Charles W. Hawthorne sketching with his class, Provincetown, MA
One week from today, the NBMAA will open its newest exhibition The Tides of Provincetown: Pivotal Years in America’s Oldest Continuous Art Colony (1899-2011). With the installation well under way, we have stopped to consider one seemingly elemental, though crucial question that quietly lurks behind the very title of the show. That question of course being, “Well, what exactly is an art colony?” The short answer is simply that an art colony is a community where artists of all kinds congregate to live, learn, and practice. A kind of getaway destination for “long-term professional development.” Today, art colonies are vigorously sought after and provide an opportunity for artists to share and evolve their ideas, away from general distractions of the everyday.
