New London, CT - Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition, femme brut(e), on view through February 4, 2007.  femme brut(e) features works by significant women artists in a range of media.  The focus is on those artists who demonstrate an interest in pushing the limits of their medium whether it is photography, drawing, or painting as well as those who challenge traditional expectations of women’s subject matter.  Included are works by May Stevens, Nancy Graves, Nancy Spero, June Wayne, Barbara Kruger; Louise Nevelson, Alice Neel; and Miriam Schapiro.

On view simultaneously with femme brut(e) will be Moires Blinks Monochromes Stops Starts Mixes, an installation of new work by contemporary lens-based artist Ellen Carey.  Carey’s work explores the photographic process using large-format Polaroid cameras.  Her monumental images are abstract—they do not record images seen through a camera lens—but rather the chemical process.  The resulting images are brightly colored shapes: the “pulls” resemble surfboards and the moirés, a type of fabric.  Ellen Carey’s unique work has been exhibited extensively throughout the U.S., including solo exhibitions at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut and the International Center of Photography in New York City.  Her work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Chicago Art Institute, among others.

Complementing femme brut(e) will be From the Hand of the Composer: The Art of Melissa Manchester, an exhibit of original musical compositions penned by Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter Melissa Manchester.  This exhibit aims to highlight and make visual the creative process and to link music with visual art forms.  Text as image will offer the viewer insight into the composer’s creative process just as brushstrokes allow the viewer to retrace a painter’s labor trail.

Approximately fifty of Manchester’s compositions will be featured in this exhibition, none of which have ever been shown before, including the initial renderings of her hit songs “Midnight Blue” and “Just You and I,” as well as songs which were never recorded.  From the Hand of the Composer: The Art of Melissa Manchester is presented in conjunction with femme brut(e) as it also addresses the limits of artistic disciplines.

This exhibition has been funded in part by generous grants from the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund, Bank of America, Trustee, and Pfizer, Inc.

Lyman Allyn Art Museum was established in 1926 by Harriet Upson Allyn in memory of her father, Lyman Allyn, as a place for local citizens to learn about art and culture.  Housed in a handsome Neo-Classical building designed by Charles A. Platt, the permanent collection includes over 10,000 paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, furniture and decorative arts, with an emphasis on American art from the 18^th through 20^th centuries. The museum is located at 625 Williams Street, New London, Connecticut, 06320. For more information, please visit us on the web at http://lymanallyn.org