Thorne Exhibit Looks at Dublin Art Colony Contributions to American Art
KEENE, N.H., 10/29/07 - The Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery at Keene State College will highlight the contributions to American art of the many artists who comprised New Hampshire’s Dublin Art Colony in an exhibit that opens November 2 and continues through December 9. “On Gilded Pond: The Life and Times of the Dublin Art Colony” will feature artwork and memorabilia by the nationally known artists of the colony, which flourished at the base of Mount Monadnock in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. “On Gilded Pond” will explore the artistic and social milieu that surrounded this creative community that included such notable artists as Gifford Beal, Frank Weston Benson, Barry Faulkner, Alexander James, Rockwell Kent, William Preston Phelps, Joseph Lindon Smith, Edmund C. Tarbell, and Abbott H. Thayer.
The Friends of the Thorne will host a public reception on Friday, November 2, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the gallery, which will be the premiere of this traveling exhibit of work in the Thorne Gallery’s collection and other artwork loaned especially for this exhibit.
This will be the first time the gallery’s Dublin Art Colony collection has traveled from Keene State, explained Maureen Ahern, director of the Thorne Gallery, who cocurated “On Gilded Pond” with Pamela Russell, an art historian. Since the gallery’s founding in 1965, one of its primary missions has been to collect and preserve art from the Dublin Arts Colony as an educational and historical resource for the Monadnock region.
Working with the Dublin Historical Society, the Friends of the Dublin Art Colony, and other public and private collectors, this exhibit consists of more than 50 works of art, photographs, and other memorabilia.
This exhibit will present the Dublin Art Colony not only in terms of art history and its nationally known visual artists, but also as a celebration of the Gilded Age that made the colony possible. In addition to featuring artists’ work, the exhibit includes information about noteworthy people associated with the colony, such as novelist Mark Twain and poet Henry David Thoreau. “On Gilded Pond” provides examples of the colonists’ recreational activities, which included theatrical pageants, and their interesting yet little known accomplishments, such as the development of camouflage by Abbott H. Thayer. In addition, the exhibit looks at local Dubliners and their role in the colony’s summer lifestyle along with the Bostonians who summered in the town, including board game manufacturer Milton Bradley.
After “On Gilded Pond” closes December 2 at the Thorne, the exhibit will travel to The Art Gallery at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.
Also at the Thorne through November 11 is the rarely seen art exhibit “From Cassatt to Wyeth: American Masterworks from the Mitchell Museum,” a collection never before exhibited beyond the gates of its home at the Cedarhurst Center for the Visual Arts in Mt. Vernon, Illinois. This exhibit showcases art by renowned artists, including Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt, Frederick Childe Hassam, John Singer Sargent, George Wesley Bellows, Robert Henri, William Glackens, Andrew Wyeth, and others. The exhibit was developed by the Mitchell Museum at Cedarhurst Center for the Arts and toured by International Arts & Artists, Washington, D.C.
The exhibit and reception are free and open to the public. The Thorne Gallery is open Saturday to Wednesday, from noon to 4 p.m., and Thursday and Friday, from noon to 7 p.m. It will be closed November 12 for Veterans Day and November 21 to 25 for Thanksgiving.
Located on Wyman Way on the KSC campus, the gallery is accessible to people with disabilities. To request accommodations for a disability, please call the gallery at least two weeks before your visit. For more information, call 603-358-2720 or visit www.keene.edu/tsag.
