DESTINATION: NEW ENGLAND
March and April enjoy the remnants of winter and the first signs of spring. They can be mysterious months, however. We’re never sure how long winter will last or if spring’s early appearance in some spots is to be believed. That’s why we love New England; she keeps us guessing.
One thing is for certain—the ebb and flow of art is ceaseless and seasonless. The destinations on these pages announce several of the most interesting and anticipated exhibitions of the year. It’s the perfect time to plan spring and early summer travel.
Currier Museum of Art—Manchester, NH
The Currier Museum of Art’s 2024 exhibitions begin with Kara Walker: Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated), a touring exhibition
that showcases Walker’s art alongside the Winslow Homer illustrations that inspired it. As a young artist, Homer served as a war correspondent for Harper’s Magazine. His drawings of soldiers on the front lines of battle and civilians caught up in the war’s horrors became a visual history of the Civil War, and they were published after the war in the magazine’s 1866 two-volume anthology. Walker revisits these prints, utilizing her signature silhouettes to introduce new elements. She surfaces race and gender-based biases, highlights profound sociopolitical inequalities, and brings to the fore a silenced history of violence that complicates Homer’s initial narrative. Opening March 7, the Currier will present the work of French artist Raphaël Barontini (b. 1984) in an exhibition titled I live a journey of a thousand years. The exhibition
comprises about twenty works and is Barontini’s largest presentation to date at a U.S. institution. Closely following the commission titled We Could be Heroes at the Panthéon in Paris—part of the Carte blanche series organized by France’s National Monuments Center—the exhibition at the Currier features La Bataille de Vertières (2023) as its centerpiece, a monumental 65-foot-wide painting that first premiered inside the Panthéon and will be on view here in the U.S. for the first time.
Williams College Museum of Art Williams, MA
The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) creates and inspires opportunities for students, faculty, and the public to have meaningful experiences with art. New this spring is Emancipation: The Unfinished Project of Liberation, which visualizes
what freedom looks like for Black Americans today and the legacy of the Civil War today and beyond. Highlighting the perspectives of contemporary Black artists, Emancipation features commissioned and recent works by Sadie Barnette, Alfred Conteh, Maya Freelon, Hugh Hayden, Letitia Huckaby, Jeffrey Meris, and Sable Elyse Smith. The seven installations span sculpture, photography, and paper and textile fabrications. Other highlights include Remixing the Hall, an ongoing exhibition of objects from the collection displayed in a loose thematic framework so that visitors can construct their own meaning from the myriad ways in which objects resonate with each other and with the present; and Object Lab, a hybrid gallery-classroom in which Williams College faculty work with WCMA staff each semester to select art that connects with course concepts. These works of art are then installed in the gallery, grouped by course. Through museum visits combined with close-looking assignments and digital projects, students engage deeply with the objects throughout the semester.
Lyman Allyn Art Museum
New London, CT
The Lyman Allyn Art Museum was founded in 1926 and opened its doors in 1932. In the more than ninety years since then, the Museum has gathered a collection of more than 17,000 objects and made its mark as a community landmark in Southeastern Connecticut. The Museum features changing exhibitions throughout the year. This spring, visitors will see the works of Connecticut artist Beatrice Cuming in Beatrice Cuming: Connecticut Precisionist, on view through May 26. Cuming was born in New York in 1903 and moved to New London in 1934. She depicted the
is on view through April 14 and is organized in conjunction with the Florence Griswold Museum in nearby Old Lyme. The Florence Griswold Museum’s companion exhibit, Fun and Games? Leo Jensen’s Pop Art is on view through May 19.
LIFE: Six Women Photographers is on view from March 6 through July 7. The exhibition features over seventy images from female photographers Margaret Bourke-White (1904–1971), Marie Hansen (1918–1969), Martha Holmes (1923–2006), Lisa Larsen (circa 1925–1959), Lina Leen (circa 1909–1995) and Hansel Mieth (1909–1998). LIFE founder and editor-in-chief Henry R. Luce, longtime Greenwich resident, pushed for photojournalism, and coined “photo essays,” to shape people’s vision of America. For decades, Americans saw the world through the lens of the photographers at LIFE. The six artists featured in this exhibition were the only women photographers employed full-time by LIFE magazine from the late 1930s to early 1970s. The GHS campus includes a nationally accredited museum, library and archives, a museum store, café and a community education center.
urban and industrial landscape of New London in her work, and described the views of the city as “obviously beautiful, powerful, dramatic [and] exciting.” The exhibit boasts more than forty paintings and works on paper. Also on view this spring is Art in Play: Leo Jensen, exploring the work of pop artist Leo Jensen, whose work in a wide variety of mediums draws inspiration from his life in the circus and rodeo. This exhibition
Greenwich Historical Society Cos Cobb, CT
Greenwich Historical Society (GHS) was founded in 1931 to preserve and interpret Greenwich history to strengthen the community’s connection to the past, to each other and to the future. The circa 1730 National Historic Landmark Bush-Holley House in which the GHS is housed became the site of Connecticut’s first American Impressionist art colony from 1890 to 1920.
