A Stately New Exhibition Space For New Britain Museum Of American Art

Like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, the museum's new home will allow the amount of art it displays to be significantly increased. "The new building will allow us to display twice as many of the NBMAA's masterpieces," stated Hyland, "and it will allow us to present changing exhibitions of national and international importance." With a collection of more than 5,000 pieces, the museum can now spread its wings with the opening of the 43,000-square-foot, $26 million facility.

The new structure, named the Chase Family Building in honor of major donors David and Rhoda Chase, their daughter, Cheryl Chase, and her husband, Stuart Bear, was constructed over the past two years and adjoins the Landers House. It was designed by the Boston-based firm of Ann Beha Architects and all of the affordable luxuries have been incorporated, including a 200-seat auditorium, ample parking and lots of gallery space.

The Thomas Hart Benton murals, a staple of the collection, are iconic pictures, but in the past many a patron has exited the doors of the Landers House murmuring disappointment about their noted absence. That shall be the case no more, as the seminal works now have a gallery that was specifically designed for them in the Chase Family Building.

Considered to be one of Benton's most masterful series of murals and among his finest work, "The Arts of Life In America" have returned to NBMAA following an extended exhibition at the Whitney. Commissioned by the Whitney in 1932 for its library, the Benton murals were sold to New Britain in 1954 when the Whitney moved to its current location.

The murals depict life and culture in America in colorful, larger-than-life egg tempera and oil glaze on linen images on panels. "The Arts of the South" is a lively panel from the mural depicting a wide variety of scenes ranging from Southerners "getting religion" to others shooting dice. "The Arts of the West" mural includes a slap-happy trio of musicians belting out their tunes while others engage in the game of poker and yet another wields a shotgun. Benton expresses the significant role the Native American played in the creative history of the nation in the "Indian Arts" panel.

Benton had a special fondness for the museum, which he reportedly visited often. The artist noted in a letter dated 1959: "The New Britain Museum is my favorite museum among all museums in our country. The reasons for this are plain - over the years it has been the most friendly museum for me and my efforts. When other museums were getting rid of these, the New Britain Museum was supporting them - buying them and hanging them on its walls." NBMAA paid the Whitney $500 for the Benton murals half a century ago; their worth today is probably in excess of $50 million.

"A lot of museums are very trendy, and they accept whatever is going at that particular time," stated Hyland about the formation of New Britain's collection, "but we accept things from all periods and spectrums of American art. There isn't one road to success; I think my predecessors espoused this concept as well."

NBMAA began as a repository for Modern art, "and Modern art at that date was Impressionism, which was sort of radical to many people that liked academic art," states Hyland. "What we need to do is remain part of the era that we are living, to reflect the period so that this decade will be represented very well." Much of the museum's mission today comes with help from living artists, such as Sol LeWitt, a New Britain native who created the large wall drawing that greets visitors in the lobby of the Chase Family Building.

NBMAA has added some 1,500 lithographs, silk screens and engravings to its holdings, all promised gifts from LeWitt, most of which have never been on public display. Born in Hartford, Conn., and raised in New Britain, LeWitt is regarded as the pioneer of the conceptual art movement. The LeWitts have also placed Donald Judd, Dan Flavin and Claus Oldenburg works with NBMAA on long-term loan.

While keeping its focus on Modern art throughout the century, it is interesting that the museum's holdings in the Hudson River School and early portraits are so deep. Hyland explained that in 1930 the NBMAA directors went to the acting director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, an artist named Bryson Burrows.

"When Burrows was informed of their modest endowment, he told them to forget about buying European art, but said, 'Take my advice and go out buy Frederic Church for $200 and [Albert] Bierdstadt for $500,'" related Hyland. "So they actually went out and did that. The gallery that was most associated with Modernism in the 1920s and 1930s was the McBeth Gallery, and we bought about 100 paintings from them," he said.

"The other gallery that really helped establish the museum's collection was the Vose Gallery in Boston. We bought about 250 paintings from them during the 1940s and 1950s, with the help of Mr A.W. Stanley, an industrialist from New Britain who really liked the Vose Galleries."

NBMAA's collection is a virtual Who's Who in art with the likes of classic American masters such as Thomas Eakins, William Harnett, Eastman Johnson, the Weirs, Frank Benson and Mary Cassatt all being well represented.

Homer's "Butterflies," an oil on canvas on board executed in New York upon his return from France in 1878 and prior to his departure for Prout's Neck, Maine, is a highlight of the collection. It is a decorative subject of a beautiful woman on a butterfly hunt that typifies the Aesthetic Movement. At the time "Butterflies" was executed, Homer was a member of the Tile Club, a group committed to producing aesthetic decorations for the home.

Another of Homer's works, "Skirmish in the Wilderness," an 1864 oil on canvas on Masonite, is an important picture from the collection as it is among the early images where themes of mortality, isolation and survival are expressed. These themes would dominate his important later works that were executed during his time in Maine.

Other works from the genre and academic paintings selection include Eakins' oil on panel "Sewing," a classic circa 1879 interior depicting a seated woman that recalls an Old Masters style with its sharply contrasted imagery. "The Timer," an oil on panel study by Eakins, is in actuality a forerunner to NBMAA's illustration art collection, as it is a preliminary sketch for a painting published by Scribner's magazine in 1879.

Impressionists such as Childe Hassam, Maurice Prendergast, John Twachtman and William Glackens are present in the expatriates and Impressionism selection. Cassatt's "A Caress," a touching pastel image of a mother with child, was a work included in the artist's first retrospective in 1893 and purchased before her first major American exhibition opened in 1895 by Louise Havemeyer. Because the painting was highly prized, it was not among the other "jewels" from the Havemeyer collection that were presented to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead it was passed to Electra Havemeyer Webb, whose own daughter sold it just months before her house burned to the ground.

Standouts from the category also include "Le Jour du Grand Prix," 1888, and "Rigger's Shop, Provincetown, Mass.," 1900, both by Hassam and which incorporate the bright palette and broken brushwork that typify the artist's Impressionist technique.

Modernists are equally well represented with an impressive selection of artists such as Charles Burchfield, Alexander Calder, Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent, John Marin, Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Scheeler and Max Weber.

Milton Avery received his art training in Hartford, just up the road from the New Britain, while he was working a factory job and later for the Traveler's Insurance Company. "Child's Supper," a 1945 oil on canvas donated by Roy Neuberger, is but one of the inviting images from the collection. Also on view is Marsden Hartley's 1938 oil on canvas "Maine Islands" that exhibits a strong Cubist influence.

Long considered to be America's foremost Realist, Andrew Wyeth has two paintings in the collection, including "McVey's Barn," a 1948 egg tempera and oil resin on Masonite. "The Revenant," a 1949 tempera on Masonite, is a Surrealistic self-portrait, one of two known. The painting was envisioned while the artist was in a "sad mood, wandering through the house of his deceased friend Christina Olsen, the subject of 'Christina's World,' when he opened a door and saw his reflection in the dust-covered mirror in front of him."

The first Wyeth purchase that the New Britain made, a watercolor, came during an exhibition at McBeth, the first gallery to show Wyeth. "In 1939, Wyeth had his first watercolor show and they were selling for next to nothing," stated Hyland, "and they sold out within two weeks. But we bought one of his watercolors at that show, and then the next year at his next show we bought another one. So we have two of the finest, earliest watercolors that Andrew Wyeth ever did, 'John Olson's Funeral,' a tribute to Christina's bother, and 'Morning Lobsterman.'"

Early American painters are impressively represented by Martin Johnson Heade, John Brewster, George Catlin, Charles Willson Peale, Gilbert Stuart and John Trumbull.

"The Morgan Family Portrait" is a highlight of the Americana selection of portraits, executed in 1790 by itinerant artist John Brewster, a deaf-mute who traveled New England seeking portrait commissions and other types of painting jobs, such as tavern signs and advertisements.

Originally from Scotland, John Smibert relocated to Boston in 1728 and proved an influential painter, affecting the works of John Singleton Copley and others of the next generation. Smibert has on display his 1739 oil on canvas portrait of Benjamin Colman.

Gilbert Stuart's well-executed portrait of Jared Sparks, 1827-28, reveals the lively brushstrokes for which the artist is so well known, creating a "sense of palpable atmosphere that gives his sitters a radiance that was new to American painting." Sparks was the first professor of history at Harvard University and later served as its president.

The Hudson River School is documented with masters such as Bierstadt, Bricher, Bradfrord, Church, Cole, Gifford, Inness, Kensett, Fitz Hugh Lane, Moran, Richards and Worthington Whittridge. Thomas Cole is represented by numerous works in the collection, including the classic landscape "The Clove, Catskills," an 1826 oil on canvas measuring 251/4 by 351/8 inches. Other works by Cole from the collection include the sketch "Aqueduct near Rome," an 1832 oil on paper on canvas that was a study for the painting that is now housed in the collection of Washington University Gallery of Art, St Louis, Mo.

Paintings by Lane are on view, including "Wreck of the Roma," and Bierstadt has the impressive and large image of "Seal Rock," 1872-87, on display.

NBMAA was among the first museums in the country to recognize the importance of illustration art and, accordingly, its collection is well endowed with a large and important selection of art by American icons such as James Montgomery Flagg, J.C. Leyendecker, Maxfield Parrish and Norman Rockwell.

Displayed in the Sanford B.D. Low Illustration Gallery are a captivating selection of illustrations originally created for periodicals, newspapers, posters and advertisements. Culled from more than 1,500 works in the collection are several illustrations by Flagg. Known as the highest paid illustrator of his time and universally recognized for his "I Want You" recruiting poster, there are three oils by Flagg that were commissioned by the Hearst Publishing Company. "New Orleans, Pralines and Gumbos," circa 1939, is on view, as are "San Francisco, Treasure Island Salad" and "Way Down East - Apple Pie," also "Baked with Crabmeat Dressing," executed in 1939 for Cooking Around America.

Rockwell is also well represented by the whimsical "Weighing In," an oil on canvas executed for a 1958 Saturday Evening Post cover that depicts famed jockey Eddie Arcaro standing on a scale that is being inspected by a portly track steward. "Easter," an oil on card, is yet another Saturday Evening Post cover, 1954, that depicts a freckle-faced choirboy struggling to get his hair in order.

With the opening of NBMAA's new facility, a special exhibition titled "American Visions: 125 Years of American Masterpieces" will introduce visitors to aspects of the collection that have seldom been seen. Among them are works by artists such as Aaron Draper Shattuck, Jack Levine, Guy Pene DuBois, Emily Mason, Irene Hardwicke Olivieri and Arthur Getz. The installation ranges from a Nineteenth Century Hudson River painting to contemporary abstractions. A strength of the collection is social realism, and many examples of the 1920s and 1930s are included.

"Seldom Seen Photography," another aspect of the "American Visions" exhibition, features 34 works from the social activist Lewis Hine to the abstract Polaroid pulls of Hartford artist Ellen Carey. In the past few years, New Britain has actively pursued the acquisition of photographs. Recently it has acquired photographs by Gertrude Kasebier, Cindy Sherman, Jack Pierson and Francis Bruguiere, among many others.

Art is all encompassing at NBMAA, so much so that the viewing of art does not even end when one leaves that galleries for the restrooms. Amherst-based artist Sandy Litchfield was the winner of New Britain's "bathroom design" contest and her unique wall art is featured in both the ladies' and men's facilities.

"Our collection has been built up and now we want as many people as possible to come to the table to enjoy the feast," stated a jubilant Hyland.

NBMAA is at 56 Lexington Street. For information, 860-229-0257 or www.nbmaa.org.