The New Britain Museum of American Art is an

art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. Although primarily con ...

in New Britain, Connecticut. Founded in 1903, it is the first museum in the country dedicated to American art. A total of 72,000 visits were made to the museum in the year ending June 30, 2009, and another 16,000 visits were made to the museum's satellite gallery at TheatreWorks in Hartford, Connecticut.''New Britain Museum of American Art Annual Report 2008-2009''
published by the New Britain Museum of American Art, p 46

Walnut Hill Park Walnut Hill Park is a large public park west of downtown New Britain, Connecticut. Developed beginning in the 1860s, it is an early work of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, with winding lanes, a band shell, and the city's monument to it ...

, designed by

Frederick Law Olmsted Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the USA. Olmsted was famous for co ...

, is next to the museum.

History

The museum's origins are in the "New Britain Institute", chartered in 1853 with the goal of fostering education and art in the city, especially among its immigrant population. In 1903, the museum received a bequest of $20,000 from John Butler Talcott to acquire "original modern oil paintings either by native or foreign artists". Talcott's nephew was tonalist Allen Butler Talcott of the Old Lyme Art Colony.

Bryson Burroughs Henry Bryson Burroughs (8 September 1869 – November 1934) was an American artist and employee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He began there as an assistant to Curator of Paintings Roger Fry, and when Fry left in 1909, Burroughs assumed th ...

, then curator of paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, suggested to museum officials that directing their efforts at acquiring American art would be most cost-effective. The museum took his advice and seldom spent more than $1,000 for any artwork, amassing a collection now worth millions.O'Shaughnessy, Tracey, "Hyland Fling", article, ''Connecticut Magazine'', p 56, November 2009 A wealthy widow, Grace Judd Landers, expected to donate a large amount of money to the museum, but she lost her money in the stock market crash of 1929, and so donated her house as a museum in 1934. Sanford B. D. Low, a son-in-law of William H. Hart, at one time president of New Britain's

Stanley Works Stanley Black & Decker, Inc., formerly known as The Stanley Works, is a Fortune 500 American manufacturer of industrial tools and household hardware and provider of security products. Headquartered in the greater Hartford city of New Britain, ...

, was the museum's first director. He acquired a number of works by his friend, Thomas Hart Benton, for the museum. Both Low and Benton were part of a high-spirited circle of friends (including James Cagney) who spent summers at Hart Haven, William Hart's summer place on Martha's Vineyard where both Low and Benton painted together (Hart was no relation to Thomas Hart Benton). In the late 1940s, Low found out that the

Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

in New York City was rumored to be ready to sell Benton's "The Arts of Life in America" series, which was out of fashion as representational art. Benton had believed he was cheated when he sold the murals to the Whitney's director, Juliana Force. Low arranged to have the New Britain museum acquire the works for $500, paid for by Alix Stanley, a member of the family which founded Stanley Works. The purchase price was less than it cost to hire a crane for the move and transport the pictures. In 1964 the Sanford B. D. Low Memorial Illustration Collection was inaugurated. The first museum collection of American illustration in the United States, it now holds over 1,700 works dating from the 19th century. Douglas Hyland became executive director of the museum in 1999 after having been director of the San Antonio Museum. He raised funds from new donors outside of New Britain, including the Walton Family Foundation and the Henry Luce Foundation. In 2003, the Chase Family Building was constructed, doubling the museum's size. During Hyland's tenure (as of 2009), the New Britain museum building was renovated, and the museum doubled its collection to 10,000 objects, doubled its full-time staff to 24 employees, doubled its docents to 100 and nearly tripled memberships from 1,200 to 3,500. The museum's $3.92 million in income for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009, revenue was up slightly from the $3.86 million of the previous fiscal year.

Collection

Sir Richard Arkwright by Mather Brown 1790

The permanent collection includes colonial portraits, works from the

Hudson River School The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area ...

, American Impressionists and the

Ash Can School The Ashcan School, also called the Ash Can School, was an artistic movement in the United States during the late 19th-early 20th century that produced works portraying scenes of daily life in New York, often in the city's poorer neighborhoods. ...

. The collection includes works by John Singleton Copley,

Marcus Jansen Marcus Antonius Jansen (born 1968) is an American painter. Early life and education Jansen was born and raised in New York City. He attended the Kunstgewerbe Schule Berufskolleg für Technik und Medien am Platz der Republik in Mönchengladba ...

Frederic Church Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 – April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for painting large landscapes, ...

Thomas Cole Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist and the founder of the Hudson River School art movement. Cole is widely regarded as the first significant American landscape painter. He was known for his romantic landscape and history painti ...

Rockwell Kent Rockwell Kent (June 21, 1882 – March 13, 1971) was an American painter, printmaker, illustrator, writer, sailor, adventurer and voyager. Biography Rockwell Kent was born in Tarrytown, New York. Kent was of English descent. He lived much of ...

Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Ame ...

, N.C. Wyeth,

Andrew Wyeth Andrew Newell Wyeth ( ; July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009) was an American visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century. In his ...

, and

Sol LeWitt Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism. LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he pref ...

.Web page title
"Overview"
at the New Britain Museum of American Art web site, retrieved December 5, 2009 American Colonial and Federal-era portraits are represented with works by

John Smibert John Smibert (rarely spelled Smybert; ; 24 March 1688 – 2 April 1751) was a Scottish-born painter, regarded as the first academically trained artist to live and work regularly in British America. Career Born in Edinburgh on 24 March 1688, Smi ...

, John Trumbull,

Mather Brown Mather Brown (baptized October 11, 1761 – May 25, 1831) was an American painter who was born in Boston, Massachusetts and was active in England. Early life Brown was the son of Gawen and Elizabeth (Byles) Brown, and descended from the Rev. ...

, John Singleton Copley,

Charles Willson Peale Charles Willson Peale (April 15, 1741 – February 22, 1827) was an American Painting, painter, soldier, scientist, inventor, politician and naturalist. He is best remembered for his portrait paintings of leading figures of the American Revolu ...

, Sarah Peale, Gilbert Stuart, and

Ralph Earl Ralph Earl (May 11, 1751 – August 16, 1801) was an American painter known for his portraits, of which at least 183 can be documented. He also painted six landscapes, including a panorama display of Niagara Falls. Early life Ralph Ea ...

. The museum's holdings of early and late

paintings include landscapes by

, Thomas Doughty,

Asher B. Durand Asher Brown Durand (August 21, 1796, – September 17, 1886) was an American painter of the Hudson River School. Early life Durand was born in, and eventually died in, Maplewood, New Jersey (then called Jefferson Village). He was the eighth ...

Fitz Hugh 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 ...

, Martin Johnson Heade, John Kensett,

Albert Bierstadt Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was not ...

, and

. Nineteenth-century still life works at the museum include paintings by

Raphaelle Peale Raphaelle Peale (sometimes spelled Raphael Peale) (February 17, 1774 – March 4, 1825) is considered the first professional American painter of still-life. Biography Peale was born in Annapolis, Maryland, the fifth child, though eldest survivin ...

, Severin Roesen, William Harnett, John Peto, John Haberle, and

John La Farge John La Farge (March 31, 1835 – November 14, 1910) was an American artist whose career spanned illustration, murals, interior design, painting, and popular books on his Asian travels and other art-related topics. La Farge is best known for ...

. Genre painting and sculpture is represented by

John Quidor John Quidor (January 26, 1801 – December 13, 1881) was an American painter of historical and literary subjects. He has about 35 known canvases, most of which are based on Washington Irving's stories about Dutch New York, drawing inspiration fro ...

William Sidney Mount William Sidney Mount (November 26, 1807 – November 19, 1868) was a 19th-century American genre painter. Born in Setauket in 1807, Mount spent much of his life in his hometown and the adjacent village of Stony Brook, where he painted portraits, ...

Lilly Martin Spencer Lilly Martin Spencer (born Angelique Marie Martin; November 26, 1822 – May 22, 1902) was one of the most popular and widely reproduced American female genre works, genre painters in the mid-nineteenth century. She primarily painted domestic sce ...

, John George Brown, and John Rogers. The museum's holdings in post-Civil War figural painting and sculpture, include works by

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 ...

Thomas Eakins Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists. For the length ...

Mary Cassatt Mary Stevenson Cassatt (; May 22, 1844June 14, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh's North Side), but lived much of her adult life in France, where she befriended Edgar De ...

, John Singer Sargent, J. Alden Weir,

George de Forest Brush George de Forest Brush (September 28, 1855 – April 24, 1941) was an American painter and Georgist. In collaboration with his friend, the artist Abbott H. Thayer, he made contributions to military camouflage, as did his wife, aviator and artist ...

, Joseph DeCamp, Frank Benson, Edmund C. Tarbell, William Paxton, Elizabeth Nourse, and 19 plasters and bronzes by

Solon Borglum Solon Hannibal de la Mothe Borglum (December 22, 1868 – January 31, 1922) was an American sculptor. He is most noted for his depiction of frontier life, and especially his experience with cowboys and native Americans. He was awarded the Croix ...

. Works by American Impressionists at the museum include a pastel by Mary Cassatt and works by

Theodore Robinson Theodore Robinson (June 3, 1852April 2, 1896) was an American painter best known for his Impressionist landscapes. He was one of the first American artists to take up Impressionism in the late 1880s, visiting Giverny and developing a close frien ...

John Henry Twachtman John Henry Twachtman (August 4, 1853 – August 8, 1902) was an American painter best known for his impressionist landscapes, though his painting style varied widely through his career. Art historians consider Twachtman's style of American Impr ...

, J. Alden Weir, Willard Metcalf, and 11 oil paintings by

Childe Hassam Frederick Childe Hassam (; October 17, 1859 – August 27, 1935) was an American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressioni ...

. Among the later Impressionist works are paintings by

William Glackens William James Glackens (March 13, 1870 – May 22, 1938) was an American realist painter and one of the founders of the Ashcan School, which rejected the formal boundaries of artistic beauty laid-down by the conservative National Academy of De ...

Ernest Lawson Ernest Lawson (March 22, 1873 – December 18, 1939) was a Canadian-American painter and exhibited his work at the Canadian Art Club and as a member of the American group The Eight, artists who formed a loose association in 1908 to protes ...

Frederick Carl Frieseke Frederick Carl Frieseke (April 7, 1874 – August 24, 1939) was an American Impressionist painter who spent most of his life as an expatriate in France. An influential member of the Giverny art colony, his paintings often concentrated on various ...

, Louis Ritman, Richard Emil Miller, and

Maurice Prendergast Maurice Brazil Prendergast (October 10, 1858 – February 1, 1924) was an American artist who painted in oil and watercolor, and created monotypes. His delicate landscapes and scenes of modern life, characterized by mosaic-like color, are ...

. The collection also includes the mural series "The Arts of Life in America" by Thomas Hart Benton. The museum's contemporary art holdings include works by

Chuck Close Charles Thomas Close (July 5, 1940 – August 19, 2021) was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits using a very l ...

Dan Flavin Dan Flavin (April 1, 1933 – November 29, 1996) was an American Minimalism, minimalist artist famous for creating sculpture, sculptural objects and installations from commercially available Fluorescent lamp, fluorescent light fixtures. Earl ...

Eva Hesse Eva Hesse (January 11, 1936 – May 29, 1970) was a German-born American sculptor known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. She is one of the artists who ushered in the postminimal art movement in the 196 ...

, Julie Heffernan, Walton Ford,

Ronnie Landfield Ronnie Landfield (born January 9, 1947) is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction (related to Postminimalism, Color Field painting, an ...

, and Graydon Parrish. Graydon Parrish's large realist painting '' The Cycle of Terror and Tragedy'' is also part of the collection. The painting is an allegorical tribute to those lost in the

terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

. The museum is the first to build a collection of Post-contemporary Art, centered around Parrish's 9/11 painting and including works by Tony Curanaj, Daniel Maidman, Richard T. Scott, Sadie Valerie,

Stephanie Deshpande Stephanie Deshpande (born 1975) is a contemporary American painter, best known for her portraits and narrative paintings. She currently lives in northern New Jersey. Education Deshpande attended high school in Massachusetts, and completed a BFA ...

, and Patricia Watwood, among others.

References

External links

* {{authority control Buildings and structures in New Britain, Connecticut Museums of American art Art museums and galleries in Connecticut Museums in Hartford County, Connecticut Art museums established in 1903 1903 establishments in Connecticut