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Selections from the Collection featuring the Dublin Art Colony

June 4 - August 5, 2005

 

"Selections from the Collection featuring the Dublin Art Colony" will be exhibited June 4 to August 5, 2005 at the Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery at Keene State College. The exhibition will feature recent acquisitions to the Thorne's Dublin Art Colony Collection including three recently acquired prints by Rockwell Kent and a first-time display of Barry Faulkner sketches, as well as other artwork from the Dublin Art Colony.

The Colony, which flourished in the late 19th century and early 20th century around New Hampshire's Mount Monadnock, comprised some of the country's best-known artists, including Rockwell Kent, whose work is world-renowned. The Rockwell Kent prints, made in the 1930s and each signed by the artist, were acquired in the past six months as part of an ongoing campaign to acquire a broader representation of the highest quality work by the prolific group of 30 artists from the Dublin Art Colony. The Kent prints include a wood engraving "Big Baby,"1933, and two lithographs "Greenland Mother Nursing Child," 1934, and "And the Women Must Weep," 1937. (left: "And the Women Must Weep," a 1937 lithograph by Rockwell Kent, is one of three recently acquired prints showcased in "Selections from the Collection featuring the Dublin Art Colony" on display from June 4 to August 5, 2005 at the Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery at Keene State College)

In 1903 Rockwell Kent was apprenticed to Albert Handerson Thayer in Dublin, New Hampshire, and later married Thayer's niece. In 1939, the magazine "Prints" conducted a survey that found Kent to be the most widely known and successful printmaker in the country. In American art, Kent was especially known for his use of symbolism. Humanity was the hero in most of his prints representing life's destiny and the meaning of existence. Kent was controversial politically and for a time fell out of favor in this country. In the year 2000, twenty-nine years after his death, an exhibition of works that he gave to the Soviet Union was shown in this country to critical acclaim and Kent's place as a major American artist was secured.

Barry Faulkner was known for his murals. Some of his many commissions were for the RCA building in Rockefeller Center, New York City, and the National Archives in Washington D.C. The Faulkner sketches, some of which have never been seen before, were often the basis of his wall murals, several of which can be seen in Keene: in the foyer of Elliot Hall on the KSC campus, at the Cheshire County Historical Society on Main St., and at Bank of America on Central Square.

Although the village of Dublin, N.H., and nearby Mount Monadnock have attracted writers and painters since the early nineteenth century, what we now call the Dublin Art Colony began to take shape in the late 1880s. For the next 40 years, the Colony helped transform the Town of Dublin from a small rural community with an established summer population into a summer haven for visual artists, writers, and others drawn to this inspirational setting in southwest New Hampshire.

In 1888, artist Abbott Thayer, who grew up in Keene, N.H., was invited to Dublin and Thayer and his family soon became year-round residents. Thayer's presence brought George de Forest Brush to the region. Other artists who studied as informal apprentices with Thayer were Barry Faulkner, Alexander James, Rockwell Kent, and Richard Meryman. In 1890, painter Joseph Lindon Smith was given land in Dublin to build a home and Smith's close friend, Frank Weston Benson came to paint with his friend.

Mount Monadnock, one of the places most loved by Thoreau years earlier influenced these artists and the landscape around Dublin contributed to their artistic vision, which was solidly within the mainstream of traditional American art.

The Dublin artists invited friends from other disciplines to visit. It was Thayer who told Mark Twain about the area as a place congenial for artistic work "He was right ­ it was a good place," Twain wrote a friend, "Any place that is good for an artist in paint is good for an artist in morals and inkPaint, literature, science, statesmanship, history, professorship, law, morals ­ these are all represented here."

The Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery is the primary resource for the visual arts in the Monadnock Region. Since it's founding in 1965 by beaTrix Sagendorph, a long-time resident of Dublin, one of the Gallery's primary missions has been to collect and preserve art associated with the Dublin Art Colony as an educational and historical resource for the Monadnock Region.

The Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery has in its collection works by artists Barry Faulkner, Alexander James, Aimée Lamb, Richard Meryman, William Preston Phelps, Joseph Lindon Smith, and the three recently acquired prints by Rockwell Kent.

The Thorne's goal, in partnership with the Friends of the Thorne Art Gallery and The Friends of the Dublin Art Colony, is to acquire a broad representation of the highest quality work by this prolific group of 30 artists. We are especially interested in adding works by Frank Weston Benson, George de Forest Brush, Lilla Cabot Perry, Edward Tarbell, and Abbott Handerson Thayer.

Visitors can find more about the Dublin Art Colony in the video (see below) which can be seen during this exhibition as well as in the free brochures about the artists and our collection and in the exhibition catalog A Circle of Friends: Art Colonies of Cornish and Dublin, which can be purchased at the Gallery's reception desk.

RL readers may also enjoy these earlier articles and essay,

this video,

and this video clip:

Barn Door Video Productions offers a 1 1/2-minute clip from the video The Dublin Art Colony Collection at the Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery. Paul Tuller, owner of Barn Door Video Productions in Dublin, NH and the video's narrator, founded the non-profit organization The Friends of the Dublin Art Colony.

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