Exhibition of Watercolor Landscapes Opens at Lyman Allyn Art Museum

New London, CT – The Lyman Allyn Art Museum is pleased to announce the opening of Discovering New Beauty: Watercolor Landscapes of the Northeast. This exhibition features more than 50 works of art examining the varied landscapes of the Northeast over the last century and a half. The show will be on view April 27 through August 3, 2019.

Discovering New Beauty considers how artists have utilized watercolor to depict the Northeast beginning in the 1870s, a time when watercolor experienced a surge in popularity. The formation of the American Society of Painters in Water Color (later, the American Watercolor Society) in 1866 helped to promote the medium and professionalize its use, and watercolor was enthusiastically taken up by a generation of young artists.

Landscapes tell stories about place, history, and belonging, exploring the beauty of the physical world around us. With watercolors from the Lyman Allyn’s permanent collection and from several private collections, this exhibition suggests the range of styles, subjects, and approaches to rendering the landscape in watercolor. It features views of the sea, the shoreline, forests, fields, and the built environment. Watercolor’s portability and quick drying time has made it particularly useful for artists working outdoors. Some of the objects on view are preparatory sketches for larger paintings in oil or tempera, while others are stand-alone works of art.

“I have made some new walks and discovered new beauties, and believe that I could from Newport scenery make more charming pictures than I ever dreamed of before.” - William Trost Richards

In 1874, American artist William Trost Richards expressed his delight at exploring the varied Rhode Island landscape. With a rich source of artistic inspiration, Richards painted a series of large-scale watercolor views of Newport over the next decade, striving to “widen the limits of my material.” Using both translucent and opaque watercolor (gouache), Richards and his contemporaries helped popularize and push the boundaries of the medium, giving watercolor a new depth, density, and grandeur that attracted new patrons and audiences. Included in the exhibition are works by Sanford Robinson Gifford (1823-1880), William Trost Richards (1833-1905), John Henry Hill (1839-1922), William Louis Sonntag, Sr. (1822-1900), Reginald Marsh (1898-1954), John Marin (1870-1953), Robert Henri (1865-1929), Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009), Ogden Pleissner (1905-1983), and Beatrice Cuming (1903-1974).

The opening reception will be on Friday, April 26 from 5:00 – 7:00 pm. Museum members are free and non-members are $10. Please RSVP to 860.443.2545 ext. 2129.

Check the museum website at www.lymanallyn.org and the Museum’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram page for updates and additional programming.

Tours of the exhibition are available for groups. To schedule tours, call Director of Education, Caitlin Healy at 860.443.2545 ext. 2110 or e-mail healy@lymanallyn.org.

For more information or to request images, please contact Rebecca Dawson at 860.443.2545, ext. 2112 or at dawson@lymanallyn.org.

About the Lyman Allyn Art Museum
The Lyman Allyn Art Museum welcomes visitors from New London, southeastern Connecticut and all over the world. Established in 1926 by a gift from Harriet Allyn in memory of her seafaring father, the Museum opened the doors of its beautiful neo-classical building surrounded by 12 acres of green space in 1932. Today it presents a number of changing exhibitions each year and houses a fascinating collection of over 17,000 objects from ancient times to the present; artworks from Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe, with particularly strong collections of American paintings, decorative arts and Victorian toys and doll houses. The museum is located at 625 Williams Street, New London, Connecticut, exit 83 off I-95. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm, Sundays 1:00 - 5:00 pm; closed Mondays and major holidays. For more information call 860.443.2545, ext. 2129 or visit us on Facebook or the web at: www.lymanallyn.org.