...
, Frank Benson
Frank Benson
Frank Benson may refer to:*Frank Benson , British actor-manager*Frank Weston Benson , American impressionist artist*Frank W. Benson...
, William Paxton
William Paxton
William Paxton may refer to:* William Paxton , cellist* William McGregor Paxton , American painter* Bill Paxton , actor* William F. Paxton III , politician...
, Elizabeth Nourse
Elizabeth Nourse
Elizabeth Nourse was a portrait and landscape painter born in Cincinnati, Ohio in the Mt. Healthy area...
, and 19 plasters and bronzes by Solon Borglum
Solon Borglum
Solon Hannibal de la Mothe Borglum was an American sculptor. He is most noted for his depiction of frontier life, and especially his experience with cowboys and native Americans....
.
Works by American Impressionists at the museum include a pastel by Mary Cassatt and works by Theodore Robinson
Theodore Robinson
Theodore Robinson was an American painter best known for his impressionist landscapes. He was one of the first American artists to take up impressionism in the late 1880s, visiting Giverny and developing a close friendship with Claude Monet...
, John Henry Twachtman
John Henry Twachtman
John Henry Twachtman was an American painter best known for his impressionist landscapes, though his painting style varied widely through his career. Art historians consider Twachtman's style of American Impressionism to be among the more personal and experimental of his generation...
, J. Alden Weir
J. Alden Weir
Julian Alden Weir was an American impressionist painter and member of the Cos Cob Art Colony near Greenwich, Connecticut...
, Willard Metcalf
Willard Metcalf
Willard Leroy Metcalf was an American artist born in Lowell, Massachusetts. He studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and later attended Académie Julian, Paris. After early figure-painting and illustration, he became prominent as a landscape painter...
, and 11 oil paintings by Childe Hassam
Childe Hassam
Frederick Childe Hassam was a prolific American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressionism to American collectors, dealers, and museums...
. Among the later Impressionist works are paintings by William Glackens
William Glackens
William James Glackens was an American realist painter.Glackens studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and later moved to New York City, where he co-founded what came to be called the Ashcan School art movement...
, Ernest Lawson
Ernest Lawson
Ernest Lawson was a Canadian-American painter and a member of The Eight, a group of artists which included the group's leaders Robert Henri, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, Arthur B. Davies, Maurice Prendergast, George Luks, and William J. Glackens...
, Frederick Carl Frieseke
Frederick Carl Frieseke
Frederick Carl Frieseke was an American Impressionist painter who spent most of his life as an expatriate in France. An influential member of the Giverny art colony, his paintings often concentrated on various effects of dappled sunlight...
, Louis Ritman
Louis Ritman
Louis Ritman was an American impressionist painter. He is best known for his female nudes, painted in a fashion similar to that of his friends Frederick Carl Frieseke, Lawton Parker, and Richard E. Miller, all American artists who studied and lived in France.Ritman was born in Russia and moved...
, Richard Emil Miller, and Maurice Prendergast
Maurice Prendergast
Maurice Brazil Prendergast was an American Post-Impressionist artist who worked in oil, watercolor, and monotype...
.
Thomas Hart Benton (painter)
Thomas Hart Benton was an American painter and muralist. Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. His fluid, almost sculpted paintings showed everyday scenes of life in the United States...
. The museum's contemporary art holdings include works by Chuck Close
Chuck Close
Charles Thomas "Chuck" Close is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits...
, Dan Flavin
Dan Flavin
Dan Flavin was an American minimalist artist famous for creating sculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures.-Early life and career:...
, Eva Hesse
Eva Hesse
Eva Hesse , was a German-born American sculptor, known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. -Early life:Hesse was born into a family of observant Jews in Hamburg, Germany...
, Julie Heffernan
Julie Heffernan
Julie Heffernan is an American illustrator. David Cohen, art critic of The New York Sun, aptly describes Heffernan's art: "These paintings are a hybrid of genres and styles, mixing allegory, portraiture, history painting, and still life, while in title they are all presented as self...
, Walton Ford
Walton Ford
Walton Ford is an American artist who paints large scale watercolors in the style of Audubon's naturalist illustrations. Each painting is a meticulous study in flora and fauna, while being filled with symbols, clues and jokes referencing a multitude of texts from colonial literature and folktales...
and Graydon Parrish
Graydon Parrish
Graydon Parrish is a realist painter living in Austin, Texas. He is both trained in and an exponent of the atelier method which emphasizes classical painting techniques.-Life:...
. Graydon Parrish's large realist painting The Cycle of Terror and Tragedy
The Cycle of Terror and Tragedy
In 2002, Douglas Hyland, the director of the New Britain Museum of American Art, approached Graydon Parrish to create an allegorical tribute to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The completed painting, The Cycle of Terror and Tragedy, is over 18 feet long and is one of the largest...
is also part of the collection. The painting is an allegorical tribute to those lost in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.