Past Exhibitions

Northern European Art from the Lyman Allyn Art Museum Permanent Collection

January 30 – December 31, 2005

Note from the Curator (Nancy Stula): The Chapel Gallery is installed with European Art from the permanent collection: it turns out there is such a wealth of works that I have decided to concentrate on Northern European Art—specifically Dutch, Flemish and German Art from the 15^th through the 18^th, poss 19^th centuries. We have paintings by Lucas Cranach the Younger, still lifes by Claesz and de Heem, a landscape by Jan Van Goyen, along with two etched portraits by Rembrandt.

This exhibition features Flemish, Dutch, and German paintings, sculpture, and works on paper from the permanent collection of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum . The installation is arranged thematically with attention given to history painting (scenes from the Bible, mythology and literature), portraiture, genre, still life, and landscape and features works ranging in date from the late 15^th century to the early 20th century. Some of these works have not been on display in many years.

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Sol LeWitt: Recent Work

March 6 – May 16, 2005

Exhibition will include work in a variety of media: drawings and maquettes for a series of brick dome sculptures, a series of photographs, as well as a wall drawing designed by LeWitt specifically for the Museum’s McKee Gallery. The drawing will measure eleven by forty-five feet and will exist only for a short time, as a temporary experience. After the exhibition ends it will be painted over. A new LeWitt wall drawing was recently unveiled at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford and another is being planned for the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

One goal of the exhibition is to elicit discussion about ownership and patronage, as well as about ideas. As Sol LeWitt once noted, “Ideas cannot be owned. They belong to whoever understands them.” LeWitt has had over 30 one-person exhibitions and is represented in the collections of major museums worldwide. He has been the subject of retrospective exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art in New York and at the Tate Gallery in London; in December 2000, the Whitney Museum of American Art hosted an all-media retrospective of his work. Sol LeWitt was born 1928 in Hartford and currently resides in Connecticut.

Kitty Wales: Lionfish

July 20, 2013 – January 5, 2014

Opening Reception – Friday, July 19th, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM
Members FREE, Non-Members $5
RSVP: 860.443.2545 x129 or info@lymanallyn.org

Fascinated by the anatomy and movement of living creatures, Kitty Wales creates sculpture and installation art based on her direct observations of animals. She has traveled to the Scottish Hebrides to study wild goats, the Spanish Pyrenees to observe bearded vultures, and the Caribbean to document reef sharks in their underwater habitat. As part of a collaboration between the Lyman Allyn Art Museum and the Mystic Aquarium, Wales visited the Aquarium to observe their collection of marine life, taking photographs and preparing sketches that would later fuel her creations in the studio. Inspired by the textural, feathery forms of the lionfish, Wales then set to work envisioning a site-specific installation intended for the Lyman Allyn. Three larger-than-life lionfish sculptures constructed of welded steel, heavy paper, and recycled pencils will transform the gallery into a “deep-sea” environment for visitors of all ages.

Based in Massachusetts, Kitty Wales has worked on many site-specific installations at museums throughout New England and elsewhere, including DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA; the Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA; the Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH; and the Fort Lauderdale Museum, FL.

Kitty Wales, Lionfish: 2013, h 92 inches x L 107 inches x w 66 inches, steel, paper, mixed media Photo credit: Kathryn Osgood, 2013.