The Westmoreland Museum of American Art to Examine America's Oldest Continuous Art Colony

Written by Stephen Kingsland Wednesday, 16 May 2012 22:34

Greensburg, Pennsylvania.- The Westmoreland Museum of American Art is proud to host "The Tides of Provincetown: Pivotal Years in America's Oldest Continuous Art Colony (1899-2011)" on view at the museum from October 29th through January 22nd 2012. Organized by the New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, this exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of America's oldest continuous arts colony from its start to the present day. Provincetown art and artists have played a pivotal role in the development of American art, most notably Modernism, and this exhibition highlights over 100 works of art created by artists associated with Provincetown, Massachusetts over the past 112 years. Artists from Charles Webster Hawthorne to Hans Hofmann found solace and inspiration in the art colony "at the end of the world" and this exhibition examines Provincetown's lasting legacy and impact.

Despite the fact that over one-hundred years separates the earliest work in the exhibition from the most recent, there is an inherent connection between them. The exhibition is organized around ten watershed moments in the history of the art colony. In 1899, Hawthorne founded the Cape Cod School of Art. Works produced around this event, both before and after, are grouped together to underscore the development of both Provincetown as an arts colony and the development of American art itself. Artists in the exhibition include Milton Avery, Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, and Charles Hawthorne who all shared in the development of the colony; Charles Demuth, Edward Hopper, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko, who at one time passed through Provincetown; as well as past and contemporary Provincetown artists such as Robert DeNiro, Sr., Marcus Waterman, Paul Bowen, Michael Mazur, and Paul Resika, among many others. Works of art are drawn from both private and public collections that include The Cape Cod Museum of Art, Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum, Provincetown Art Collection and the NBMAA. The Provincetown Art Colony was largely established by Charles Hawthorne and quickly rose in importance as a major haven for the arts in the early 20th century.


Hawthorne and the early students of Provincetown made significant contributions to American art through their exploration of movement and light. These small departures heralded the beginning of a new and modern approach to art. Later, the art colony, particularly under the direction of Hans Hofmann, broke from traditional European formats of study to create a system of learning that was uniquely American. The symbiotic relationship between Hofmann and Provincetown resulted in what is considered the best work of his career and the development of Provincetown as a world-class center for modern art. An esteemed string of abstract artists followed in his footsteps, finding inspiration in the famous "light" and environment of Provincetown. To this day, Provincetown remains a thriving arts colony with an impressive legacy of abstract artists. Contemporary artists still flock to this small seaside town for inspiration from the masters who worked there long ago as well as the indescribable energy that Provincetown exudes.

The Westmoreland Museum of American Art was established in 1949 at the bequest of Mary Marchand Woods, a long time resident of Greensburg interested in the arts. This visionary founder bequeathed her entire estate in order for the Museum facility to be built in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, 35 miles east of Pittsburgh. In 1959, the Museum opened its doors to the public, and its focus became the collection and exhibition of American and southwestern Pennsylvania art. Over the past fifty years, the Museum has assembled a collection of works by significant American artists, concentrating on the mid-18th through the mid-20th centuries, including works by Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent, and Winslow Homer among other preeminent American artists. The Museum has also become known as the repository for works by southwestern Pennsylvania artists, including artists of the Scalp Level School, holding many exhibitions and publishing several books on the subject since 1981.

The Museum reopened in 1999 after a significant renovation, with six improved galleries, improved educational facilities and visitors' amenities, and a larger endowment for the future. The Museum has organized many important exhibitions over the years, including All That is Glorious Around Us: Paintings from the Hudson River School in 1997, and American Scenery: Different Views in Hudson River School Painting in 2006, both of which allowed the public to see works from one of the most comprehensive private collections of this genre; and both shows traveled extensively throughout the United States: Spirit of a Community: The Photographs of Charles "Teenie" Harris in 2001, which brought the street photography of this important African American photographer to the public as fine art prints for the first time and gained national media attention; and in 2007, Made in Pennsylvania: A Folk Art Tradition, an exhibition that brought together for the first time almost 400 significant examples of folk art, drew 22% of its attendance from outside the state and had a $700,000 economic impact on the southwestern Pennsylvania region. Featuring paintings and sculptures by such celebrated American artists as Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt and Louis Comfort Tiffany, the Westmoreland captures the American spirit in a way few museums do. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.wmuseumaa.org

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