"Painting Summer in New England" Exhibit Opens

Salem Museum Exhibit Features Artist with Cape Ties

Looking to hop off the sandbar and take in a bit of mainland culture this spring/summer?  Why not head to Salem, MA, the home of the famous witch trials.  Although best know for it's witchy culture, Salem is also home to the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM)  which maintains an amazing collection of New England art and culture. 

From April 22, 2006 to September 4, 2006, the PEM is hosting "Painting Summer in New England", an exhibit of paintings depicting the wonder and glory of the place we call home.  The exhibit features more than a hundred works by reknown painters such as Edward Hopper, John Singer Sargent, Stuart Davis and Winslow Homer--many with Cape Cod ties.

See the museum's press release below for full details about the exhibit, the museum and hours of operations.  And while you're there, why not give the Witch Museum a go!

From the official release:

SALEM, MA–– The Peabody Essex Museum is pleased to present Painting Summer in New England, which opens April 22 and runs through Sept. 4, 2006. The exhibition, curated by Trevor Fairbrother, takes a fresh look at the lively, lyrical, and insightful ways in which painters have interpreted the special intersection of place and season in America’s northeast corner. Marshaling an astonishing array of works––more than 100 paintings by 83 artists from the late 1850s to the present, including Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Childe Hassam, Andrew Wyeth, Stuart Davis, George Bellows, Edward Hopper, Lois Dodd, Alex Katz, and Fairfield Porter—the exhibition aims to “delight, astound, and surprise,” says Dan Monroe, director and chief executive officer of the Peabody Essex Museum. This wonderfully vibrant exhibition “invites us to explore the richness of imagery that can be understood as ‘New England’ as well as the remarkable range of expression that the term ‘painting’ encompasses.”

The first generation of 19th-century artists represented, among them John Frederick Kensett and Fitz Henry Lane, celebrated the atmospheric light of the rugged coast, while their peers George Inness and Thomas Worthington Whittredge depicted the bucolic delights of farms and fields. The influence of Impressionism is evident in turn-of-the-century works by Childe Hassam, John Singer Sargent, Willard Leroy Metcalf, Lilian Westcott Hale, and Edmund C. Tarbell.

Subsequent generations of the artists included––Maurice Prendergast, George Bellows, John Sloan, Marsden Hartley, Marguerite Zorach, Stuart Davis, Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth, John Marin, Hans Hofmann, Fairfield Porter, Alex Katz and Yvonne Jacquette––have explored a multiplicity of styles, from realism to increasingly abstract arrangements of form and color.

In addition to their aesthetic appeal, the works in Painting Summer New England reveal the social and cultural preoccupations of the period in which they were made. While many painters created idealized images to appeal to an affluent, leisured class, some, such as Allan Rohan Crite, Jack Levine, and Beatrice Cuming, interpreted the ethnic and social diversity of the urban environment with empathy and directness.

That the Peabody Essex Museum has orchestrated this project is altogether fitting, according to Director Dan Monroe. Founded in 1799, the museum has played a seminal and ongoing role in preserving, promoting, and interpreting New England’s art and culture as a critical part of the country’s legacy and vision. Today, the museum has recast and extended that role as it integrates historical and contemporary art to create a museum experience that forges connections between art and the world in which it was made. The museum is delighted to present so many preeminent artists, among them Salem’s native son Frank Weston Benson, whose iconic canvas, Summer, reminds us of the dynamic contributions of Boston’s North Shore to American painting.

The Peabody Essex Museum is grateful for the generosity of more than 70 American museums, galleries, collectors and artists, who lent works for the exhibition. Painting Summer in New England is supported in part by William E. Weiss Foundations, Inc., Skinner Auctioneers and Appraisers, H.P. Hood LLC, and the Lowell Institute.

Painting Summer in New England ticketing information: Same-day tickets may be purchased at the admissions desk. Advanced tickets may be purchased, with a small surcharge, by calling Ticket Web at 866-468-7619 or going to www.ticketweb.com.

Adults: $17;  Seniors: $15; Students: $13; Youth 16 and under, PEM members and Salem residents: Free

About the Peabody Essex Museum: The recently transformed Peabody Essex Museum presents art and culture from New England and around the world. The museum's collections are among the finest of their kind, showcasing an unrivaled spectrum of American art and architecture (including four National Historic Landmark buildings) and outstanding Asian, Asian Export, Native American, African, Oceanic, Maritime, and Photography collections. In addition to its vast collections, the museum offers a vibrant schedule of changing exhibitions and public programs, plus a hands-on education center. In 2006, PEM was named one of the nation's "Top 10 Art museums for Kids" by Child Magazine. The museum campus features numerous parks, period gardens, and 24 historic properties, including Yin Yu Tang, a 200-year old house that is the only example of Chinese domestic architecture in the United States. The Peabody Essex Museum is open daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The museum is closed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day. General museum admission: Adults $13; seniors $11; students $9. Additional admission to Yin Yu Tang: $4. Members, youth 16 and under, and residents of Salem enjoy free general admission and free admission to Yin Yu Tang. Special exhibitions may require an additional fee. Location: East India Square, Salem, MA 01970. Call 866-745-1876 or visit our Web site at www.pem.org.