August 21, 2009
Contact: Susan Hendricks
Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

Lyman Allyn Art Museum opens new exhibition
Imna Arroyo: Ancestral Passage

Imna Arroyo
Ancestral Passage
Multi-media installation
2004/2009

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition, Imna Arroyo: Ancestral Passage, opening September 12, 2009 and on view through February 21, 2010. Ancestral Passage, a room-sized multi-media installation, has been organized by Guest Curator Gustavo Valdés.

Born and raised in Guayama, Puerto Rico, Imna Arroyo was educated in the United States and has been on a quest to visualize her heritage. Like so many other Puerto Ricans, she is of African and Taino descent and knowing little of those cultures, she journeyed to Cuba in search of her heritage. This installation, Ancestral Passage, is the result of her journeys.

Arroyo first visited Cuba six years ago and broadened her research into the African Diaspora. Her trips to Cuba and Africa inspired her to create this work that addresses the Diaspora while reconnecting and visualizing the orishas of the Yoruba culture.

Imna Arroyo has never been satisfied with merely illustrating her own physical presence in her art. Rather, she has used her work to express the profound richness of her heritage and the issues that confront her gender. Arroyo's journey reaches back to her ancestral heritage from Puerto Rico and Africa and forward to the global issues of empowerment of women today, creating a narrative journey in Ancestral Passage with the viewer as a participant.

Imna Arroyo is a Distinguished Professor of Art at Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic, Connecticut. She studied at La Escuela de Artes Plasticas del Instituto de Cultura in San Juan, Puerto Rico and obtained her BFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York and her MFA from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Her work is in numerous collections including the Museum of Modern Art Library, Franklin Furnace Artist Book Collection, Yale University Art Gallery and the Schomberg Center for Research and Black Culture.

Part of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum’s mission is to respond and to appeal to the regional community. In that spirit, the museum has planned an exciting schedule of programs to accompany this exhibition. The programs are designed to engage people of all ages.

Imna Arroyo: Ancestral Passage Programs and Events:

Public Opening and Community Celebration
Saturday, September 12, 1:00 – 4:00 pm
Lyman Allyn Art Museum and the Hispanic Alliance invites the community of Southeastern Connecticut to join in a day celebrating the exhibition and our connection. The festive day will include tours of the exhibition, fun creative art activities for all ages, music, dancing, drumming and food. Don’t miss this very special event! Free and open to all.

Gallery Talk
Arroyo on Ancestral Passage
Sunday, February 7, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Imna Arroyo will discuss her work and heritage. This event is free and open to the public.

Free First Sundays

Join us each month for a fun family day of free art activities, free snacks, and free admission! Art activities will utilize concepts and ideas from Imna Arroyo: Ancestral Passage, as well as Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban Soul exhibition, also on view.
Sundays, 1:00 – 4:00 pm on the following dates:
October 4
November 1
December 6
January 3
February 7

Tours of the exhibition will be available for groups. To schedule tours, call 860-443-2545, x 110 or e-mail at info@lymanallyn.org.

This exhibition is supported in part by the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund, Bank of America, Trustee and with support from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism, and the Hispanic Alliance of New London.

For more information or to request images, please contact Susan Hendricks at 860.443.2545, ext 130 or at hendricks@lymanallyn.org.

July 21, 2009
Contact: Susan Hendricks
Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

Lyman Allyn Art Museum opens new exhibition
Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban Soul

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition, Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban Soul, opening September 12, 2009 and on view through February 21, 2010. Lyman Allyn Art Museum’s partner, the Hispanic Alliance of New London, has provided support for this exhibition with its coordinating programs and events.

Cuban culture has been characterized as an ajiaco or a rich stew consisting of a vast array of ingredients. It is this synthesis that is the essence of Cuban art and the subject of Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban Soul. The exhibition seeks to interpret the diverse social dimensions of Cuban art in a global context through the exploration of its relationship with African, Asian, European, and indigenous influences and belief systems. This art incorporates the tales of the Orisha of Africa, the calligraphy of Chinese Tao Te Ching, and the rituals of indigenous peoples. The formats change, the materials vary, but the mix remains constant in both Cuban and Cuban American art. Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban Soul is not only about Cuban art; it explores diaspora. In broader terms, this project addresses both the immigrant experience and the expression of cultural identity in a new place.

The curator, Dr. Gail Gelburd, a professor of art history at Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic, Connecticut, writes, “Isolated and yet educated, restricted and yet heralded, the Cuban artist embodies the angst of their situation and yet embraces the loftiest of goals. Their syncretist tradition and heritage allows them to go beyond the monotheistic traditions in order to find the origins of their soul, the geist or inner spirit of their art.” Gelburd has been conducting research on Cuban art and artists for over fifteen years. She travels to Cuba regularly and has lectured there for the Havana Biennale, Havana University, and Casa Africa. Gelburd has received numerous grants and awards, including a Rockefeller Foundation grant to conduct research on Cuban art and she is publishing a book on Contemporary Cuban art. Her article “Cuba: The Art of Trading with the Enemy" was published in Art Journal in Spring 2009.

This exhibition consists of more than fifty objects, including paintings, works on paper, photographs, sculpture, installations, and audio works by more than twenty artists. Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban Soul will feature such major figures in Cuban art as Wifredo Lam, Manuel Mendive, Jose Bedia and Sandra Ramos, among others.

Following its time on view in New London, Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban Soul will travel to the Chelsea Art Museum in New York City and then on to the Hilliard Museum at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Part of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum’s mission is to respond and to appeal to the regional community. In that spirit, the museum and its partner The Hispanic Alliance of New London have planned an exciting schedule of programs to accompany this exhibition. The programs are designed to engage people of all ages.

Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban Soul Programs and Events:

Public Opening and Community Celebration
Saturday, September 12, 1:00 – 4:00 pm
Lyman Allyn Art Museum and its exhibition partner the Hispanic Alliance of New London invite the community of Southeastern Connecticut to join in a day celebrating the exhibition and our connection. The festive day will include tours of the exhibition, fun creative art activities for all ages, music, dancing, drumming and food.
Don’t miss this very special event! Free and open to all.

Gallery Talk
Cuba's art scene: Inside and out
Thursday, October 22 at 6:00 pm.
Guest Curator Gail Gelburd will relate the stories behind the art and the artists in the exhibition; their stories of success or censorship, displacement or blockade. Wine and cheese reception at 5:00 pm. Reservations suggested. 860.443.2545 x 112.
$5 members, $10 non-members.

Gallery Talk
Arroyo on Ancestral Passage
Sunday, February 7, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Imna Arroyo, whose work is currently on view in the installation Ancestral Passage, which corresponds with Ajiaco, will discuss her work and heritage.
This event is free and open to the public.

La Noche Del Cine Hispano - Friday Night Hispanic Film Series
Join us at 6:30 pm on the third Friday of each month for a specially selected film in Spanish, with subtitles. Each month, we visit a different country and feature a different director. The Film Series will continue into June although the exhibition is no longer on view. Free with museum admission.

September 18 - Cuba: Lista de espera by Juan Carlos Tabío
October 16 - Mexico: La misma luna by Patricia Riggen
November 20 - Columbia: Sumas y restas by Víctor Gaviria
December 18 - Argentina: El hijo de la novia by Juan José Campanella
January 15 - Uruguay: El baño del Papa by César Charlone and Enrique Fernández
February 19 - Peru: Paloma de papel by Fabrizio Aguilar
March 19 – Ecuador: Qué tan lejos by Tania Hermida
April 16 - Chile: Machuca by Andres Wood
May 21 - Spain: Abrazos rotos by Pedro Almodóvar
June 18 - USA Latino: Sin nombre by Cary Fukunaga

Free First Sundays
Join us each month for a fun family day of free art activities, free snacks, and free admission! Art activities will utilize concepts and themes from the Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban Soul exhibition. Sundays, 1:00 – 4:00 pm on the following dates: October 4
November 1
December 6
January 3
February 7

Tomas Sanchez (b. 1948) Paisaje con Orilla, 1986 Oil on canvas, 70 ½ x 89 1/2”	Manuel Mendive Se Alimenta mi Espiritu, 2007, Acrylic on canvas 64 ¾” x 95”

Jose Bedia Santo Oficio, 2003 Acrylic and oil on canvas, 35 x 114”

April 9, 2009
For Immediate Release
Contact: Susan Hendricks
Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

Lyman Allyn Art Museum presents
An Evening with Sheila Lukins

On Tuesday, April 28, 2009, the Lyman Allyn Art Museum is very pleased to present An Evening With Sheila Lukins, a talk, book signing and reception with noted chef and author Sheila Lukins of Silver Palate cookbook fame. The museum event is in partnership with Bank Square Books of Mystic, Connecticut.

As an introduction to her new cookbook, Ten: All the Foods We Love and Ten Recipes for Each, Sheila Lukins will talk and take questions from 5:00 to 5:45 pm. Following her talk, from 5:45 to 7:00 pm, Lukins will participate in a book signing and reception in the museum library. The reception will feature a selection of tastings prepared by some of the best area restaurants and inspired by recipes in Ten. Among the restaurants that will cook from Lukins book are Captain Daniel Packer Inn, Azu, Noah’s, Mangetout and Mystic Soup Company. Copies of all Sheila Lukins cookbooks will be available for purchase, with a percentage of the proceeds going to the museum.

Admission for the talk is $5 for members of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum and $10 for nonmembers. Seating is limited; please call to reserve seats (860) 443-2545 ext. 112. The reception and book signing is free and open to the public.

About the cookbook
Steak. Burgers. Salsa. Lobsters. Chocolate. Pasta. Ice cream. Shrimp. Comforting Sunday suppers for the fall; steaming bowls of intensely flavored stews for the winter; the first asparagus of spring; corn and tomatoes in the height of summer. These are the foods people are passionate about. Sheila Lukins identifies 32 that she considers a perfect 10. Then she obsessively offers the ten very best recipes for each, and voilá: Ten: All the Foods We Love and Ten Perfect Recipes for Each.

With 24 pages of full-color photographs, boxes of Sheila’s sage kitchen wisdom sprinkled throughout—featuring everything from choosing the best vanilla and picking the best pineapple to wine pairings-as well as charming commentary from Sheila, Ten is a celebration of the best of the best.

About Sheila Lukins
Sheila Lukins helped change the way Americans eat with her best-selling cookbook The Silver Palate Cookbook. She is also the co-author of Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook and The New Basics, coauthored with Julee Rosso. Her other delicious works include, All Around the World Cookbook, USA Cookbook and Celebrate! Lukins has received numerous awards for her contributions to the food world, including being inducted into the James Beard Foundation’s Cookbook Hall of Fame. She is the long-time food editor and columnist for Parade magazine. She lives in New York City.

For more information or to request images, please contact Susan Hendricks at 860.443.2545, ext 130 or at hendricks@lymanallyn.org.

February 11, 2009
Contact: Susan Hendricks
Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

Lyman Allyn Art Museum opens new exhibition
Elizabeth Enders:
Landscape/Language/Line

This is a Public Beach III
1972 *
Acrylic on canvas
47 x 72 inches

Iris/Peony/Chive II, Day I
2007 *
Colored pencil, pencil on paper
14 x 11 inches

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition, Elizabeth Enders: Landscape/Language/Line, opening March 7 and on view through August 23, 2009.

Elizabeth Enders was born and raised in New London, Connecticut so it is a special honor for the Museum to mount the first retrospective of this important contemporary American artist. Five decades of Enders’ work will be on view ranging from marine landscapes to large language-based paintings to small, intimate watercolor botanicals.

Elizabeth Enders: Landscape/Language/Line is curated by Charlotta Kotik, Curator Emerita of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum. Kotik has been praised by the New York Times as “the unofficial but undisputed top talent scout” for artists in New York City. Kotik will present a lecture Elizabeth Enders: The Line Revisited on Thursday, April 2.

Curator Kotik comments on Enders’ work: “Lyrical and meditative, Elizabeth Enders heightens our curiosity to learn more about the world around us, to penetrate deeper into the often-concealed magic of simple everyday experiences. The power of Enders’ artistic persuasion energizes our perception to see the beauty in the simple willow twig as much as in the magnificence of the ocean.”

The exhibition is accompanied by an 80-page exhibition catalogue Elizabeth Enders: Landscape/ Language/Line that features an essay written by Guest Curator Charlotta Kotik, an interview with Elia by Irving Sandler, pre-eminent American Art Historian, and a foreward by Nancy Stula, Director of the Museum. The catalog sells for $18 and is available in the Museum shop.

Part of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum’s mission is to respond and to appeal to the regional community. In that spirit, the museum has planned an exciting schedule of programs to accompany this exhibition. The programs are designed to engage people of all ages.

Elizabeth Enders: Landscape/Language/Line Programs and Events:

Lectures
Elizabeth Enders: The Line Revisited
Thursday, April 2, 2009 6:00 pm.
Charlotta Kotik, Guest Curator of the exhibition and Curator Emerita of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum. Kotik has known the artist for some time, making her insights particularly enlightening when visitors view the exhibition and then come to the lecture. Wine and cheese reception at 5:00 pm. Reservations suggested. 860.443.2545 x 112. $5 members, $10 non-members.

Chastity, Love, and Transcendence: Gardens and Flowers in Art
Thursday, June 4, 6:00 pm.
Robert Baldwin, Professor of Art History at Connecticut College, will present the lecture Chastity, Love, and Transcendence: Gardens and Flowers in Art and contextualize Enders’ botanicals within the history of garden and flower images. Wine and cheese reception at 5:00 pm. Reservations suggested. 860. 443. 2545 x 112. $5 members, $10 non-members.

Symposium
The State of American Museums.
Wednesday, April 8, 4:00 pm.
Offered by Connecticut College in conjunction with the Lyman Allyn Art Museum and to be held in Evans Hall on the college campus. Symposium participants include Jock Reynolds, Director of Yale University Art Gallery and Agnes Gund, President Emerita of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Please call Debbie Radachy at 860-439-2740 for more information.

Films
Saturday, March 21, 1:00 pm, Great Women Artists Films Series: Mary Cassatt
Saturday, April 18, 1:00 pm, Great Women Artists Films Series: Georgia O’Keeffe
Saturday, May 23, 1:00 pm, Great Women Artists Films Series: Frida Kahlo
Free with museum admission.

Children’s Programs
Abstract Painting Workshop for Children, Saturday, March 28, 1:00 – 3:00 pm
This workshop will allow children ages 6-12 to explore a variety of abstract painting techniques, inspired by the Elizabeth Enders exhibition. Space is limited and reservations required 860. 443.2545 x 110. $10 per child.

Free First Sundays
Join us for a fun family day of free art activities, free snacks, and free admission! Art activities will utilize concepts and ideas from the Elizabeth Enders exhibition.
Sunday, April 5, 1:00 – 4:00 pm
Sunday, May 3, 1:00 – 4:00 pm

Tours of the exhibition will be available for groups. Call Jane Seney, Education Director, to schedule tours: 860-443-2545, x 110 or e-mail at seney@lymanallyn.org.

This exhibition is supported in part by the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund, Bank of America, Trustee and with support from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism.

February 10, 2009
For Immediate Release
Contact: Susan Hendricks
Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

Dr. Nancy Stula Named Director at Lyman Allyn Art Museum

Director Dr. Nancy Stula
Photo courtesy Joe Standart

The Lyman Allyn Art Museum has announced today that Dr. Nancy Stula has been appointed Director. Stula has served as Interim Director for the past year. She has been an active and vital member of the Museum staff since her arrival in 2003 when she was appointed Deputy Director and Curator. Through programming and exhibitions, Stula has consistently demonstrated a strong commitment to making the Museum’s offerings relevant to the greater New London community. Her most recent curatorial project, devoted to the little-known Hudson River School artist and Transcendentalist Christopher Pearse Cranch, was widely acclaimed in the national and local press.

Dr. William A. Lieber, President of the Board of Trustees of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, comments about the appointment, "Representing the full membership of the Museum's Board, I am very pleased to announce that Nancy Stula has been named the new Director of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum. We have had the good fortune to have her energy and commitment benefit the Museum since 2003, first as Curator and, most recently, this past year as interim Director. She has clearly demonstrated a deep knowledge of the Museum's resources, a broad understanding of the community we serve, and ease in the wider art world. She has stepped up this year to provide imaginative leadership of the 77-year old institution. As we move forward to become an even more dynamic resource relevant to our community and region, we are most delighted to have Nancy assume full responsibility as Director."

In accepting the position of Director, Stula stated, “I am thrilled to take on this new level of responsibility. The Museum has an outstanding staff and an important collection. We have always been an integral part of New London and Southeastern Connecticut and I look forward, in the months ahead, to strengthening our commitment to the community and to providing educational opportunities for children and their families.”

Nancy Stula, 47, was raised in Colchester, Connecticut. She received her Ph.D. in Art History from Columbia University. Stula previously worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in the Department of American Paintings and taught at the University of Hartford. Stula lives in Old Lyme with her husband and son.

The many successes during Stula’s tenure as Interim Director in 2008 have covered a broad range of projects and exhibitions. The Museum team completed a major renovation project supported by a Bond from the State of Connecticut that included the upgrade of the main Museum building as well as the historic Deshon Allyn House on the Museum grounds. In November 2008, the Lyman Allyn launched the After School Arts and Literacy Program, sponsored by a four-year challenge grant from a New York foundation. In partnership with the Drop-in Learning Center in New London, the Museum offers a curriculum-based after school program for elementary school students that provides both enrichment in the arts and academic support. An important component of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum’s mission is to make art accessible, engaging and relevant to adults and children of all ages in our community.

The Lyman Allyn’s Fall 2008 exhibition, Walter Wick: Games, Gizmos, and Toys in the Attic, featured large, highly detailed photographs and attracted diverse new audiences. The Museum posted an increase in visitorship of 18% and opened the doors seven days a week to accommodate the demand of school field trips. Looking ahead, the Lyman Allyn will mount several important and diverse exhibitions in 2009, including Elizabeth Enders: Landscape/Language/Line, a retrospective exhibition of Enders’ work from the past five decades, and Remembering Charles Chu, a tribute to the beloved artist and Connecticut College professor who so engaged the Southeastern Connecticut community.

February 9, 2009
For Immediate Release
Contact: Susan Hendricks
Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

What’s the Word: Words and Symbols from the
Lyman Allyn Art Museum opens in New London

Loiuse McCagg
Circle Book, 2001
Paper, walnut, and aluminum

Maureen McCabe
Sophie’s Advice, 2005
Mixed media on paper

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition What’s the Word: Words and Symbols from the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, opening on February 24 and on view through November 30, 2008. Curated by Zina Davis, Director of the Joseloff Gallery at the University of Hartford, this exhibition features word and symbol based art from the Museum’s permanent collection.

Language is often incorporated into works of art in ways that encourage the viewer to consider the meaning of words and symbols in relation to the visual experience. Some works ask the viewer to read the text provided, as in Sophie’s Advice, an assemblage by Maureen McCabe, where paragraphs from an almanac contextualize the image within the patterns of women’s history. Louise McCagg’s Circle Book, a recent acquisition by the Museum, is a cylindrical sculpture that is also a book, allowing words and images to blur together as it spins.

In some works of art, the viewer must look closely even to locate the words and symbols, while in others, text – letters, words, sentences - plays a prominent role. For Elizabeth Enders, the words are the art. In her print, Untitled / Formula I, which transcribes the formula for acceleration, Enders focuses on the calligraphic potential of the letters, numbers, and symbols. Works by Jim Dine, Howardina Pindell and Andy Warhol are also featured.

Although words and symbols are frequently found in contemporary art, What’s the Word: Words and Symbols from the Lyman Allyn Art Museum demonstrates that there is also a strong historical precedent for works of art that integrate text with image. Language plays a dominant role in the early American sampler, the medieval illuminated manuscript, and the Farsi marriage document; all were intended to be read. Symbols are prominently featured on the 19th century Chinese bronze ritual vessel, the ancient Roman pottery, the ancient Egyptian falcon mummy sarcophagus and two ushabti figures, all of which are on view in this exhibition. These symbol-laden works relay information that would have been easily “read” by the people who used these objects. Language is seamlessly integrated into these art objects and the result is a unity of aesthetic and purpose.

Coordinating programming for What’s the Word: Words and Symbols from the Lyman Allyn Art Museum includes the following:

Free First Sundays
Join us for a fun family day of free art activities that coordinate with the current exhibit, free snacks, and free admission!
March 1, 1:00 – 4:00 pm
April 5, 1:00 – 4:00 pm
May 3, 1:00 – 4:00 pm
June 7, 1:00 – 4:00 pm

Saturday, March 28, 1 pm
Film: Helvetica
In conjunction the current exhibition, What’s the Word, the Museum is screening this fascinating and acclaimed documentary that examines how and why the Helvetica font has become the most popular font in the world. Interviews with designers and artists offer insight into the development, use and universal acceptance of Helvetica as the typeface of choice for everything from writing letters to creating corporate logos. Free with Museum admission.

This exhibition is supported in part by the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund, Bank of America, Trustee; and with support from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism.

Tours of the exhibition will be available for groups. Call Jane Seney, Education Director, for more information or to schedule tours: 860.443.2545, ext 110.
For more information or to request images, please contact Susan Hendricks at 860.443.2545, ext 130 or at hendricks@lymanallyn.org.

February 2, 2009
For Immediate Release
Contact: Susan Hendricks
Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

Lyman Allyn Art Museum opens new exhibition
dedicated to Charles Chu

Charles Chu
There is No Place Like Home
n. d.
Ink on rice paper

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition, Remembering Charles Chu.

Charles Chi-Jung Chu (1918-2008) was a master painter, calligrapher, scholar and professor emeritus of Chinese at Connecticut College. Chu was a highly respected and beloved member of the Southeastern Connecticut community. He was a professor at Connecticut College for 19 years and was responsible for introducing the study of Mandarin Chinese to the campus in 1965. Charles Chu was as well known for his landscape watercolors as he was for his whimsical painted depictions of the college campus and of the college’s camel mascot.

As a tribute to the life and creativity of Charles Chu, the Museum, along with the Departments of Art History and Architectural Studies and the Charles E. Shain Library, will co-sponsor two special exhibitions of paintings by Charles Chu. The artworks in the exhibitions will be on loan from the private collections of Connecticut College faculty, staff, alumni and members of the New London community.

Remembering Charles Chu will open at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum on Sunday February 8 and remain on view through April 12. Remembering Charles Chu: A Special Exhibition of Love and Friendship will open in the Chu Reading Room at the Connecticut College Library, on Sunday, February 8 and remain on view through April 20, 2009. Exhibition Guest Curator Professor Qiang Ning is the Chu-Niblack Associate Professor of Asian Art and Curator of the Chu-Griffis Collection of Asian Art at Connecticut College.

Members of the college community and local communities in southeastern Connecticut are invited to attend the opening ceremony and reception at 4:30 pm on Sunday, February 8, 2009. For more information, contact Professor Qiang Ning at qning@conncoll.edu or Susan Hendricks at 860.443.2545 ext. 130.

This exhibition is supported in part by the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund, Bank of America, Trustee; Pfizer Inc, and with support from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism.

October 10, 2008
Contact: Susan Hendricks
Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

Lyman Allyn Art Museum new home of monumental sculpture
Star and Sea by Allyson Holtz

Lyman Allyn Art Museum is very pleased to announce that the monumental sculpture Star and Sea, designed by artist and Connecticut native Allyson Holtz, will be moved to its new home on the front lawn of the museum on October 23, 2008.

Built in 1981, the 25’ x 12’ x 12’, eight ton Cor-ten steel sculpture will be relocated from the parklet adjacent to the Water St. parking garage to make way for the renovated Parade Plaza. The sculpture, fabricated by the former Thames Valley Steel Co, was the Company’s gift to the City of New London.

The monumental sculpture Star and Sea is a site-specific work that Holtz created to reflect the rich history and character of New London. She comments, “Because its harbor was considered the best deep water harbor on Long Island Sound, the city became a base of American Naval operations during the Revolutionary War. Then, in the 19th century, it grew to be the second busiest whaling port in the world. The original location of the sculpture - overlooking the Thames River and beyond it, Long Island Sound - points to the significance of water, the sea, submarines, and sailing ships.”

Holtz explains her design was inspired by nautical instruments: “I connected to nautical instruments of measurement: the quadrant and the sextant. The triangularity of the instruments and the shapes of sails were my visual starting points. These instruments were the vital guides directing mariners from New London to all parts of the globe and back. With troops from this region serving on many different fronts overseas, I see the work as an ‘emblem of safe return’ and as important now as it was to the early travelers.”

The artist continues, “I envisioned Star and Sea as a metaphorical instrument, projecting imaginary lines through time and space; connecting the City to its history, anchoring it to its present and projecting it into its future.”

The late George Plimpton, actor, author, and editor-in-chief of the Paris Review, dedicated the sculpture during New London’s 1981 Sailfest. At the dedication, Plimpton said he envied sculptors because they “can produce vast pieces of lasting work” and went on to say that Star and Sea “has caught the spirit and technology of the harbor.”

Lyman Allyn Art Museum is pleased to be the repository of this sculpture, on long-term loan from the City of New London. A dedication ceremony will be held in the Spring of 2009.

Allyson Holtz is a third generation Connecticut artist who currently resides and works in Pittsburgh, PA. Following studies at The Hartford Art School, Holtz trained as a structural welder at General Dynamic’s Electric Boat Division and went into the Groton shipyard as a nuclear submarines fabricator. Her interest in this intense hands-on experience led her to studies in the History of American Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a graduate degree from Wesleyan University.

For more information or to request images, please contact Susan Hendricks at 860.443.2545, ext 130 or at hendricks@lymanallyn.org.

August 14, 2008
Contact: Susan Hendricks
Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

Lyman Allyn Art Museum launches new exhibition project
Community Comment

Jane Glover and her selection Self Portrait: Thinking of Van Gogh by Harris Rodvogin.

Museums around the world regularly face the challenge of engaging audiences from their surrounding communities and have been adopting a more democratic approach when dealing with interpretation in their galleries. At the Tate Britain, any visitor can submit language for wall text to be displayed alongside a world-renowned work of art. At the Brooklyn Museum of Art, a young student’s reaction to an Egyptian sculpture is displayed alongside text from one of the museum’s curators. Increasingly, museums recognize the importance of honoring voices from the community as a way to engage audiences from diverse socio-economic and cultural backgrounds.

Lyman Allyn Art Museum will join this prestigious list of world-class museums when it premiers Community Comment on September 7. The exhibition will be on view through December 31, 2008.

Part of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum’s mission is dedicated to engaging and responding to the regional community. The concept of Community Comment is to select several members of the surrounding community and invite them in to view the museum’s permanent collection, along with the museum’s Registrar. They will choose an artwork that resonates for them or captures their attention in a specific way. Participants will then create an essay, poem or other written work that explains how and/or why the artwork “spoke” to them. The artworks will be installed on the museum’s main floor, along with wall text including the written comments by the participants about their selections.

The Community Comment exhibition will launch with these Southeast Connecticut community members:

Joshua Chang:
A fourth grade student at the Old Saybrook Middle School and winner of the museum’s 2007 “Name the Falcon Mummy” Contest

Christopher Clouet:
New London resident and community “cheerleader” as well as Superintendent of the New London School System

Jane Glover:
Formerly mayor of New London and currently Director of Kente Cultural Center

Mirna Martinez:
New London resident and teacher at the Dual Language Arts School in New London

A celebration for the opening of Community Comment, as well as the exhibition Walter Wick: Games, Gizmos and Toys in the Attic, will take place from 1:00 – 4:00 pm on Sunday, September 7. The event is free and open to the public.

This exhibition is supported in part by the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund, Bank of America, Trustee; Pfizer Inc, and with support from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism.

July 14, 2008
Contact: Susan Hendricks
Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

Lyman Allyn Art Museum opens new exhibition
Walter Wick:
Games, Gizmos and Toys in the Attic

Water Wicks and Castle

Walter Wicks
Puss in Botts

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition, Walter Wick: Games, Gizmos and Toys in the Attic, opening September 6, 2008 and on view through January 26, 2009.

The playful, inventive, and interactive world of best-selling author and photographer Walter Wick is the subject of this exciting exhibition. Walter Wick is the co-creator (with Jean Marzollo) of I Spy and the creator of the Can You See What I See? books for children, published by Scholastic, both of which are long-time national best-sellers. Most of Wick’s books challenge readers to solve visual riddles or puzzles created from the thousands of props he has collected at his studio, a renovated firehouse in the Hartford’s south end. His photographic style, one of precision and detail, will alter the viewer’s sense of visual perception.

For Walter Wick: Games, Gizmos and Toys in the Attic, more than sixty of Wick’s large-scale photographs and examples of his sets will fill the museum’s second floor. “The photographs will be enlarged to five or six feet wide with details, colors and tones not possible in book reproductions,” says Wick, noting that the exhibition will present a “playful sense of scale, space and the unexpected.” He honed his skills while working in a commercial studio for several years, experimenting with mirrors, time exposures, multiple exposures, photo composites and other tricks. “Some 30 years later, all the techniques, tinkering and experiments are folded into my work,” Wick comments.

A very special component of this exhibition will be some of the original sets from Wick’s newest book, Can You See What I See? On a Scary Scary Night, to be published this August by Cartwheel Books, an imprint of Scholastic. In this adaptation of the classic folktale In a Dark, Dark Wood, Walter Wick has taken his photographic technique to new levels in a bold search-and-find book that combines spooky folktales, clever rhymes, and stunning images. Can You See What I See? On a Scary Scary Night will take readers on a hair-raising journey through a creepy town all the way up to the highest tower in an eerie old castle. At several events in September and October, visitors will have the opportunity to meet Walter Wick and have him sign their copy of his new book.

Walter Wick: Games, Gizmos and Toys in the Attic will delight museum visitors and will be a stimulating experience for the eye as well as the mind. Part of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum’s mission is to respond and to appeal to the regional community. In that spirit, the museum has planned an exciting schedule of programs to accompany this exhibition. The programs are designed to engage people of all ages.

Walter Wick: Games, Gizmos and Toys in the Attic Programs and Events:

Sunday, September 7, 1 - 4 pm
Free First Sunday: Can You See What I See Extravaganza
Free art activities, I-Spys in the galleries, and puzzles and games throughout the day!
Kid-friendly refreshments and lots of fun!

Sunday, September 21, 1 - 3 pm
Whittle Like Walter
Learn how to carve figures, animals and buildings in soap, wax and clay!
Ages 6-12. $3 per child.

Sunday, October 5, 1 - 4 pm
Free First Sunday: Can You See What I See Extravaganza
Free art activities, I-Spys in the galleries, and puzzles and games throughout the day!

Sunday, October 19, 1 - 5 pm
Meet the Artist Talk – Special Event
Come meet Walter Wick and learn how he makes the amazing pictures in his books.
Walter Wick will also be available to sign his new book Can You See What I See? On a Scary Scary Night.
Free and open to the public.

Sunday, October 26, 1 - 5 pm – Special Event!
Scary Scary Night
In honor of Walter Wick’s new book Can You See What I See? On a Scary Scary Night, please join us for a festive day of Halloween activities including mask making and jack-o-lantern carving. A special twilight tour of the Doll Collection will be offered! Come dressed to impress because there will be prizes for the best costume!
$5 per person.

Sunday, November 2, 1 - 4 pm
Free First Sunday: Can You See What I See Extravaganza
Free art activities, I-Spys in the galleries, and puzzles and games throughout the day!

Sunday, November 16, 1 - 3 pm
The Art of Illusion
Taking a cue from Walter Wick, this art activity, led by our museum educator, is designed for kids ages 8-14 to learn how to create optical illusions that dazzle the eye!
$3 per person.

Sunday, December 7, 1 - 4 pm
Free First Sunday: Can You See What I See Extravaganza
Free art activities, I-Spys in the galleries, and puzzles and games throughout the day!

Sunday, December 14, 1 - 3 pm
Riddle Me This! Game Day at the Museum
After the challenge of an I-Spy, get competitive with board games and puzzles!
Get some holiday shopping done in the Museum gift shop – including Walter Wick books, puzzles, games and calendars for your favorite child. Members’ double discount day.
$3 per child.

Sunday, January 4, 1 - 4 pm
Free First Sunday: Can You See What I See Extravaganza
Free art activities, I-Spys in the galleries, and puzzles and games throughout the day!

Sunday, January 11, 1 - 3 pm
Whittle Like Walter
Learn how to carve figures, animals and buildings in soap, wax and clay!
Ages 6-12. $3 per child.

Sunday, January 25, 1 - 5 pm
Walter Wick: Games, Gizmos and Toys in the Attic Send-off Celebration
One last chance to see the show!
Free for all – join us!

Tours of the exhibition will be available for groups.
Special Can You See What I See and I Spy birthday parties for children will be available.
Call Jane Seney, Education Director, for more information or to schedule tours and/or parties: 860-443-2545, x 110.

This exhibition is supported in part by the Mohegan Tribe and Mohegan Sun Casino, the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund, Bank of America, Trustee; Pfizer Inc, and with support from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism.

Walter Wick: Games, Gizmos and Toys in the Attic has been organized by the New Britain Museum of American Art.

April 30, 2008
Contact: Susan Hendricks
Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

Lyman Allyn Art Museum opens new photography exhibition
Peter Harron: Moroccan Landscapes

Peter Harron
Camel Tracks
Silver gelatin print - 2007

Peter Harron
Kasbah, Tanoumrhit
Silver gelatin print - 2007

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition, Peter Harron: Moroccan Landscapes, opening on May 31 and on view through August 17, 2008. The opening reception is on Saturday, May 31 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm and is open to the public.

Peter Harron: Moroccan Landscapes presents the recent work of the Essex-based photographer. These stunning and evocative black and white photographs were taken on Harron’s 2007 trip to Morocco. Harron and his French-born wife Colette, as translator, went to Morocco for three weeks for the sole purpose of photographing the stark and beautiful environment. Most of their days consisted of rising early and going into the desert to shoot the landscape. Harron takes relatively few shots of any given scene. He prefers, instead, to spend his time setting up the precise shot to get his final image. The photographic results are compelling and hypnotic.

Born in Bermuda, Peter Harron’s roots are in still photography and he started his career at the age of nine when he received a camera and developing kit that he put to immediate use. Despite this early start in photography, Harron’s background is actually in theatre and film production. In New York, he studied with Uta Hagen as well as Lee Strasbourg in The Director’s Unit and he produced with Edward Albee. Harron was the cinematographer on the anti-war documentaries “Anti-War Music Festival” featuring Jimi Hendrix, among other major rock stars, in Madison Square Garden in the late 1960s and “Listen America,” as well as the documentary “Raoni” featuring Marlon Brando.

Harron returned to his first love of black and white still photography in the late 1980s and hasn’t looked back. His work has been shown in the U. S. as well as internationally. Peter Harron is represented in several books including “Effektiv Visuell Kommunication,” published in Sweden in 2007, with the English version due in 2008.

The photographs on view in Peter Harron: Moroccan Landscapes present the rugged yet dazzling landscape of Northern Africa. The images range from the almost abstract to “posed” desert scenes. In this exhibit, the viewer will take a visual journey, following in Harron’s footsteps in Morocco.

This exhibition is supported in part by the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund, Bank of America, Trustee; Pfizer, and with support from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism.

February 20, 2008
Contact: Susan Hendricks
Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

Lyman Allyn Art Museum opens new exhibition
A Work in Progress:
Fifty Years of Collecting Contemporary Art at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition, A Work in Progress: Fifty Years of Collecting Contemporary Art at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, opening to the public on March 15 and on view through August 17, 2008.

Contemporary art poses such questions as - where does the past stop and the present begin? Where does the local artist meet with and become a colleague of internationally recognized artists? These are questions that will be posed and discussed at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum’s galleries this spring. The museum is hosting an exhibition of work drawn from its rarely seen collection of contemporary art, all of which has been acquired since 1958, both through purchase and donation. Adjunct Professor of Art History at Connecticut College Janis Mink curates this exhibition with the assistance of the students in her seminar class “Issues in Contemporary Art.” Their goal is to offer an elegant and surprising presentation that will showcase the museum’s holdings. A Work in Progress: Fifty Years of Collecting Contemporary Art at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum will exhibit photographs, paintings and works on paper from the mid-twentieth century until today, with an emphasis on the past twenty years. An impressive list of artists will be on view including Richard Avedon, Ellen Carey, Nan Goldin, Alex Katz, Barbara Kruger, Annie Leibovitz, Sally Mann, Sol LeWitt, Sam Messer, Elizabeth Peyton, Andres Serrano, and William Wegman, among others.

Coordinating programming for A Work in Progress: Fifty Years of Collecting Contemporary Art at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum will include the following:

Sundays, March 30 and April 27, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Who Gets to Call It Art?
Accompanying the exhibit 50 Years of Collecting Contemporary Art, the Museum is proud to screen this acclaimed documentary film. In the 1960’s, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's first curator of contemporary art, Henry Geldzahler, bore witness to an exciting era in art and museum history that saw the rise of Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns and the iconic Andy Warhol. This vibrant documentary combines Geldzahler's recollections of his experiences with rare footage and interviews with working artists of the period, including David Hockney, James Rosenquist and Frank Stella. Free with admission.

Sunday, April 20, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Gallery Talk for A Work in Progress: Fifty Years of Collecting Contemporary Art. Join Janis Mink, guest curator for this exhibition, as she takes visitors through the galleries and describes the works and the process of artwork selection for the exhibition. The gallery talk is followed by a wine and cheese reception at 3:00 pm. This event is free and open to the public.

Sunday, May 4, 2008, 1:00 – 4:00 pm
Free First Sunday
Contemporary Art: Bright Colors, Big Paper
Design abstract patterns or create an Expressionist self-portrait. Art projects, tasty treats, an exhibition tour, a scavenger hunt, a movie & more! Free and fun for all.

There will also be gallery talks, artists’ conversations and docent-led tours. The schedule will be posted on the museum website. Visit us on-line at www.lymanallyn.org.

This exhibition is supported in part by the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund, Bank of America, Trustee; Pfizer, and with support from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism.

Ellen Carey Blinks Color photogram 2005 20 x 16 inches	Sam Messer Mr. Coincidence 1999 Oil on canvas	Cleve Gray (American, 1918-2004) Zen Garden Acrylic on canvas

February 11, 2008                                                                For Immediate Release
Contact: Susan Hendricks
Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

Dr. Nancy Stula, Deputy Director, Named Interim Director
at Lyman Allyn Art Museum

Interim Director Dr. Nancy Stula
Photo courtesy Joe Standart

The Board of Trustees of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum has named Dr. Nancy Stula as Interim Director to replace departing Director Ronald Crusan.

Dr. Nancy Stula, Deputy Director and Curator of the museum, has been an active and vital member of the museum staff since her arrival in 2003. Through programming and exhibitions, she has continually demonstrated a strong commitment to making the museum’s offerings relevant to the greater New London community. Her most recent exhibition, devoted to the Hudson River School transcendentalist Christopher Pearse Cranch, has been extraordinarily well received in the local and national press. Dr. Stula holds a PhD in American art history from Columbia University. She previously worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and taught at the University of Hartford. She is on the Board of Trustees of the Hartford Art School.

When the Lyman Allyn Art Museum re-emerged as an independent community museum in 2004, after eight years of stewardship by Connecticut College, Ronald Crusan was recruited to rebuild the staff, restructure the museum’s administrative and financial organization and to assist in developing a strong
and functioning Board. During his tenure, he oversaw the implementation and completion of a $1 million Bond Project from the State of Connecticut that
helped update the physical plant, redesign collection storage and beautify the museum grounds.

Ronald Crusan was also very active in strengthening the museum’s collections, acquiring major additions of art, including a fine Gilbert Stuart portrait, Henry Ward Ranger’s 1911 View of New London from the Groton Shipyards, a
number of important contemporary photography folios, works by recognized contemporary artists and a promised gift of over 150 works of modern
American art.

“Ron Crusan joined the museum at a critical time when the institution returned to its former status as a community museum.  During his tenure, Crusan brought a special expertise to redirecting the museum’s operations and management. He leaves the Lyman Allyn on a very firm operational foundation for its future growth and development,” said Dr. Sandy Lieber, President of the Board of Trustees.

Lyman Allyn Art Museum was established in 1926 by Harriet Upson Allyn in memory of her father, Lyman Allyn, as a place for local citizens to learn about art and culture. Housed in a handsome Neo-Classical building designed by Charles A. Platt, the permanent collection includes over 10,000 paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, furniture and decorative arts, with an emphasis on American art from the 18th through 20th centuries.  The museum has been a center for arts education for children and adults for the past half century and is currently working with the New London Public Schools on a curriculum-based after-school program for elementary school students.                       

February 1, 2008                                                                  For Immediate Release
Contact: Susan Hendricks
Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

Lyman Allyn Art Museum opens new exhibition

Just When You Think Art is Dead, Here Comes JED

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition Just When You Think Art is Dead, Here Comes JED, opening on March 1 and on view through April 27, 2008.

JED is a three person collaborative who use the first initial of their birth names to form
a fictitious contemporary lens-based, conceptual photographic artist in the early 21st century.  JED represents their collective alter egos, whose identity is a secret.

Borrowing from the Dada and Surrealist’s art movements, which includes stream-of-consciousness to make art and found objects not traditionally used for art making, championed by Marcel Duchamp for example, JED focuses their attention on a selection of photographic images, such as test strips and “bad” prints that were discarded and thrown out by their original picture makers (the unidentified “real” artists).

These found/abandoned images are then re-contextualized and elevated to “high” art with a sense of humor that underscores the absurd, the forgotten, and now serves as documents of the human attempt to make art despite constant failure, what is commonly known as the “artist’s struggle”.  This unique and provocative exhibition is guaranteed to stimulate conversation and controversy.
 
This exhibition is supported in part by the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund, Bank of America, Trustee; Pfizer, and with support from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism.

December 14, 2007                                                             For Immediate Release
Contact: Susan Hendricks
Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

Lyman Allyn Art Museum opens new exhibition
Tradition et Innovation

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition Tradition et Innovation: French Art from the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, opening on January 19 and on view throughout 2008.

Presenting French art from the permanent collection, Tradition et Innovation features paintings, drawings, prints, and sculpture from the 17th through the 20th centuries. Works on view include J.A.D. Ingres's important pencil study for the portrait of Mme. Moitessier Standing (c.1851), Pierre Auguste Renoir's bronze Maternite' (1916) and Auguste Rodin's sculpture Study of a Crouching Woman.  For this exhibition, the museum will also mount 17th century drawings by Nicholas Poussin, Hyacinthe Rigaud and Francois Boucher as well as paintings by Pierre Mignard, Gustave Courbet and Honoré Daumier.  Tradition et Innovation offers a rare opportunity to see world-class French art in New London.

Pierre Mignard (1612-1695)
Portrait of a Lady
n/d
Oil on canvas

Anton Mauve (1838-1888)
Shepherd and Sheep
(n/d)
Watercolor and gouache on paper

Coordinating programming includes the following:
The film A Day in the Country: Impressionism and the French Landscape will be screened in
the Museum's auditorium on selected Saturday and Sunday afternoons throughout the year. 
The schedule will be posted on the museum website.

 A newly developed program - Café and Conversation – will take place in the museum café and offers an opportunity for viewers to interact with the curator and museum staff to discuss various aspects of the exhibition, as well as broader art historical concepts.  Call the museum at 860-443-2545 for a schedule of dates for Café and Conversation.

Tours of the exhibition will be available in French, geared to middle school and high school groups.  Call Jane Seney, Education Director, for more information or to schedule tours:
860-443-2545, x 110.

This exhibition is supported in part by the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund, Bank of America, Trustee; Pfizer, and with support from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism.

November 5, 2007

Les Santons de Provence opens at
Lyman Allyn Art Museum

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces the opening of the family favorite seasonal exhibition
Les Santons de Provence on November 23, 2007, on view through January 20, 2008.  Back by popular demand, more than 200 santons, or “little saints” in French, will be on display for the holiday season.  The exhibition includes many examples on loan from the personal collection of Edith “Fuzzy” Gipstein as well as santons from the museum’s permanent collection.  Mrs. Gipstein is the former Director of Exhibitions at the museum and has organized this show.

Santons are hand-painted clay figurines that populate a miniature replica of a 19th-century village in southern France.  Also included is the traditional crèche.  Santons are at the center of an important two hundred-year-old tradition that is still maintained today in the area of Provence.  Complementing the exhibition are seasonal paintings and sculptures from the museum’s permanent collection.

Fuzzy Gipstein will share her knowledge about Santons and their place in French culture during two slide lectures on Thursday, December 13 at 7:00 pm and Saturday, January 13 at 1:30 pm.  Lecture fees are $5 for members and $10 for non-members.  Reservations suggested, please call 860-443-2545 x 112.

Lyman Allyn Art Museum is a community-based museum located in New London, Connecticut.  Founded in 1932 by Harriet Upson Allyn in memory of her father, Lyman Allyn, the Museum serves the people of Southeastern Connecticut and is free to the residents of New London. The Museum is accredited by the American Association of Museums and is a non-profit organization with 501(c) 3 status. 

Housed in a handsome Neo-Classical building designed by Charles A. Platt, the permanent collection includes over 10,000 paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, furniture and decorative arts, with an emphasis on American art from the 18th through 20th centuries. 

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August 13, 2007

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces major fall 2007 Exhibition
At Home and Abroad
The Transcendental Landscapes of Christopher Pearse Cranch

Niagara: American Falls: Oil on canvas 1853 17” x 23” Private collection

Transparent Eyeball (from Emerson’s “Nature”) From Cranch’s “Scraps” book, Ink on paper c.1839 9 ¾ x 7 5/8 inches, Private collection

Landscape with Waterfall: Oil on canvas 1851 36” x 54” Biggs Museum of American Art, Dover, Delaware

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition, At Home and Abroad: The Transcendental Landscapes of Christopher Pearse Cranch.  The exhibition opens at Lyman Allyn Art Museum on Friday, October 12, 2007 and runs through February 25, 2008.  The show then travels to the Newington-Cropsey Foundation in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, where it will be on view March 17 through May 31, 2008.

Despite a fifty-year career as a landscape painter, Christopher Cranch’s paintings are little known.  Instead, he is best known for his poetry, his ties to the New England Transcendentalists, and, above all, his playful caricature of Ralph Waldo Emerson as an enormous “transparent” eyeball, perched atop a minuscule body in top hat and tails, optic nerve tied in a pony tail.  From his first reading of Emerson’s Nature essay (1836), Cranch was inspired to explore Transcendental concepts through visual means; although ultimately it was painting, not caricature, that provided the ideal vehicle for him.  Transcribing nature onto canvas became an act of devotion.  Like Thoreau writing of the daily trials of life on Walden Pond, Cranch also attempted, in his landscapes, to express the correspondence between nature and spiritual concepts.  His brand of Transcendentalism bypasses the quiet, “transparent” aspect to celebrate a nature that is filled with the flux and continual shifting that Emerson and Thoreau also celebrated in their writings.  C. P. Cranch was intimate with some of the most innovative thinkers in America and counted among his friends Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, George William Curtis, and James Russell Lowell.  This study considers Cranch not only as a Hudson River School artist, but also as a participant in the history of ideas, a multi-faceted individual who merged intellectual and artistic life.

The exhibition is accompanied by a 208-page exhibition catalogue; At Home and Abroad: The Transcendental Landscapes of Christopher Pearse Cranch (1813 – 1892).  The Foreword is written by Barbara Novak, Professor Emerita at Columbia University, one of the most influential theorists on American art.  Nancy Stula, Curator and Deputy Director of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, and David M. Robinson, Distinguished Professor of American Literature at Oregon State University authored the catalogue essays.

At Home and Abroad: The Transcendental Landscapes of Christopher Pearse Cranch.  Is part of the ongoing celebration during 2007 marking the museum’s 75th anniversary.  Thanks to the generosity of benefactor Harriet Upson Allyn, Lyman Allyn Art Museum opened in 1932 as a place for local citizens to learn about art and culture.  The museum has always made part of its mission to respond and to appeal to the regional community. 

In that spirit, Lyman Allyn Art Museum has planned an exciting schedule of programs to accompany the exhibition.  The programs are designed to appeal to and to engage people of all ages and to make the humanities themes of the exhibition easily accessible. 

 

Public Events
October 12, 2007, 6-8 pm
Member Preview, Free for members, $5 for non-members.

October 13, 2007, 1 pm
Transcendental Nature Walk with Glenn Dreyer, Director, Conn. College Arboretum.
Walk starts at the Museum, free with Museum admission.

Lectures:
October 25, 2007, 6 pm
Nancy Stula, Curator & Deputy Director, Lyman Allyn Art Museum
“Before the silent smile of Nature’s God”: C.P. Cranch’s Transcendental Paintings”

December 1, 2007, 6 pm
James Cook, Assoc. Professor of History, University of Michigan
“P.T. Barnum's American Museum: The Nation's First Institution of Mass Culture”

January 24, 2008, 6 pm
David Robinson, Distinguished Professor of American Literature,
Oregon State University
“Cranch and New England Transcendentalism”

February 9, 2008, 6 pm
Linda Ferber, Vice President & Museum Director, New-York Historical Society
"’An enthusiastic lover of art’: Christopher Cranch, Asher B. Durand, and mid-19th-century American Landscape Painting” 

February 24, 2008, 2 pm
Suzanne Smeaton, Gallery Director, Eli Wilner & Company
“The Art of the Edge: 19th-Century American Frames.” 
**Reception at 3:00 pm.

All lectures are preceded with a wine and cheese reception at 5:00 pm. **
Reservations suggested. Call 860.443.2545 x112.  $5 members, $10 non-members.

Musical Performances
November 17, 2007, 6 pm
Neely Bruce performs Ralph Waldo Emerson: Ives and the Musical Transcendental

February 16, 2008, 6 pm
Neely Bruce performs Henry David Thoreau: Ives and the Musical Transcendental

Performances held in the Museum’s Library, preceded by a reception at 5:00 pm.  Reservations required, call 860.443.2545 x112. 
$15 for members and $22 for non-members.

Children’s Programs
October 13, 2007, 2 pm
Children’s Nature Scavenger Hunt
Free with Museum admission.

October 20, 2007 1-3 pm
Caricatures Workshop
Free for Members, $2 for non-members.

           
November 3, 2007 1-3 pm
Caricatures Workshop
Free for Members, $2 for non-members.

November 4, 2007, 1-4 pm
CT Storytellers’ Telebration

February 3, 2008, 1-4 pm
First Sunday! Free Family Day.  Make landscape dioramas.

Films   
October 13, 2007 and February 9, 2008, 3:30 pm
“The New England Transcendentalists”

November 25, 2007 and January 26, 2008, 1:30 p
“Hudson River School and Its Painters”

October 28, 2007, 1:30 pm
“Henry David Thoreau: Speaking for Nature”

All films are free with Museum admission.

For more information, or to receive images and a checklist of the artworks in
At Home and Abroad: The Transcendental Landscapes of Christopher Pearse Cranch please contact Susan Hendricks, at 860.443.2545, ext 130 or at hendricks@lymanallyn.org.

At Home and Abroad: The Transcendental Landscapes of Christopher Pearse Cranch has been made possible by generous grants from the Connecticut Humanities Council and the Henry Luce Foundation.

Lyman Allyn Art Museum exhibitions are supported in part by the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund,
Bank of America, Trustee, and with support from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism. 
Eli Wilner & Company Period Frames, New York has provided numerous frames.

Connecticut Humanities Council (CHC) is a statewide non-profit institution located in Middletown, Connecticut that focuses its work on two time-honored traditions in the humanities—reflective reading of literature and exploration of history.  CHC reading programs like Motheread/Fatheread and Book Voyagers help parents and children strengthen family bonds by reading together while encouraging children to become lifelong, avid readers on their own.  CHC heritage programs, often conducted in partnership with state and regional cultural organizations, fund exhibits, walking tours, cultural festivals, and community humanities projects that explore Connecticut’s diverse local heritage, as well as American and world history.  This year, the CHC will produce or fund over $2,000,000 in cultural programming that enriches the lives of state residents and visitors statewide.  For more information on the Connecticut Humanities Council and its programs, please visit www.ctculture.org or call 860.685-2260.

The Henry Luce Foundation was established in 1936 by the late Henry R. Luce, co-founder and editor in chief of Time Inc.  The Luce Foundation supports projects in American art, higher education, Asian affairs, theology, women in science and engineering, and public policy and the environment.  Through the Program in American Art, begun in 1982, the Foundation has distributed over $110 million to some 250 museums, universities, and service organizations in 47 states and the District of Columbia. For more information on the Henry Luce Foundation and its programs, please visit www.hluce.org.

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August 20, 2007

Barbara Roux: Evidence from Nature
opens at Lyman Allyn Art Museum

The Woodsman Must Travel by Sea
sand, plant material, plastic,
photo, pen, paper
10” x 12” x 1”

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition, Barbara Roux: Evidence from Nature, opening on Friday, October 12, 2007 and on view through February 25, 2008. 

Barbara Roux is an environmentalist, a conservationist and an artist.  The three converge when she wanders the woods and fields in search of tiny bits of nature that will convey her important message.  She creates “bags” which tell a story about a location or an environmental issue.  These “evidence bags” may contain tree bark and dirt or plant materials from a dying forest or water from a neglected pond.  Whatever the contents, the resulting artform raises the awareness of the viewer about that piece of Nature.

Roux comments about her work:
“As an artist dealing with issues of ecology, I am a hybrid.  My installation projects are influenced by my conservation projects to protect habitats and record incidents in natural history.  My conservation efforts stem from my respect and fascination for the natural world.

It is my belief that the environment of the forest, meadow, seashore and wetland are a powerful and little appreciated resource to understanding our human world.  Like all structured communities, the wilderness is in a search for survival.  It is my hope, that through my work, people may become interested in the mysteries that are inherent in wild places.  From interest, a desire to protect
may follow.”

This unique exhibition is visually intriguing as well as inspirational and is the perfect complement to the Museum’s major fall exhibition At Home and Abroad:
The Transcendental Landscapes of Christopher Pearse Cranch, which deals with the glory of Nature as interpreted by the artist.

Barbara Roux: Evidence from Nature is part of the ongoing celebration during 2007 that marks the museum’s 75th anniversary.  Thanks to the generosity of benefactor Harriet Upson Allyn, Lyman Allyn Art Museum opened in 1932 as a place for local citizens to learn about art and culture.  The museum has always made part of its mission to respond and to appeal to the regional community.  In that spirit, Lyman Allyn presents the following events coordinating with this exhibition:

Saturday, October 13 from 1:00 pm: 
Transcendental Nature Walk with Glenn Dreyer, Director, Conn. College Arboretum.   Walk starts at the Museum, free with Museum admission.

Children’s Nature Scavenger Hunt at 2 pm
Free with Museum admission.

Saturdays at 1:00 pm on October 27 and December 1
Earthworms, Doodlebugs, and Dirt
What is a Doodlebug? Students will learn and sing participatory songs about creatures that wiggle, crawl, creep, and fly in the environment they inhabit!  Contemporary Folk Music with Mike Kachuba - perfect for children ages 2-6.  Free for Members and $3 for non-members.

Funded in part by Pfizer and with the support of the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism. 

For more information about Barbara Roux: Evidence from Nature, or to receive images and a checklist of the artworks, please contact Susan Hendricks, at 860.443.2545, ext 130 or at hendricks@lymanallyn.org.

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June 19, 2007

Guido Garaycochea
Painted Boxes - Echoes of the Past
Cajas Pintadas - Ecos del pasado
opens at Lyman Allyn Art Museum

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition, Guido Garaycochea: Painted Boxes - Echoes of the Past,  Cajas Pintadas - Ecos del pasado, opening on Friday, July 27, 2007 and on view through November 4, 2007. 

Garaycochea, a Peruvian painter now working in New York and Connecticut, creates a compelling installation that deals with the political turmoil and personal loss that has plagued his native country for many years.  The exhibition includes a video component and encourages audience interaction with the boxes, or “cajas” in his native Spanish.

Guido Garaycochea is best known as a painter.  His training and background are evident as one views these boxes that are painted both exterior and interior with soft, beautifully muted pastels.  The “cajas” begin as small, jewel-like paintings that open to become dimensional sculpture.  The delicate coloration covering the box surfaces contradicts the intellectual content.  Each box contains letters, mementos and personal reflections on acquaintances of the artist, those who may have been “disappeared.”  Viewers may open some of the boxes, read the materials and reflect on the sad but virtual contents.  As the various boxes are viewed and then opened, one finds miniature sculptural additions that seem to reference aspects of residence:  clothes on lines hung high over the boxes/abodes, ladders to rudimentary sleeping areas, and what could be trees.  Upon closer inspection, the viewer questions whether the scene is a home or perhaps
a cell.

Garaycochea comments about his work: “These wooden boxes to me are the result of an intimate reflection, of thoughts, of life. These wooden boxes are the result of my travels through countries I feel as home, as today America is home to me.  These wooden boxes represent an ambitious on-going project and my desire to live in peace.  These wooden boxes are inspired by what I saw, heard and read about what happens when intolerance abounds.”  May visitors also be inspired by Garaycochea’s “Cajas” project.

Guido Garaycochea: Painted Boxes - Echoes of the Past, Cajas Pintadas - Ecos del pasado is part of the ongoing celebration during 2007 that marks the museum’s 75th anniversary.  Thanks to the generosity of benefactor Harriet Upson Allyn, Lyman Allyn Art Museum opened in 1932 as a place for local citizens to learn about art and culture.  The museum has always made part of its mission to respond and to appeal to the regional community.  In that spirit, Lyman Allyn presents the following event coordinating with this exhibition:

Sunday, August 5, from 1:00 – 4:00 pm:  First Sunday! 
Families, art lovers and kids of all ages are invited to join in the fun. 
Free and open to the public. 
Sponsored by the Latin Network for the Visual Arts and the Griffis Art Center

Painters’ Mark Lecture Series at 2:00 pm
            Guido Garaycochea will speak about his work in the current exhibition.

Special Art Activity:  Box It Up!
Construct and decorate your own boxes, inspired by the work of Guido Garaycochea!  Learn how to make a print and decorate paper with your designs and then explore the art of origami box making.  Take you project home with you.

Partial funding for these programs is generously provided by the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund, Pfizer Inc., the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism, and the Community Foundation of Southeastern Connecticut.

For more information about Guido Garaycochea:  Painted Boxes – Echoes of the Past, Cajas Pintadas - Ecos del pasado, or to receive images and a checklist of the artworks, please contact Susan Hendricks, at 860.443.2545, ext 130 or at hendricks@lymanallyn.org.

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June 4, 2007

Larry Dinkin: Painting to Silkscreen, an Interpretive Process
& The New York School: Works from a Private Collection

open at Lyman Allyn Art Museum

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces two new exhibitions, Larry Dinkin: Painting to Silkscreen, an Interpretive Process and The New York School: Works from a Private Collection, both opening on Friday, July 13, 2007 and on view through September 23, 2007. 

Larry Dinkin: Painting to Silkscreen, an Interpretive Process

Landscape of Structure from a Dream
Oil on linen ¦ 1992
36¼ x 40”

Born in 1943, Larry Dinkin expressed interest in art at an early age, taking drawing classes at Pratt Institute in his teens, graduating from City College of New York in 1965 and continuing his art education at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.  Master teacher Frederick Taubes’ painting techniques were influential in Dinkin’s artistic development.

As a student, Dinkin had studied figurative painting.  In his early thirties, he began to explore landscape and in 1992, with the painting Landscape of Structure from a Dream, he created an image that used a landscape format but was constructed with abstract elements.  From this point forward Dinkin’s oeuvre would be non-objective realism. His paintings would have elements of realism -- space, light and color -- but would no longer be derivative.  His paintings form the basis for his silkscreens for which an elaborate process is employed, using over 90 separate screens and transparent oil-based inks.

Larry Dinkin: Painting to Silkscreen, an Interpretive Process takes the viewer on a visual journey between the two media.  The vividly bold paintings and prints seem familiar and yet distant; perhaps a memory from a dream when one is jarred awake.  Within the brilliant colors and dense brushstrokes, one can almost see a structure, a landform, something recognizable, but not then quite.

Dinkin says of his work, “The images depict a personal universe—distilled landscapes bound only by their own reality.  They strive for the flickering ambiguity of paint to dreamy vision, held fast within a structure that is both descriptive and dimensional.”

Turandot
Silkscreen ¦ Edition of 120 ¦ 2005
42” x 45½"

Larry Dinkin: Painting to Silkscreen, an Interpretive Process originally opened at the Flint Institute of Art in Flint, Michigan and then traveled to the Dayton Art Institute in Dayton, Ohiobefore showing at Lyman Allyn Art Museum.  His paintings and silkscreens are in the collections of more than forty museums and are represented in many private and corporate collections.

Dinkin’s paintings and works on paper owe a debt to the groundwork laid by the abstract artists of the “New York School.” 

 

The New York School: Works from a Private Collection
Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell coined the term “New York School” in 1949.  He intended the term to describe the non-representational works created by his fellow artists who were working in New York City at the time and experimenting with a new style that featured abstracted forms and expressionistic paint application. 

The works on viewrange in date from 1936 to contemporary works created in the last five years.  All relate to, or are derived from, the abstraction of the 1950’s.  The earliest work in the show predates Abstract Expressionism by decades, other works represent the wide variety of responses to Abstract Expressionism by mid-century artists, while another group of works date from the 1960’s and 1970’s and respond to the society and culture surrounding the events of those decades—feminism, civil rights, foreign war movements. 

The artists represented in The New York School: Works from a Private Collection were part of a circle that interacted.  The relationships between these artists and the resulting inspiration will be evident to viewers:  Jasper Johns inspired Frank Stella; Helen Frankenthaler was married to Robert Motherwell and had studied with Hans Hoffman.  These works continue to question the boundaries and parameters of art.

Larry Dinkin: Painting to Silkscreen, an Interpretive Process and The New York School: Works from a Private Collection are part of the ongoing celebration during 2007 marking the museum’s 75th anniversary.  Thanks to the generosity of benefactor Harriet Upson Allyn, Lyman Allyn Art Museum opened in 1932 as a place for local citizens to learn about art and culture.  The museum has always made part of its mission to respond and to appeal to the regional community. 

In that spirit, Lyman Allyn presents the following events coordinating with these exhibitions.
 
How’d They Do That? The Artist’s Process: Printmaking
            Hands-on workshops that explore the artistic process
Saturday, July 21, 1:00 – 3:00 pm
Saturday, August 18, 1:00 – 3:00 pm
Free for Museum Family Members
$2 for non-members 
Pre-registration required. 
Please call 860-443-2545 x 110 to register.

Film:    Jasper Johns
Saturday, August 11 at 1:00 pm
            Free with museum admission

Lecture: Modernism
Barbara Zabel, Professor of Art History at Connecticut College
Thursday, August 16, 2007 at 6:00 p.m. 
Reception immediately following the lecture
$5 Members and $10 Non-members. 
Reservations suggested, please call 860-443-2545 x 112.

Film:    David Hockney
Saturday, August 25 at 1:00 pm
Free with museum admission

Partial funding for these programs is generously provided by the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund, Pfizer Inc., the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism and the Community Foundation of Southeastern Connecticut.

For more information about Larry Dinkin: Painting to Silkscreen, an Interpretive Process and The New York School: Works from a Private Collection, or to receive images and a checklist of the artworks, please contact Susan Hendricks, at 860.443.2545, ext 130 or at hendricks@lymanallyn.org.

Lyman Allyn Art Museum was established in 1926 by Harriet Upson Allyn in memory of her father, Lyman Allyn, as a place for local citizens to learn about art and culture.  Housed in a handsome Neo-Classical building designed by Charles A. Platt, the permanent collection includes over 10,000 paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, furniture and decorative arts, with an emphasis on American art from the 18th through 20th centuries.  The museum is located at 625 Williams Street, New London, Connecticut, 06320.  Take exit 83 off of I-95 and follow brown cultural heritage signage. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am-5:00 pm and Sunday 1:00 –5:00 pm.  Closed Mondays and major holidays.
For more information, please call 860.443.2545 or visit us on the web at http://lymanallyn.org.

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Lyman Allyn Art Museum Celebrates 75th Anniversary Year With Hidden Treasures Exhibition

WINSLOW HOMER ¦ 1836-1910 ¦ American
Shepherdess ¦ ceramic tile


HENRY C. WHITE ¦ 1861-1952 ¦ American
New London Harbor, 1924 ¦ oil on board

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition Hidden Treasures: Celebrating 75 Years on view through July 15, 2007.

Mounted to commemorate the 75th Anniversary, this exhibit will feature highlights from the permanent collection and tell the story of the history of collecting at the Museum since it opened in 1932. Such treasures as Winslow Homer’s painted tile The Shepherdess and a one-of-kind Tiffany glass goblet are on display. The objects in Hidden Treasures: Celebrating 75 Years celebrate the donor as well as the actual object given to the museum. It is through the generosity of its supporters that Lyman Allyn Art Museum has been able to develop such a remarkable collection of art from many periods of art history.

Among other works on view are Henry C. White’s painting of New London Harbor, a gift from his son Nelson C. White; an oil painting View of Stifford from 1858 by Jasper Cropsey, a gift of Mrs. Ralph A. Powers for whose family one of the museum’s galleries is named; an actual fire bucket used by Captain Lyman Allyn when he was a volunteer fireman in New London; a wonderful aquatint Freight Yards done in1936 by local artist and early feminist Beatrice Cuming, a gift of Winslow Ames, the museum’s first Director; and exceptional examples of more contemporary American artworks by Andrew Wyeth, Dale Chihuly, Cleve Gray and William McCloy.

Please check the website for details about additional programs and events celebrating the 75th Anniversary.

For more information or to receive images, please contact Susan Hendricks, at 860.443.2545, ext 130 or at hendricks@lymanallyn.org.

Lyman Allyn Art Museum was established in 1926 by Harriet Upson Allyn in memory of her father, Lyman Allyn, as a place for local citizens to learn about art and culture. Housed in a handsome Neo-Classical building designed by Charles A. Platt, the permanent collection includes over 10,000 paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, furniture and decorative arts, with an emphasis on American art from the 18th through 20th centuries. The museum is located at 625 Williams Street, New London, Connecticut, 06320. Take exit 83 off of I-95 and follow brown cultural heritage signage. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am-5:00 pm and Sunday1:00 –5:00 pm. Closed Mondays and major holidays.

For more information, please call 860.443.2545 or visit us on the web at http://lymanallyn.org.

January 22, 2007 For Immediate Release
Contact: Susan Hendricks, Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

Lyman Allyn Art Museum Celebrating 75 Years!

Gas in Glass: The Light Sculptures of Mundy Hepburn Opens at Lyman Allyn Art Museum

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition, Gas in Glass: The Light Sculptures of Mundy Hepburn, opening on Friday, February 23, 2007 and on view through June 24, 2007.

Gas in Glass: The Light Sculptures of Mundy Hepburn presents large-scale, whimsical blown glass sculptures filled with gas mixtures such as xenon, argon, neon, and krypton, among others. The resulting light sculptures are a vibrant visual cross between fantasy objects from the artist’s mind and flowers and forms seemingly from another planet. Hepburn activates the glass with high frequency static electricity causing the light sculptures to come “alive” with a kaleidoscope of changing colors, depending on what gas is in which glass form.

The science behind the art that Mundy Hepburn creates is based on the same principle as a simple florescent light. Because so little electricity is used to light the works, only about thirty watts of power, the sculptures will operate for a very long time. Some examples of Hepburn’s work have been running for as long as fifteen years.

Gas in Glass: The Light Sculptures of Mundy Hepburn reveals the fascination of a youngster captivated by science. Hepburn became interested in glass blowing in 1963 when he was eight years old, after seeing Paul Geyer blow glass animals at the Guildford Fair. He went home and melted down light bulbs on the kitchen stove after making sure that his parents had gone upstairs. Years of practice with glass and fire led him to the level of expertise that we see today. Hepburn has developed his own style of torches and glass compositions and has experimented with various gas mixtures to achieve the dazzling color combinations that manifest when the electricity is turned on. For the past decade, Mundy Hepburn has worked exclusively with his own furnace design and other homemade equipment to create his unique style of luminous glass sculpture.

Mundy Hepburn lives and works from his glass studio in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. He has had numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States. His light sculptures are collected by private individuals as well as public institutions. And for those curious about his name, yes, Mundy is the nephew of the late Katharine Hepburn.

Gas in Glass: The Light Sculptures of Mundy Hepburn will present the following related programming: Sunday, February 25 at 1:30 pm and Sunday, March 18 at 1:30 pm Dancing Cereal and Electric Pickles Electrifying fun! This program features kids’ activities using balloons, cereal, pickles and more to explore the science of electricity. Take part in hands-on experiments and tour the exhibit. This is a free program but space is limited.

Sunday, May 6, 2007: Glass, Color, and Light! 1:00 – 4:00 pm First Sunday Free Family Day Create a design for a stained glass window or try painting on glass and then compare to Mundy Hepburn’s beautiful glass works in the Stamm Galleries. The film Cathedral will be shown at 2 pm in the Lehman Auditorium.

This exhibition has been funded in part by generous grants from the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund, Bank of America, Trustee, and Pfizer, Inc.

For more information, or to receive images of artwork in Gas in Glass: The Light Sculptures of Mundy Hepburn, please contact Susan Hendricks, at 860.443.2545, ext 130 or at hendricks@lymanallyn.org.

Lyman Allyn Art Museum was established in 1926 by Harriet Upson Allyn in memory of her father, Lyman Allyn, as a place for local citizens to learn about art and culture. Housed in a handsome Neo-Classical building designed by Charles A. Platt, the permanent collection includes over 10,000 paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, furniture and decorative arts, with an emphasis on American art from the 18th through 20th centuries. The museum is located at 625 Williams Street, New London, Connecticut, 06320. Take exit 83 off of I-95 and follow brown cultural heritage signage. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am-5:00 pm and Sunday 1:00 –5:00 pm. Closed Mondays and major holidays.

For more information, please call 860.443.2545 or visit us on the web at http://lymanallyn.org

December 11, 2006 For Immediate Release
Contact: Susan Hendricks, Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

Lyman Allyn Art Museum Celebrating 75 Years!

Expresiones/Expressions: Caribbean and Latin American Art from the Benjamin Ortiz Collection opens at the museum

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition, Expresiones/Expressions: Caribbean and Latin American Art from the Benjamin Ortiz Collection, opening on Friday, February 23, 2007 and on view through June 24, 2007. The exhibition is co-curated by art historian Gustavo Valdes and Nancy Stula, museum curator.

A thought-provoking exhibition of Caribbean and Latin American paintings, photographs, and drawings, Expresiones/Expressions: Caribbean and Latin American Art from the Benjamin Ortiz Collection surveys the formation and growth of an art collection and showcases the works of masters as well as other established and emerging artists of the Caribbean and Latin America.

The works on view are part of a collection that spans over three decades. Benjamin Ortiz acquired his first work of art at the age of twelve for seventy-five cents at a Connecticut consignment shop. The little oil painting he felt so passionate about turned out to be, as was later discovered by his mother, a wonderful example of the work of one of Puerto Rico’s most illustrious landscape artists, Don Miguel Pou (1880-1968). This purchase marked the beginning of Ortiz’s ever-growing involvement with the arts.

The work selected for this exhibition, primarily works on paper, represents a fraction of Ortiz’s large collection. The main criterion for selecting work was that it represent the human figure; it includes different styles and pictorial movements, from primitivism in painting to realism in photography and features different mediums, from collage to sculpture. Each work deciphers for the viewer the complexity and beauty of Caribbean and Latin American Art and its continuous development that brings it to the forefront of the arts today.

Expresiones/Expressions: Caribbean and Latin American Art from the Benjamin Ortiz Collection highlights artists and works that have helped to shape Mr. Ortiz’s aesthetics, not only as a collector, but also as a curator and art researcher. As a curator, Ortiz has had the opportunity to meet and to work with several artists who have become important voices and undisputable presences in the Caribbean and Latin American as well as the international art scene. Benjamin Ortiz has collected the work of such renowned masters such as Antonio Frasconi (Argentina), Eduardo Kingman (Ecuador), Roberto Matta (Chile), Alirio Palacios (Venezuela), and Diego Rivera, José Luis Cuevas and Rufino Tamayo (Mexico), just to name a few.

The exhibition will also feature artworks by the following partial list of artists and their respective countries of origin:

Cuba: Wifredo Lam
Rodolfo Abularach: Guatemala
Mexico: Luis Cuevas, Jose Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Francisco Toledo and Francesco Zuniga
Puerto Rico: José R. Alicea, Imna Arroyo and Myrna Báez
Dominican Republic: Hochi Asiático and Belkis Ramírez

Expresiones/Expressions: Caribbean and Latin American Art from the Benjamin Ortiz Collection is the first exhibition during 2007 which marks the celebration of the museum’s 75th anniversary. Thanks to the generosity of benefactor Harriet Upson Allyn, Lyman Allyn Art Museum opened in 1932 as a place for local citizens to learn about art and culture. The museum has always made part of its mission to respond and to appeal to the regional community.

In that spirit, Expresiones/Expressions: Caribbean and Latin American Art from the Benjamin Ortiz Collection presents coordinating events that will interest everyone.
Sunday, April 1 from 1:00 – 4:00 pm. Families, art lovers and kids of all ages are invited to join in the fun. All events are free and open to the public.

• Co-Curator and art historian Gustavo Valdes will present a lecture about Expresiones/Expressions: Caribbean and Latin American Art from the Benjamin Ortiz Collection, in both English and Spanish. A great way to practice your Spanish while enjoying the art on view!
• Special Art Activity: Make a Lasting Impression! Referencing Latin Art prints from the exhibit, kids (of all ages!) may experiment with different printmaking techniques. From rubber stamps to block printing to string relief, there will be a variety of media to explore. Take your print project home with you!

This exhibition has been funded in part by Pfizer, with the support of the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism. Additional support for the exhibition and related programming in part by Centro de la Comunidad.

For more information about Expresiones/Expressions: Caribbean and Latin American Art from the Benjamin Ortiz Collection, or to receive images and a checklist of the artworks, please contact Susan Hendricks, at 860.443.2545, ext 130 or at hendricks@lymanallyn.org.

Lyman Allyn Art Museum was established in 1926 by Harriet Upson Allyn in memory of her father, Lyman Allyn, as a place for local citizens to learn about art and culture. Housed in a handsome Neo-Classical building designed by Charles A. Platt, the permanent collection includes over 10,000 paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, furniture and decorative arts, with an emphasis on American art from the 18th through 20th centuries. The museum is located at 625 Williams Street, New London, Connecticut, 06320. Take exit 83 off of I-95 and follow brown cultural heritage signage. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am-5:00 pm and Sunday 1:00 –5:00 pm. Closed Mondays and major holidays.

For more information, please call 860.443.2545 or visit us on the web at http://lymanallyn.org

Contact: Susan Hendricks November 6, 2006
Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 136

Les Santons de Provence Opens at Lyman Allyn Art Museum

Santons are hand-painted clay figurines, which populate a replica in miniature of a 19th-century village in southern France along with a traditional crèche. Santons are at the center of an important two hundred-year-old tradition that is still maintained today in the area of Provence. Complementing the exhibition are seasonal paintings and sculptures from the museum’s permanent collection.

Fuzzy Gipstein will share her knowledge in two slide lectures, Les Santons de Provence, on Sunday, December 10 at 2:00 p.m. and again on Sunday, January 14, 2007 at 2:00 p.m. All lectures are free with museum admission.

Showing in the Lehman Auditorium will be Fanny, a delightful 1960 film based on one of the stories of the Marseilles Trilogy that has many connections with the Santons on display. Fanny is an Academy Award-winning film and was filmed in Marseilles. The movie will be screened at 2:00 pm on December 2, 9, 16, 23 and 30. There is no charge with museum admission.

Lyman Allyn Art Museum was established in 1926 by Harriet Upson Allyn in memory of her father, Lyman Allyn, as a place for local citizens to learn about art and culture. Housed in a handsome Neo-Classical building designed by Charles A. Platt, the permanent collection includes over 10,000 paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, furniture and decorative arts, with an emphasis on American art from the 18th through 20th centuries. The museum is located at 625 Williams Street, New London, Connecticut, 06320. Take exit 83 off of I-95 and follow brown cultural heritage signage. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am-5:00 pm and Sunday1:00 –5:00 pm. Closed Mondays and major holidays.

For more information, please call 860.443.2545 or visit us on the web at www.lymanallyn.org

August 7, 2006
Contact: Susan Hendricks
Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

Melissa Manchester in Concert
Benefit for Lyman Allyn Art Museum

Lyman Allyn Art Museum is pleased to announce that Melissa Manchester will perform in concert to benefit the museum at 8:00 pm on Saturday, September 16, 2006. The concert will take place at Palmer Auditorium on the Connecticut College campus, adjacent to the museum.

The generosity of lead sponsors Pfizer Inc and People’s Bank has helped to make this event possible, with additional in-kind support from WBMW Radio and Pot of Green Florists.

Melissa Manchester Background
Melissa Manchester was born in New York where her father was a bassoonist for the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He introduced her to all the classics and by the age of 15, Melissa was already a published poet. After graduating from the High School of the Performing Arts, where she studied acting, Melissa entered New York University and enrolled in a songwriting class taught by Paul Simon. She landed a staff-writing job at Chappell Music and performed as a solo singer and pianist in the clubs of Greenwich Village and Manhattan’s Upper West Side, where she met Bette Midler. As a back-up singer for Bette, Melissa fulfilled her childhood fantasy of playing New York’s Carnegie Hall. Six months later, she had a recording contract, and shortly thereafter was headlining Carnegie Hall and performing for sold-out audiences.

Melissa Manchester’s albums have established her as one of the most compelling singer-songwriters in contemporary music. Her album Melissa (1975) launched the smash hit single “Midnight Blue,” and in 1976, Melissa and Kenny Loggins co-wrote “Whenever I Call You Friend,” which has become a radio classic. Melissa was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1978 and 1979; she received the Grammy Award in 1982 for Best Female Vocalist for “You Should Hear How She Talks About You” from her Hey Ricky LP, produced by Arif Mardin. In 1980, she became the first artist in the history of the Academy Awards to have two nominated movie themes in a given year: for Ice Castles and The Promise. Melissa went on to make Oscar history by performing both of these works in their entirety during the show.

Melissa combined her acting and singing talents in starring roles in Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Song And Dance and Music Of The Night; on the television series Blossom; and in the film For The Boys. She wrote the musical I Sent A Letter To My Love (2002), based on the acclaimed Bernice Rubens novel of the same name, and performed the leading role in a National Public Radio broadcast. Melissa Manchester recently received the Governor’s Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for her contributions to the music and the recording arts.

Melissa Manchester Benefit Concert at Lyman Allyn
The benefit concert at Lyman Allyn Art Museum will offer a unique evening for everyone, starting with a 6:00 pm cocktail buffet at the museum. The concert follows at 8:00 pm, after which guests will meet Melissa at a post-concert champagne and dessert reception. Tickets for the full evening are $150.
For those wishing to attend only the concert at 8:00 pm, tickets are $50.
Please call 860.443.2545 ext. 135 for ticket reservations or more information.

From the Hand of the Composer: The Art of Melissa Manchester, an exhibit of original musical compositions penned by Melissa Manchester, opens to the public on Thursday, September 14. Those attending the full evening event of the concert and both receptions may stroll through the museum to enjoy this unique experience. This exhibit highlights and makes visual the creative process, linking music with visual art forms. Her compositions will offer viewers insight into the composer’s creative process just as brushstrokes enable viewers to retrace a painter’s labor trail.

Of the forty compositions in From the Hand of the Composer: The Art of Melissa Manchester, none has ever been on view. The work includes the initial renderings of her hit songs “Midnight Blue” and “Just You and I,” as well as some tunes that were never recorded.

After the benefit concert, From the Hand of the Composer: The Art of Melissa Manchester, will remain on view at the museum through February 4, 2007.

For more information, or to receive images, please contact Susan Hendricks, at 860.443.2545, ext 130 or at hendricks@lymanallyn.org.

Lyman Allyn Art Museum was established in 1926 by Harriet Upson Allyn in memory of her father, Lyman Allyn, as a place for local citizens to learn about art and culture. Housed in a handsome Neo-Classical building designed by Charles A. Platt, the permanent collection includes over 10,000 paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, furniture and decorative arts, with an emphasis on American art from the 18th through 20th centuries. The museum is located at 625 Williams Street, New London, Connecticut, 06320. Take exit 83 off of I-95 and follow brown cultural heritage signage. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am-5:00 pm and Sunday1:00 –5:00 pm. Closed Mondays and major holidays.
For more information, please call 860.443.2545 or visit us on the web at http://lymanallyn.org.

June 26, 2006
Contact: Susan Hendricks
Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

femme brut(e)
Opens at Lyman Allyn Art Museum

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition, femme brut(e), opening on Thursday, September 14, 2006 and on view through February 4, 2007.  

femme brut(e) features works by significant women artists in a range of media.  The focus is on those artists who demonstrate an interest in pushing the limits of their medium whether it is photography, drawing, or painting as well as those who challenge traditional expectations of women’s subject matter.  Included are works by May Stevens, Nancy Graves, Nancy Spero, June Wayne, Barbara Kruger; Louise Nevelson, Alice Neel; and Miriam Schapiro.

On view simultaneously with femme brut(e) will be Moires Blinks Monochromes Stops Starts Mixes, an installation of new work by contemporary lens-based artist Ellen Carey.  Carey’s work explores the photographic process using large-format Polaroid cameras.  Her monumental images are abstract—they do not record images seen through a camera lens—but rather the chemical process.  The resulting images are brightly colored shapes: the “pulls” resemble surfboards and the moirés, a type of fabric.  Ellen Carey’s unique work has been exhibited extensively throughout the U.S., including solo exhibitions at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut and the International Center of Photography in New York City.  Her work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Chicago Art Institute, among others.

Complementing femme brut(e) will be From the Hand of the Composer: The Art of Melissa Manchester, an exhibit of original musical compositions penned by Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter Melissa Manchester.  This exhibit aims to highlight and make visual the creative process and to link music with visual art forms.  Text as image will offer the viewer insight into the composer’s creative process just as brushstrokes allow the viewer to retrace a painter’s labor trail.  Approximately fifty of Manchester’s compositions will be featured in this exhibition, none of which have ever been shown before, including the initial renderings of her hit songs “Midnight Blue” and “Just You and I,” as well as songs which were never recorded.  From the Hand of the Composer: The Art of Melissa Manchester is presented in conjunction with femme brut(e) as it also addresses the limits of artistic disciplines.

Melissa Manchester will perform a concert to benefit Lyman Allyn Art Museum at Palmer Auditorium on Saturday, September 16, 2006 at 8:00 p.m.  Please call 860.443.2545 ext. 135 for ticket reservations and/or more information.

On Thursday, September 28, Artist Ellen Carey will give a Gallery Talk in Glassenberg Gallery where her Moires Blinks Monochromes Stops Starts Mixes is installed. 

Sherry Buckberrough, Professor of Art History and Women’s Studies at the University of Hartford, will present a lecture on femme brut(e) on Thursday, October 26.  Buckberrough has curated exhibitions on women artists and has authored books and articles on artists including Sonia Delaunay and Mierle Ukeles.

Ann Hoy, Professor of Art History at New York University and former curator at the International Center of Photography in New York, will lecture on photography in the context of the femme brut(e)exhibition on Thursday, November 2.  Hoy is the author of National Geographic Society’s The Book of Photography (2005). 

Art historian Susan Fillin-Yeh, Visiting Professor of Art History at Connecticut College and author of several books on American art, will speak about the femme brut(e)exhibition, thatdate to be announced.

For more information, or to receive images and a checklist of the artworks in femme brut(e), please contact Susan Hendricks, at 860.443.2545, ext 130 or at hendricks@lymanallyn.org.

Lyman Allyn Art Museum was established in 1926 by Harriet Upson Allyn in memory of her father, Lyman Allyn, as a place for local citizens to learn about art and culture.  Housed in a handsome Neo-Classical building designed by Charles A. Platt, the permanent collection includes over 10,000 paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, furniture and decorative arts, with an emphasis on American art from the 18th through 20th centuries.  The museum is located at 625 Williams Street, New London, Connecticut, 06320.  Take exit 83 off of I-95 and follow brown cultural heritage signage. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am-5:00 pm and Sunday1:00 –5:00 pm.  Closed Mondays and major holidays.
For more information, please call 860.443.2545 or visit us on the web at http://lymanallyn.org.

April 10, 2006 For Immediate Release
Contact: Susan Hendricks
Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

Subject Opens at Lyman Allyn Art Museum

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled (Self Portrait), 1985, acrylic and oilstick on canvas, 60" x 49"

This exciting new exhibition, culled from the renowned Cartin collection based in Hartford, Connecticut, of which Holmes is the resident Curator, introduces contemporary approaches to portraiture ranging from traditional oil on canvas portraits to enhanced photographs to three-dimensional assemblages referencing childhood memories. The works on view, by artists including Jean-Michel Basquiat, R. Crumb, David Hammons, Glenn Ligon and John Waters , explore--visually, socially, politically, and psychologically—the nature of portraiture.

It is not often that museums in this region have the opportunity to present an exhibition that offers the public a comprehensive look at the type of cutting-edge, avant-garde contemporary art on view in Subject.

The exhibition will simultaneously provoke and stimulate viewers to explore their own reactions to what they see. For example, Jean-Michel Basquiat, in his large self-portrait painted in broad strokes of acrylic and oilstick on canvas, peers out at us from an oddly disjointed sitting position. The portrait seems to ask us what we see. Basquiat’s execution of his body and face brings to mind the label of “primitive” so frequently attached to both the artist and to his work.

R. Crumb’s 1996 pencil and “white-out” rendering of Bukowski in His Car brilliantly reflects the angst of Beat Poet and novelist Charles Bukowski, a writer long admired by the reclusive Crumb.

There are a variety of programs coordinating with the Subject exhibition. From gallery talks to free family days to a fancy-dress gala, the public is invited to share in this opportunity to learn more about contemporary art.
Related Programs

Gallery Talk:
Thursday, May 18, 6:00 pm
Steven Holmes, Guest Curator of Subject, speaks about the exhibition and the collection. Wine and cheese reception at 5:00 pm
Reservations suggested: $10 Non-members; $5 Members. Call 860.443.2545, x112.

First Sunday Free Family Day
Sunday, June 4, 1 – 4 pm
Families are invited to explore the galleries and participate in interesting art activities.
Children’s art activity: Create a unique self-portrait, using the new exhibition Subject as your guide. A complementing film on one of the contemporary artists featured in Subject will be shown in the Lehman Auditorium at 2 pm.

Subject Gala
Saturday, May 13, 6:00 – 10:00 pm
The exhibition preview of Subject IS the gala, an extraordinary event is not to be missed. This artful and art-filled evening includes cocktails and a sumptuous sit-down dinner. A silent auction during the cocktail hour will feature a variety of artworks and services to tempt every bidder. The Fine Art Live Auction will be hosted by Geraldine Nager-Griffin, Senior Vice-President of Sotheby’s. Dancing to Sugar Ray Norcia and the Big Band will round out the evening under the tent, under the stars.
For more information or to purchase tickets or tables, please call Alicia Kuranda, Director of Development at 860-443-2545, ext. 136.

This exhibition has been funded in part by generous grants from the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund, Bank of America, Trustee, and Pfizer, Inc.

For more information about Subject or to receive images, please contact: Susan Hendricks, Director of Public Relations, at 860.443.2545 ext. 130, or e-mail to hendricks@lymanallyn.org.

Lyman Allyn Art Museum was established in 1926 by Harriet Upson Allyn in memory of her father, Lyman Allyn, as a place for local citizens to learn about art and culture. Housed in a handsome Neo-Classical building designed by Charles A. Platt, the permanent collection includes over 10,000 paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, furniture and decorative arts, with an emphasis on American art from the 18th through 20th centuries. The museum is located at 625 Williams Street, New London, Connecticut, 06320. Take exit 83 off of I-95 and follow brown cultural heritage signage. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am-5:00 pm and Sunday1:00 –5:00 pm. Closed Mondays and major holidays.
For more information, please call 860.443.2545 or visit us on the web at http://lymanallyn.org.

April 25, 2006 For Immediate Release
Contact: Susan Hendricks, Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

Portrait of a City: The New London Project
opens at Lyman Allyn Art Museum

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition, Portrait of a City: The New London Project , opening Friday, June 23 and on view through August 14.

The arts community of New London joins artist Joe Standart to present Portrait of a City:

Joe Standart opened his photographic studio in New London several years ago. Compelled to photograph New Londoners of all ages, he literally pulled them in off the street, still sipping coffees and writing traffic tickets or riding their motorcycles and bikes. Standart's work contemplates the individuals' spirit and the universality of the dignity we all share. The diversity he reveals shares a common ground of humanity and creates opportunity for understanding. Through its uniqueness and monumentality, the exhibition creates public engagement in a thriving arts community that is playing a powerful role in the rejuvenation of the Downtown. Through its breadth and experience, Portrait of a City: The New London Project seeks to unify and promote the art community, including musicians, artists, and photographers and those with a passion for the arts.

A professional photographer for 30 years, Joe Standart is acclaimed for capturing the ever-changing subtleties of light and mood. His award-winning photographs have been included in individual and group shows nationwide and his work is included in many private collections and museums. Recently, his work has been on view at New York's Beadleston Gallery, The Williams College Art Center, The Cooley Gallery, and The Duggal Art Space. His commercial work includes assigments for Architectural Digest, House & Garden, General Electric, Viking Range Corporation, and The Cindy Crawford Collection. Standart has published two books, The Scented Room and Passion for Detail , and he has contributed to many more.

Citywide opening night festivities include receptions at:
5:00 – 7:00 pm at Lyman Allyn Art Museum, 625 Williams Street
6:00 - 8:00 pm at ALVA Gallery, 54 State Street
6:00 - 9:00 pm at Golden Street Gallery, 94 Golden Street
7:00 - 10:00 pm at Hygienic Art Gallery, 79 Bank Street

Musicians will be at multiple venues and roaming the streets.

Portrait of a City: The New London Project will be on view throughout New London from June 23, 2006 through early August. Exhibiting venues include: Lyman Allyn Art Museum, ALVA Gallery, Hygienic Art Gallery, Golden Street Gallery. Union Train Station, Mitchell College and Muddy Waters Café.

Portrait of a City: The New London Project at Lyman Allyn Art Museum has been funded in part by generous grants from the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund, Bank of America, Trustee, and Pfizer, Inc.

The New London Project is being produced with the generous support of the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund, Cummings & Good, Tyler Cooper & Alcorn, LLP, and The Kitchings Foundation, and is sponsored by Hygienic Art, Inc. and The New York Foundation for the Arts.

Lyman Allyn Art Museum was established in 1926 by Harriet Upson Allyn in memory of her father, Lyman Allyn, as a place for local citizens to learn about art and culture. Housed in a handsome Neo-Classical building designed by Charles A. Platt, the permanent collection includes over 10,000 paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, furniture and decorative arts, with an emphasis on American art from the 18 th through 20 th centuries. The museum is located at 625 Williams Street, New London, Connecticut, 06320. Take exit 83 off of I-95 and follow brown cultural heritage signage. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am-5:00 pm and Sunday1:00 –5:00 pm. Closed Mondays and major holidays.

For more information, please call 860.443.2545 or visit us on the web at http://lymanallyn.org .

After William Meredith Opens at Lyman Allyn Art Museum

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition, After William Meredith, opening to the public on April 15 and on view through May 15, 2006.

William Meredith is one of America’s most respected poets. He was a Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress and is a Chancellor Emeritus of The Academy of American Poets as well as the U.S. Poet Laureate Emeritus. Meredith was born in New York City in 1919. He graduated from Princeton University with an A.B. in English, Magna Cum Laude, writing his senior thesis on fellow American Poet Robert Frost.

The author of nine books of poetry and, Meredith’s Effort at Speech won the 1997 National Book Award. In 1987, Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems. won the Pulitzer Prize. He has received many distinguished awards including the Loines Award and a grant from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, the Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize, the International Vaptsarov Prize in Poetry, a grant and senior fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and two Rockefeller Foundation grants.

William Meredith taught at Connecticut College from 1955-1983, when he suffered a stroke that left him unable to speak clearly and affected his ability to use language at all.

In After William Meredith, the Meredith poems will be presented in both his original English and a French translation, juxtaposing the text with images rendered by contemporary French artist, and friend of Meredith, Sooky Maniquant. After William Meredith has placed artwork and poems side by side, allowing the viewer to experience Meredith’s work from two different perspectives, including Maniquant’s striking visual interpretations.

Related Program

First Sunday Free Family Day
Sunday, May 7, 1 – 4 pm
Celebrate the poetry of William Meredith and the art of Sooky Maniquant by creating your own Poem Collages. See the exhibition After William Meredith on your visit.
A complementing film will be shown in the Lehman Auditorium at 2 pm.

This exhibition has been funded in part by generous grants from the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund, Bank of America, Trustee, and Pfizer, Inc.

For more information, please contact: Susan Hendricks, Director of Public Relations, at 860.443.2545 ext. 130, or e-mail to hendricks@lymanallyn.org.

Lyman Allyn Art Museum was established in 1926 by Harriet Upson Allyn in memory of her father, Lyman Allyn, as a place for local citizens to learn about art and culture. Housed in a handsome Neo-Classical building designed by Charles A. Platt, the permanent collection includes over 10,000 paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, furniture and decorative arts, with an emphasis on American art from the 18th through 20th centuries. The museum is located at 625 Williams Street, New London, Connecticut, 06320. Take exit 83 off of I-95 and follow brown cultural heritage signage. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am-5:00 pm and Sunday1:00 –5:00 pm. Closed Mondays and major holidays.
For more information, please call 860.443.2545 or visit us on the web at http://lymanallyn.org.

New London architectural exhibition wins award from Connecticut League of History Organizations

State Street exhibition was created by Connecticut College professor and students, currently being shown at Lyman Allyn Art Museum

NEW LONDON, Conn. — An exhibition spearheaded by a Connecticut College professor to document the architectural and social development of New London’s major commercial avenue has been awarded an Award of Merit from the Connecticut League of History Organizations (CLHO).

The exhibition, “Commerce and Culture: Architecture and Society on New London’s State Street,” is on display at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, located at 625 Williams Street in New London, through April 10.
Abigail Van Slyck, the Dayton Associate Professor of Art History and Director of Architectural Studies Program, coordinated and served as guest curator of the exhibition. The exhibition grew out of a project in Van Slyck’s senior seminar last year and relates the specific details of New London architecture to larger trends in American architecture and urbanism.
The exhibition features period photographs, historic maps, postcards, paintings and architectural drawings.
According to a recent article about the exhibition in the Hartford Courant newspaper: “The only thing missing is the honking of horns, the sound and smells of the sea, and the clatter of streetside conversations by the throngs once drawn to this richly compelling place.”

In addition, Van Slyck’s students have conducted walking tours of State Street, based on the information from the exhibition. Future student-led walking tours will be held on March 4 and March 5, at 3 p.m., starting at Union Station.
The award will be presented at the CLHO annual meeting, to be held in June. The CLHO, based in Hamden, presents Awards of Merit in recognition of outstanding institutional and individual contributions, in keeping with current professional standards, that enhance and further the knowledge and understanding of Connecticut history. The purpose of the Awards of Merit is to recognize the care, thought and effort invested in these contributions and to inspire and encourage others by acknowledging exceptional contributions to state and local history.

The CLHO presents Awards of Merit in four categories: project; publication; educational program; and, individual comprehensive work.

Lyman Allyn Art Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m.- 5 p.m. and Sunday 1 p.m. - 5 p.m. It is closed Mondays and major holidays. The museum was established in 1926 by Harriet Upson Allyn in memory of her father, Lyman Allyn, as a place for local citizens to learn about art and culture. Housed in a handsome Neo-Classical building designed by Charles A. Platt, the permanent collection includes over 10,000 paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, furniture and decorative arts, with an emphasis on American art from the 18th through 20th centuries. For more information, please call 860-443-2545 or visit the museum on the web at http://lymanallyn.org.

Ranked among the most selective private liberal arts colleges in the nation, Connecticut College enrolls 1,900 men and women from 42 states and 41 countries. The college is known for putting the liberal arts into action through interdisciplinary studies, international programs, funded internships, student-faculty research and service learning. Founded in 1911, the college operates under an 84-year-old honor code. The college is located at 270 Mohegan Ave, New London, about two hours by car from Boston and New York. The 750-acre campus is an arboretum overlooking Long Island Sound. For more information, visit www.connecticutcollege.edu.

January 25, 2006                                                                                         For Immediate Release
Contact: Susan Hendricks
Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

Lyman Allyn Art Museum receives

Christopher Pearse Cranch (1813-1892) was a poet, art theorist, Transcendentalist, and Hudson River School painter. While his letters and journals are frequently cited in publications on 19th century American culture, Cranch’s work as an artist has been neglected and his paintings have never been exhibited. This exhibition will serve to introduce Cranch as an artist as well as provide an opportunity to explore his work within the larger context of American culture, and more specifically, in terms of the Transcendental philosophy which informed so much of his work.

Christopher Cranch began his career as a Unitarian minister but turned to landscape painting when his radical Transcendentalist views made preaching in Unitarian churches impossible. Ultimately, painting replaced preaching as an act of devotion. Cranch’s visual response to New England Transcendentalism was unique: no other American painter can be documented as having had direct involvement with this religious philosophy. Cranch not only participated in the movement but produced landscapes that reflect the tenets of Transcendentalism.

Cranch may be best known for his caricature of Ralph Waldo Emerson as an enormous "transparent" eyeball, perched atop a minuscule body in top hat and tails. Yet Cranch was also a noted artist who worked and exhibited with the Hudson River School painters. During his forty-five year career as a landscape painter, he met with success. He was elected Academician--the highest rank an artist could attain--at the National Academy of Design and, along with fellow Hudson River School artists, contributed to major American exhibitions, very often to critical acclaim. At two distinct periods in his career Cranch belonged to the American community of artists, writers, and intellectuals who settled abroad in the mid-nineteenth century. The fact that he spent several years in Europe--or perhaps because of his absence from America during the heyday of the Hudson River School--has given rise to misconceptions that Cranch remained abroad for most of his life.

In preparation for this exhibition and scholarly catalogue, Lyman Allyn Art Museum wishes to locate paintings, letters, diaries, and photographs related to Christopher Pearse Cranch. The exhibition’s curator Dr. Nancy Stula can be reached at 860.443.2545, ext. 113 and by email: stula@lymanallyn.org.

The Connecticut Humanities Council (CHC) is a statewide non-profit institution located in Middletown, Connecticut that focuses its work on two time-honored traditions in the humanities—reflective reading of literature and exploration of history. CHC reading programs like Motheread/Fatheread and Book Voyagers help parents and children strengthen family bonds by reading together while encouraging children to become lifelong, avid readers on their own. CHC heritage programs, often conducted in partnership with state and regional cultural organizations, fund exhibits, walking tours, cultural festivals, and community humanities projects that explore Connecticut’s diverse local heritage, as well as American and world history. This year, the CHC will produce or fund over $2.8 million in cultural programming that enriches the lives of state residents and visitors statewide.

For more information on the Connecticut Humanities Council and its programs, please visit www.ctculture.org or call (860) 685-2260.

August 29, 2005                                                                                         For Immediate Release
Contact: Susan Hendricks
Public Relations
860.443.2545 ext. 130

Commerce and Culture:
Architecture and Society on New London’s State Street
Opens at Lyman Allyn Art Museum

Featuring period photographs, historic maps, postcards, paintings, and architectural drawings, Commerce and Culture: Architecture and Society on New London’s State Street documents and interprets the architectural and social development of New London’s major commercial avenue. This exhibition will relate the specific details of New London architecture
to larger trends in American architecture and urbanism. As in many other small American cities, New London’s downtown is largely the product of a building boom that began in the Victorian era and lasted — with some ups and downs — until the Great Depression of the 1930s. During the postwar era, when the suburban landscape was in full bloom, these downtowns experienced little new building, although merchants engaged in multiple cycles of modernization that transformed the ground-floor facades of many historic buildings in an attempt to retain customers who increasingly patronized new indoor shopping malls.

Commerce and Culture: Architecture and Society on New London’s State Street is predicated on the idea that we can “read” the cultural landscape — vernacular structures, architect-designed buildings, and everything in between — as a three-dimensional textbook of social history. Instead of interpreting buildings solely in light of the architect’s interests, the exhibition and related programming consider the cultural aspirations and institutional priorities that informed the physical evolution of one particular—but in many respects typical—downtown thoroughfare. It will also suggest the ways in which this cultural landscape shaped the experiences of the people who lived and worked, shopped and played there.

Commerce and Culture: Architecture and Society on New London’s State Street is not just an exhibition of architects’ drawings and period photographs, although it includes wonderful examples of both. It will offer a rich range of objects that speak to the ways that New Londoners inhabited State Street and what the street meant to them. The show is very much about local involvement. Not only does it take the local community as its subject matter, it is also very much dependent on local collections and expertise. Ephemera from the permanent collection of the Lyman Allyn will be on view along with a wide range of objects borrowed from the New London Public Library, the New London County Historical Society, Special Collections at Connecticut College’s Shain Library and private collections.

The exhibition Commerce and Culture: Architecture and Society on New London’s State Street is organized into six sections:

Commerce and Culture: Architecture and Society on New London’s State Street presents a full schedule of coordinating events that will interest everyone. Family activities, walking tours and a community symposium are just some of the highlights.

Related Programs

Lecture:
“ New Perspectives on the History of State Street’s Architecture,”
Thursday, October 20, 2005, 6:00 pm; Wine and cheese reception at 5:00 pm
Guest Curator Abigail A. Van Slyck, Dayton Associate Professor of Art History, Connecticut College. Reservations suggested: $10 Non-members; $5 Members. Call 860.443.2545, x112.

First Sunday Free Family Day
Sunday, November 6, 2005, 1:00 – 4:00 pm
Reverse Gallery Talk - 2:00 pm: Visitors to share their memories
Walking Tour of State Street - 3:00 pm. Meet at Union Station
Children’s art activities: Create a coloring book of State Street; Go on a tricky scavenger hunt
Film: The Rescue of Mr. Richardson’s Last Station; 1:00 pm in the Auditorium

Symposium:
Looking Back to Move Forward: Understanding Downtown and its Architecture in Historical Perspective
Saturday, November 12, 2005, 9:30 am – 4:00 pm. At Weller Center, Mitchell College.
$25 non-members; $15 members; Free to the students, faculty and staff of Mitchell College and Connecticut College. AIA members continuing education credit available.
Co-sponsored by Mitchell College

Guided Walking Tours of State Street
Saturday, October 15 and Sunday, October 16, 2005
Saturday, November 5 and Sunday, November 6, 2005
Saturday, March 4 and Sunday, March 5, 2006
3:00 pm – Meet at Union Station

First Sunday Free Family Day
Sunday, February 5, 2006, 1:00 – 4:00 pm
Reverse Gallery Talk - 2:00 pm. Visitors to share their memories.
Children’s art activities: Create unique 3-D monument and scavenger hunt
Film: The Rescue of Mr. Richardson’s Last Station; 1:00 pm in the Auditorium

For more information about Commerce and Culture: Architecture and Society on New London’s State Street or to receive images, please contact: Susan Hendricks, Director of Public Relations, at 860.443.2545 ext. 130, or e-mail to hendricks@lymanallyn.org.

Lyman Allyn Art Museum gratefully acknowledges the financial support of The Connecticut Humanities Council (CHC), a statewide non-profit institution that focuses its work on two time-honored traditions in the humanities—reflective reading of literature and exploration of history. CHC reading programs like Motheread and Book Voyagers help parents and children strengthen family bonds by reading together while encouraging children to become lifelong, avid readers on their own. CHC heritage programs, often conducted in partnership with state and regional cultural organizations, fund exhibits, walking tours, cultural festivals, and community humanities projects that explore Connecticut’s amazingly diverse local heritage, as well as American and world history. Each year, the CHC produces and funds nearly $1.8 million in cultural programming that enriches the lives of over 600,000 state residents and visitors.
For more information about the Connecticut Humanities Council, please call (860) 685-2260 or visit www.ctculture.org.

Nut Collector Tashjian Back In The Spotlight Her Work Is On Exhibit At Lyman Allyn Museum Tim Cook Elizabeth Tashjian talks to her fans at the opening of a new exhibit of her work at the Lyman Allyn Museum. By KARIN CROMPTON Day Staff Writer, Lyme/Old Lyme Published on 2/14/2004 New London — Elizabeth Tashjian stands barely four feet tall, her shoulders hunched, her gait slowed. It would have taken great effort Friday for Tashjian, 91, to circle the room in the Lyman Allyn Art Museum that houses her artwork for an exhibit titled, “The Nut Museum: Visionary Art of Elizabeth Tashjian.” That didn't matter. Tashjian didn't have to circle. The 350 people who visited the museum for an opening reception flocked to her, pressing in for a closer look at the woman who ran the Nut Museum out of her home in Old Lyme for nearly 30 years. They stood on tiptoes at the back of the crowd to get a peek and leaned in to catch snippets of Tashjian's theories on life, art, nuts, and her crusade to escape a nursing home. It was Tashjian's first major public appearance in years, coordinated by the museum's interim director, Christopher Steiner. For many in attendance, it was an appearance they never would have thought possible almost two years ago. Tashjian collapsed at her home and was discovered by social workers May 2, 2002. She spent a month at Middlesex Hospital before being transferred to the Gladeview Healthcare Center in Old Saybrook. “I take this as a temporary pause,” Tashjian said of her current living arrangement. “Rest assured, I take this as a temporary pause.” Tashjian fought unsuccessfully to return to the 17-room mansion on Ferry Road where she had lived since 1950. A mountain of debt and concerns about her health prevented her from convincing the town's probate judge that she should return. Tashjian now spends her days in what she describes as “Studio 326,” a reference to her room number at Gladeview. She happily reports that she has the room to herself. It was Steiner who rescued Tashjian's artwork and famed nut collection, convincing the town that it should go to Connecticut College. The exhibit runs through June 6. The show is a combination of Tashjian's serious artwork — she studied at the National Academy of Design — and her whimsical nut collection. “My opinion as an art historian is that this is a significant body of work,” said Steiner, who also teaches museum studies at Connecticut College. “All across America we have these quirky, odd museums that have become part of the American landscape. If we take a serious look at it, we can begin to see how her museum relates to the origins of museums, which started as cabinets of curiosities.” Friday's reception began at 5 p.m., and Tashjian was scheduled to give a speech at 6. At 5:30, she began a tour around the room with a couple of reporters, advancing just a few feet into the room because she was too engrossed in storytelling to focus on the artwork on the walls. She flatly refused a chair offered to her. “No!” she said, slightly irritated at the interruption. At 6, when Steiner asked her to deliver her speech, she already considered her lecture almost over. She reluctantly spoke into a microphone for five minutes. Soon after, Tashjian accepted a chair and entertained visitors. They snapped photos, brought gifts and asked for her autograph. Mary Alapa of New London knelt in front of Tashjian and gave her a small white box with a golden ribbon. Inside was a golden acorn from the Florence Griswold Museum –– a tribute to the days when Tashjian charged a one-nut admission to her museum. “I just came to honor her,” said Alapa, who said she first saw Tashjian when she appeared on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.” Katarina Jaeger of Waterford told Tashjian how she and her grown son had visited the nut museum regularly from the time he was 10 years old. Jaeger said she was not sure Tashjian was even alive before reading an article about her in The Day on Thursday, and then knew immediately that she had to attend the reception. “I expected to see an older person,” Jaeger said, “But then, why? She's always been an exception to the rule.” k.crompton@theday.com

The Artist Of The Nut A New Exhibition Reveals The Paintings Of ‘The Nut Lady' The Portrait of a Nut Artist-- Lyman Allyn spotlights paintings by 'Nut Lady' Elizabeth Tashjian “Self-Portrait in Red Hat,” 1948 A detail of “Quote Me, Never Dwarf the Little Man,” 1975. By KATHLEEN EDGECOMB Day Staff Columnist, Arts Published on 2/12/2004 Elizabeth Tashjian wants to do for nuts what Cezanne did for apples. That's the assessment of Lyman Allyn Art Museum interim director Christopher Steiner, who has put together a new show at the museum called “The Nut Museum: Visionary Art of Elizabeth Tashjian.'' The exhibition opens Friday, and Tashjian will talk about her art that day at 6 p.m. The show follows Tashjian's journey from traditionally trained visual artist to avant-garde performance artist. “It's an incredibly interesting American story,'' says Steiner, who rescued Tashjian's artwork and the contents of the former Nut Museum in Old Lyme after Tashjian fell ill and went to live in a nursing home in 2002. Tashjian, now 91, studied art at the National Academy of Design in New York City and had a studio in Carnegie Hall. In 1938, she saw a human face in a Brazil nut. Her painting “The Speaker'' foreshadows her obsession with nuts. In the piece, a cracked nut with a human face inside sits atop a podium and a glass of water waits nearby. Tashjian moved to Old Lyme in 1950 and became active in the Lyme Art Association. In 1972, opened the Nut Museum. She became known as “The Nut Lady.” Her eccentric flair and unusual subject matter made her a media celebrity, with appearances on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,” among other shows. The Lyman Allyn show features three rooms of Tashjian's art and other paraphernalia, including a one-hour loop of her appearances on TV and a re-creation of the dining room in her Old Lyme home, complete with a table with special-ordered legs shaped like nutcracker handles. Some of her early works on view include “Self Portrait with Red Hat,'' an oil painting done in 1940, and “Nutcracker Suite” painted in 1937. “Nutcracker Suite” is a pleasant still-life of nuts and nutcrackers engulfed in pretty Armenian silk. She also painted still-lifes of nuts, nutcracker and nut memorabilia. She painted nuts, she says, because they were around the house. She switched to acrylic paints and created pieces with more vibrant colors, similar to “outsider art,'' according to Steiner. “Outsider art'' generally describes works by artists who have no formal training and a unique style. “Anyone who knows art can't dismiss her as having no talent,'' says Steiner. “There's a lot of complexity and a lot of talent here. And she's very aware of what she's doing.'' Steiner, who retrieved from Tashjian's house 100 paintings, a dozen sculptures and 50 files boxes of newspaper clippings and notes, says that Tashjian made nut masks, which she hung in her living room. She also created paintings to go along with a song she wrote, “Nuts are Beautiful.'' “She is an original,'' Steiner says. The opening reception for “The Nut Museum: Visionary Art of Elizabeth Tashjian'' is from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, 625 William St., New London. The show runs through June 6. Museum hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat. and 1-5 p.m. Sunday. Call 443-2545.

December 28, 2003, Sunday CONNECTICUT WEEKLY DESK ART REVIEW; A Painter's Embrace Of Impressionism By BENJAMIN GENOCCHIO THE late Gregory and Anna Smith of Old Lyme had a modest art collection. But it included many fine paintings and drawings by the American Impressionist J. Alden Weir. Ms. Smith, it turns out, was his granddaughter. These works are on view at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London, which has been temporary custodian of the collection while the Smiths's estate is being settled. Among these pieces are some great portraits, as well as rarely seen watercolors and pencil sketches, and even an unfinished portrait of Weir by John Singer Sargent. Weir (1852-1919) is commonly regarded as an Impressionist. But it is a term he never cared for. Nor, at least initially, did he care for Impressionism, reacting badly to the first Impressionist exhibition in Paris in 1877. It was, he wrote at the time, ''worse than a chamber of horrors,'' and he left after a short interval ''with a headache.'' Weir began to paint in an Impressionist style around 1890. By then he was back in the United States, dividing his time between New York City, where he taught painting, and his rural home and studio in Wilton. The property, known as Weir Farm, is now a national historic site. Life in Wilton inspired much of his art, including finely executed portraits of his daughter Caroline and his two wives, Anna, and, after her death during childbirth, her sister Ella. Portraiture accounts for the most substantial works here. Among them is ''Portrait of Caro'' (1887), a life-sized portrait of the 3-year-old Caroline in a frilly white dress holding an orange. It is an odd painting, as much for the uncertain expression on the child's face as for its murky mixture of 17th-century Spanish and Dutch influences. But there are some beautiful passages of painting, especially around the dress. It is curious to contrast ''Portrait of Caro'' with a portrait of Ella, hanging on the wall opposite. Probably painted around 1894 (they were married in 1893), ''Portrait of Ella'' (no date) is completely different. First, it is set outdoors, suggesting that Weir had begun to work en plein air. The palette is lighter and it is not as finely finished. Weir, it seems, had finally come around to Impressionism. The most memorable painting in the show, however, is ''Against the Window'' (1884). It shows his wife Anna, dressed in black and sitting against a window, a New York skyline in the distance. On the windowsill is a glass filled with flowers, both beautifully painted. Everything is lovely, and yet Anna's expression is weary, even pained. Something is not quite right, and I think I know what. Anna is pregnant with Caroline. ''J. Alden Weir: Selections from a Private Collection'' is at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, 625 Williams Street, New London, through Jan. 18. Information: (860)443-2545. Published: 12 - 28 - 2003 , Late Edition - Final , Section 14CN , Column 1 , Page 11

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