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‘Love Stories’ from Worcester and around the world
Esther Howland (American, 1828–1904), Valentine, 1847–1879, Collage of papers with embossment, gold leaf, chromolithograph, and letterpress, courtesy Worcester Historical Museum OLIVA STONE
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While the exhibit “Love Stories from the National Portrait Gallery, London,” has been on display since November, the Worcester Art Museum is likely to see a sharp spike in visitors to the traveling exhibit as Valentine’s Day approaches. Many of the pieces have never before left London, with Worcester being the first stop. h “These are world-renowned pieces,” said Kelly Coates, assistant marketing manager of Worcester Art Museum, with the collection including some that have “never been viewed in public.” With the NPG closed due to COVID and undergoing construction until 2025, she said, the decision was made to loan the works out to share with the public. See STORIES, Page 12
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WAM was top of the list of destinations in reciprocation for having loaned a piece by artist Thomas Gainsborough for the NPG’s 2019 exhibition. Coates believes “there are pieces in the show that are unlikely to travel again in our lifetime, once they return to the National Portrait Gallery.”
The term “portrait” brings to mind images of canvas paintings depicting subjects dressed in formal attire in stilted poses, often with stern expressions. However, “Love Stories” is an eclectic and broad collection, ranging from Renaissance portraits of the 1600s all the way to recent engagement photos of the British royal family.
Walking through the exhibit is a way to watch the evolution of how love is depicted in Western art, and by extension, how it’s viewed by society at the time. The first pieces start with the idea of the muse — someone who inspires the artist. Typically a male artist and female muse to begin with, said Coates, “but the show also flips the script, and includes a male muse and female artist,” which she cites as her favorite section. It also redefines the muse, in terms of LGBT and racial diversity, and two artists drawing each other.
Olivia Stone, curatorial assistant at WAM, explained how the exhibit shows how depictions of love changed through the centuries — early marriage portraits from the Renaissance era of a husband and wife denote commitment and how they achieved success, “almost like bragging rights — that they could afford to commission a portrait.” These kinds of portraits follow a theme with common denominators in terms of style, pose and religious subtext. But the “more modern portraits have variety and personality where the photographers and sitters push the envelope, showing more intimacy” — for instance, the photograph of John Lennon and Yoko Ono in which they are both nude.
Coates hopes that visitors enjoy the experience and the gift of being able to see artworks that ordinarily reside thousands of miles away. She also expects that the exhibition will elicit another response from visitors — of being reminded of their own love and the breadth of human emotions. The wall outside the exhibit, which is one of the interactive parts — a take one/leave one set-up of love notes — has visitors spending almost as much time there as they do viewing the show.
While there are no Worcester Valentines in the WAM’s own collection, a generous loan from the Worcester Historical Museum allowed WAM to host two rotations of local historic valentines, in a special case within the exhibition. Stone pointed out that because the focus of the exhibition is on how portraits can tell love stories, the museum wanted to include a local connection.
According to Stone, the Historical Museum has an incredible collection of Worcester-made valentines from the mid 19th to early 20th century. “The history of Valentines in America is pretty interesting,” she said, “handmade from the colonial era through the 1840s, hand folded and hand delivered, a very personal experience.”
Esther Howland is credited with being one of the first to sell commercially assembled Valentines in Worcester, employing a group of women in the first greeting card assembly line system. Some of the Valentines would have been sold for up to $50, which in today’s terms is approximately $1,000, and
Kenneth Green, Peter Pears; Benjamin Britten, 1943, oil on canvas, 715 x 969 mm. National Portrait Gallery, London. Given by Mrs Mary Behrend, 1973. NATIONAL
PORTRAIT GALLERY LONDON,NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY LONDON Ford Madox Brown, Henry Fawcett; Dame Millicent Fawcett, 1872, oil on canvas, 1086 x 838 mm. National Portrait Gallery, London. Bequeathed by Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, 2nd
Bt, 1911. NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY LONDON
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owner of Canal Street Wines, met her wife online, “like a good older millennial,” she says, chuckling. They initially connected over an interest in Shakespeare but Scanlon admits, “I could just tell that I liked her even over text and email” — the modern successors to the old-fashioned love letters and handcrafted valentines.
For a time, while they were dating, Scanlon was in Cambridge while her love interest was in Clinton, so Scanlon would take the commuter rail out to Union Station and her first introduction to Worcester’s Canal District. “I was always like, this neighborhood looks really cool and I loved the architecture in Worcester.”
They got engaged after dating for only six months but shortly after that and while they were still living separately, Anthony Kennedy retired from the Supreme Court during the Trump administration, and the couple worried that marriage equality was vulnerable. Eventually they decided to elope and married on a Provincetown beach on a rainy day in July 2018 — “just the two of us and a chihuahua.”
A year later on their anniversary, they had a proper wedding party and, “because we had eloped in some haste, we didn’t have wedding bands at the time” so they exchanged bands at the community wedding, all of which took place in Worcester businesses. “So our friends from all over got to experience Worcester and see where we lived,” said Scanlon, who confessed to “actually tearing up thinking about how much fun it was.”
Acts of love
Jake Dziejma, who works at the EcoTarium, at first said he didn’t have an anecdote before going on to narrate one — in which a well worded letter or Valentine would have come in handy. “We met at college orientation, in the tie dye line and stayed in similar social circles, and it was only later on (two years) did I find out that was of her making — she was, in fact, trying to court me.”
He defined love in the context of his current situation. “Love in 21st-century America is your partner suffering through 90 minutes of phone calls and hours of scouring medical plan information to figure out how much each insurance plan is going to cost for you to get on their workplace health insurance. It’s not sexy but it is certainly an act of love.”
Mike Maestaz, Southbridge resident, was more philosophical and talked of maintaining a partnership in the present rather than the past and how he met his partner. “In order to sustain love, you must be willing to work at it,” he said. “The very nature of co-existing requires an acknowledgment that the world doesn’t revolve around just you. It’s setting up a second TV in the living room instead of arguing about what show to watch. It’s begrudgingly accepting healthy food choices at the behest of your partner.” His spouse is a talented playwright and Maestaz takes pleasure in discovering “where our love bleeds through in her work.” He said he can always spot the quirks and idiosyncrasies that she has layered into her characters based on their relationship.
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Working at love
Scanlon would agree that working at love is key and how interactions at home can bleed over to work. “Starting a business together has been a blast — the same things we bicker about at home are the same at the wine shop.” She believes their relationship inspires her to be brave and creative with the shop. “I think fear is the biggest killer of creativity, and when you have a ‘partner in crime’ that sense of support/ solidarity alleviates fear. I think we both gave each other the courage to say, let’s do this.”
Chris Zaro, local medical student and rugby player, said he met his partner when he was a junior in college and she was a senior. They had a common friend who dared her to ask him out, knowing both of them were recovering from messy relationships. Zaro was nursing a small concussion and a black eye from a game but nevertheless, accepted her invitation. “We met for coffee at Tunnel City and have been together for over four years.”
Worcester resident David Conner said his partner and he have been together for nearly five years. He testifies to how a rollercoaster of experiences together has helped them develop an ever-evolving understanding, which grows in love and commitment. “For me, I have had to deep dive into who I am and ask my most imperfect self, ‘Am I worthy of this kind of love? Can I offer him what he deserves?’” As they envision the life they want together and growing into grumpy, yet free, old men, Conner says, “he is without a doubt my muse.”
So when you are choosing a gift for your valentine, think about the history of how love has been depicted through the ages. Maybe you want to get chocolates, roses and a card but maybe you want to take the retro route and have portraits done.
David Conner of Worcester.
ASHLEY GREEN/T&G FILE
