Cape Ann Museum is an art and historical museum located in

Gloucester, Massachusetts Gloucester () is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It sits on Cape Ann and is a part of Massachusetts's North Shore. The population was 29,729 at the 2020 U.S. Census. An important center of the fishing industry and a ...

. Its collection and programming focuses on the artists and art colonies of

Cape Ann Cape Ann is a rocky peninsula in northeastern Massachusetts, United States on the Atlantic Ocean. It is about northeast of Boston and marks the northern limit of Massachusetts Bay. Cape Ann includes the city of Gloucester and the towns of ...

, including th
Rocky Neck Art Colony
and the

Folly Cove Designers The Folly Cove Designers were a mid-20th-century group of United States, American artists block printing in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Gloucester, Massachusetts, on Cape Ann. Their blocks were made of linoleum, and they primarily printed on fabric. ...

. The museum's collection also features objects from Gloucester's fishing and maritime history, and

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

quarrying history.

History

The Cape Ann Museum was founded in 1875 as the Cape Ann Scientific and Literary Association. Dr. Herman E. Davidson was the Association's first president, a position he held until 1878 when he left Gloucester. In 1923, the Association moved to its current location in the Captain Elias Davis House at 27 Pleasant Street. During this period, the Association acquired the collection of the Gloucester Historical Society, becoming the Cape Ann Scientific, Literary, and Historical Society, which it later shortened to the Cape Ann Historical Association. At this time, it expanded its collection of American fine and decorative arts, maritime and fishing objects, and other historical collections relating to the culture, life, and industries of Cape Ann. In 1937, Alfred Mansfield Brooks became curator and president of the Cape Ann Historical Association. During his thirty year tenure, he compiled the largest collection of

Fitz Henry Lane Fitz Henry Lane (born Nathaniel Rogers Lane, also known as Fitz Hugh Lane) (December 19, 1804 – August 14, 1865) was an American painter and printmaker of a style that would later be called Luminism, for its use of pervasive light. Biography ...

paintings and printed matter in the United States. In 2007 the Board voted to change the name of the Cape Ann Historical Association to the Cape Ann Museum to reflect its current collecting and programming mission. CAM

Captain Elias Davis House

The Captain Elias Davis House, built in 1804 by a successful sea captain, contains much of the Museum's furniture and decorative arts collection. Many of the objects in the house belonged to Elias Davis and his descendants. The house is adjacent to the main museum galleries and 6 of the 12 rooms are open to the public.

Museum Expansion

In order to accommodate its growing collections, the Cape Ann Museum expanded or renovated its gallery and programming space five times between 1936 and 2014. * CAM

1936: the Cape Ann Historical Association added a two story addition behind the Elias Davis House on Federal Street. This addition contains additional exhibition space and a ground floor auditorium. The addition was conceived as a separate building, but was connected to the Davis House shortly after it was built. A new entrance was also built adjacent to the Davis House. The construction was funded by the Catalina Davis Fund. Catalina Davis also donated most of the family heirlooms now on display in the Captain Elias Davis House and bequeathed an endowment to help fund the museum in perpetuity. * 1968: after the Association purchased the lot next to the Davis house in 1965, it built a four-story structure that contains gallery space and storage. The first floor gallery space is currently dedicated to the artworks of Fitz Henry Lane. * 1989-1993: the Association purchased the former New England Telephone building on Elm street in 1989. During the next four years, the museum buildings underwent major renovations, including expanding exhibition spaces, creating a new education room, developing office space, adding an elevator, building a third story link between the structures, and expanding the Library and Archives. * 2002-2014: in a little over a decade, the museum renovated galleries (2002), added an outdoor sculpture court (2006), created a landscaped park and sculpture garden across Pleasant Street facing the museum entrance (2011), created a new central gallery (2013-2014), and created a gallery to house the Thacher Island Lighthouse's first-order

Fresnel Lens A Fresnel lens ( ; ; or ) is a type of composite compact lens developed by the French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788–1827) for use in lighthouses. It has been called "the invention that saved a million ships." The design allows the c ...

Cape Ann Museum Green

On September 17, 2020, the Cape Ann Museum opened its new campus, the Cape Ann Museum Green, located off of Grant Circle and Route 128, Gloucester, MA. This four acre green space is home to the museum's three historic structures, the White-Ellery House (1710), a barn (c. 1740), and the

Babson-Alling House The Babson-Alling House is a historic American colonial architecture, colonial house in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The 2.5-story Georgian architecture, Georgian house was built in 1740 by William Allen, and remains one of Gloucester, Massachus ...

(c. 1740). It is also home to the Janet and William Ellery James Center, a 12,000 square foot building that houses the museum's object and archival collections. Designed by the Boston-based firm
designLAB
part of the building includes 2,000 square feet of exhibition and programming space.

Collection

The highlights include: * The largest collection of

maritime and landscape paintings * A scale model of Gloucester port in the 19th century * The

Cape Ann dory The Banks dory, or Grand Banks dory, is a type of dory. They were used as traditional fishing boats from the 1850s on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. The Banks dory is a small, open, narrow, flat-bottomed and slab-sided boat with a particularly n ...

used by Alfred Johnson to cross the Atlantic Ocean in 1876 * The original

Thacher Island Thacher Island is a small island off Cape Ann on the Massachusetts coast in the United States. It is a part of the Town of Rockport. It was a place where some naval confrontations, both minor and major, took place, which helped secure a victory fo ...

Fresnel lens A Fresnel lens ( ; ; or ) is a type of composite compact lens developed by the French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788–1827) for use in lighthouses. It has been called "the invention that saved a million ships." The design allows the c ...

* Sample books, display hangings and other artifacts by the

Works by

Gilbert Stuart Gilbert Charles Stuart ( Stewart; December 3, 1755 – July 9, 1828) was an American painter from Rhode Island Colony who is widely considered one of America's foremost portraitists. His best-known work is an unfinished portrait of George Washi ...

Winslow Homer Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in ...

Cecilia Beaux Eliza Cecilia Beaux (May 1, 1855 – September 17, 1942) was an American society portraitist, whose subjects included First Lady Edith Roosevelt, Admiral Sir David Beatty and Georges Clemenceau. Trained in Philadelphia, she went on to study in ...

Frank Duveneck Frank Duveneck (né Decker; October 9, 1848 – January 3, 1919) was an American figure and portrait painter. Early life Duveneck was born in Covington, Kentucky, the son of German immigrant Bernhard Decker. Decker died in a cholera epidemic whe ...

John Sloan John French Sloan (August 2, 1871 – September 7, 1951) was an American painter and etcher. He is considered to be one of the founders of the Ashcan school of American art. He was also a member of the group known as The Eight. He is best known ...

Milton Avery Milton Clark Avery (March 7, 1885 – January 3, 1965Haskell, B. (2003). "Avery, Milton". Grove Art Online.) was an American modern painter. Born in Altmar, New York, he moved to Connecticut in 1898 and later to New York City. He was the husband ...

, and Stuart Davis.

Notes

External links

Official website
{{authority control Museums of American art Art museums and galleries in Massachusetts History museums in Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Gloucester, Massachusetts Maritime museums in Massachusetts Museums in Essex County, Massachusetts Gloucester, Massachusetts Marine art museums in the United States Art museums established in 1873 1873 establishments in Massachusetts