EXHIBITS OUR 2019 FAVORITES
J.M.W. Turner show leads this year’s notable exhibitions
“J.M.W. Turner: Watercolors from Tate,” Oct. 5 through Feb. 23, 2020, Mystic Seaport Museum
In what may be the biggest curatorial coup of its existence, Mystic Seaport Museum has been showing 92 watercolors and four oils from the British Museum’s J.M.W. Turner collection in their only North American appearance. This exhibit in the Thompson Exhibition Building features works from 1791 to 1846, including pages from Turner’s sketchbooks, with a variety of techniques and subjects. The effect is a biography of sorts of the famed British artist.
Within the exhibit is “Turner and the Sea,” a microshowing of maritime paintings exclusive to the Mystic stop. Images of whaling, lighthouses and fishing form a provocative conversation with the museum’s maritime exhibits.
And as if that weren’t enough, Mystic Museum of Art ran a companion exhibit, “Oil and Water: Mystic Art Colony Artists Respond to Turner,” from Oct. 11 to Nov. 16 — far too short a time for such an impressive show. The paintings, from the museum’s permanent collection, demonstrate the long reach of Turner’s influence on tonalists and impressionists, as painters such as Henry Ward Ranger (1858-1916) and the lesser known Lorinda Dudley (18451930) evoke Turner in both landscape and seascape.
— Betty J. Cotter
“Revisiting the Nut Museum: Visionary Art of Elizabeth Tashjian,” Oct. 21Dec. 6, Cummings Arts Center Galleries at Connecticut College
Elizabeth Tashjian, known as curator of the Nut Museum in Old Lyme for three decades, was still alive the first time her artwork was exhibited in a major retrospective in 2004 at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, and she beamed with all the attention paid to her. No doubt the late artist would have been even prouder of this exhibit, which drew a large crowd for the opening reception.
Curated by art professor Chris Steiner and students in one of his classes, the beautiful exhibit paid homage to the many genres that Tashjian worked in, not the least of which was as a performance artist. The coup de grace, though, was the faithful restoration of the former Old Lyme gallery that attracted museum nuts from throughout the country and led Tashjian to guest appearances with Johnny Carson and Jay Leno, among others. The exhibit traces a certain kind of obsession, but it’s the quality and the humor of the art itself that shines through. — Lee Howard
“Fragile Earth: The Naturalist Impulse in Contemporary Art,” June 1 to Sept. 8, Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme
This was a fascinating exhibition in terms of subject matter, showing how artists can advocate for environmental causes, but it was also impressive due to the wonderfully creative visuals, including a huge silhouette mural of birds painted on gallery walls, a three-dimensional version of a bleached coral reef,
and preserved insects, from cicadas to grasshopped, artfully arranged along a hallway in the historic Florence Griswold House. Kudos to artists James Prosek, Courtney Mattison, Mark Dion and Jennifer Angus. — Kristina Dorsey
“Discovering New Beauty: Watercolor Landscapes of the Northeast,” April 27 to Aug. 25, Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London
The star attractions at this watercolor show at the Lyman Allyn were three Andrew Wyeths, including a brightly colored early seascape, “Marshall Point Lighthouse, Maine,” and two more characteristic of his later style, the spare “Over the Hill” and “West Window, East Friendship, Maine.”
But there was much more to see here in this exhibit, including local views such as “Outside the Lighthouse” by Yngve Edward Soderberg, a watercolor on paper of Race Rock Lighthouse. With its rich color and sweeping brush strokes, the painting evokes the bracing air of a good sailing day.
Our favorite: Albert B. McCutcheon's “Connecticut Through a Windshield,” a funky mashup of light and shade where the landscape seems to broken up by sweeping wiper blades. With its air of pastoral mystery, this 1938 watercolor anticipates the classic on-the-road short stories of Connecticut writer Robert M. Coates. — Betty J. Cotter
“Streamlined: From Hull to Home,” June 15-Aug. 25, Mystic Seaport Museum
Somehow everyone forgot that one of the 20th century's great industrial design movements began with boatbuilding. This summertime show explained that rounded corners and horizontal lines had a practical purpose aiding speed before they showed up on toasters and vacuum cleaners. — John Ruddy
“Day-Glo and Napalm: UConn from 1967 to 1971,” Aug. 5-Oct. 25, the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, UConn
This small but powerful show looked back at four tumultuous years of protests, riots and sit-ins at the usually peaceful campus in Storrs. The focus was on individual voices as those who were there reflected on how the Sixties shaped their lives. — John Ruddy
“A Soldier’s Journey,” Pershing Park in Washington, D.C., to be unveiled in 2023 or 2024
Not exactly an exhibit, but we learned in April that Groton native Traci L. Slatton would be immortalized in bronze for the new World War I memorial in Washington, D.C., that is expected to be unveiled by 2024. Slatton, a novelist and daughter of Waterford resident Jo Slatton, is the wife of and frequent model for sculptor Sabin Howard, the New York City artist chosen to create the bronze-relief part of
“A Soldier's Journey,” which will be unveiled a block and a half from the White House in Pershing Park. Slatton portrays a nurse in full dress uniform. “Perhaps (someday) one of my great-great-great-great-greatgreat-great-grandchildren will stand in front of the relief and look at my face and feel our connection,” she said.