A Rogue Minimalist

Although he will continue to teach, former Dean of the Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford Power Boothe now has the chance to commit all his efforts to painting, as his job only allowed him a few weeks of artistic focus in the summer. The exhibit Power Boothe: Out of Order at the New Britain Museum [...]

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Contemporary/Interactive Crazy Quilts

Victorian crazy quilts were textiles made for display. They adorned the public space of the parlor rather than private space of the bedroom. The compositions of these quilts did not follow traditional patterns, but were the product of the seamstress’ own sense of invention. Beyond their decorative function, Crazy Quilts had a social function. Crazy [...]

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200 Years of Women Artists

On Dec. 18 the New Britain Museum of American Art will open WomenArtists@NewBritainMuseum, a comprehensive exhibition of women artists represented in the permanent collection. This is a first in the Museum’s history and a landmark show that sets it among a group of major international museums—the Musée National d’Art Moderne at the Centre Pompidou in [...]

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“Carrying” on Tradition

View of Nantucket Lightship Baskets: Carrying on Tradition. Davis Gallery, New Britain Museum of American Art. Nantucket Lightship Baskets have had a long and illustrious history beginning in the early 19th century on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. Though wooden baskets have been in existence since before America was colonized by the British, Nantucket residents modified the [...]

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Classical Realism Today: Christopher Pugliese

Christopher Pugliese (b. 1968) is the most recent artist featured in the NEW/NOW Gallery at the New Britain Museum of American Art. His style merges the classical with the contemporary, painting his figures with the grace and anatomical accuracy of the Old Masters while simultaneously creating an air of modern existentialism. His approach to art [...]

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New Media & Fractal Art

A broad term that emerged in the 1960s and exploded onto the art scene in the 1980s, New Media ecompasses the fusion of traditional media such as film, images, painting, sculpture, music, and the written and spoken word with the interactive power of computer and communications technology, computer-enabled consumer devices, and the Internet. This new category of art [...]

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American Reflections: The Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin

Millstone Point. William Chadwick (1879-1962). Oil on canvas, 24 x 30 in. Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin. The NBMAA is currently showing American Reflections: The Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin in the Davis Gallery. This private collection is composed of a wide variety of local and regional subject matter. The exhibition is a focused view of [...]

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Gallery Tours: Late 20th Century Art

With no formal artistic training, Richard Pousette-Dart borrowed from the early efforts of the Abstract Expressionists during the 1940s and soon developed a painting technique that focused on the artist’s direct experience with materials and discouraged the use of preparatory sketches. The artist incorporated substances, such as sand, razor blades, and sandpaper, to alter the [...]

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Exhibition Tour: American Pulp Art

From the depths of the Great Depression through the era of World War II, Americans turned to inexpensive novels as a form of entertainment and a way to escape their woes. These gripping stories, written before the age of television, were charged with adventure and mystery. Buyers were immediately attracted to their covers. The situations [...]

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Gallery Tours: Winslow Homer

Concurrent with the development and rise of the Hudson River School, American artists journeyed abroad and enrolled in the leading art schools of Europe. Thomas P. Rossiter (1818–1871) received his training in the most fashionable of all art capitals, Paris. Eastman Johnson (1824–1906), who studied at the Düsseldorf Academy in Germany and at the studio [...]

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