Arthur Wesley Dow, Willows in the Meadow from Ipswich Prints, 1902

Arthur Wesley Dow: Nearest to the Divine

Feb. 26, 2022 to
Jul. 31, 2022
Featuring over 100 works including photographs, prints, drawings, paintings, and ephemera, this exhibition highlights not only the profound beauty of Dow’s groundbreaking artistic contributions across media, but also reveals his radically anti-academic, intuitive, and inherently democratic approach to artmaking.

Art is the most valued thing in the world…it is the expression of the highest form of human energy, the creative power nearest to the divine. The power is within – the question is how to reach it. 
 – Arthur Wesley Dow

Drawn almost entirely from the Addison’s collection, this exhibition explores the prodigious and multifaceted oeuvre of the Ipswich-born artist, educator, and theoretician, Arthur Wesley Dow. Featuring over 100 works including photographs, prints, drawings, paintings, and ephemera, this exhibition highlights not only the profound beauty of Dow’s groundbreaking artistic contributions across media but reveals his radically anti-academic, intuitive, and inherently democratic approach to artmaking. This approach, transmitted to generations of art students in his classroom, notably Georgia O’Keeffe, and through his influential publication Composition, encourages the artist to transcend faithful representation and channel their emotion and personal vision through a universal “trinity of power” inherent in harmonious design—line, notan (the balance of dark and light), and color.

This exhibition is generously supported by the Bernard and Louise Palitz Exhibitions Fund.

Related Exhibition Materials

Press Release

Georgia O’Keeffe, Photographer Together with Arthur Wesley Dow: Nearest to the Divine and “What Next?” Camera Work and 291 Magazine Reveal Dynamic New Insights on the Practice of the Iconic American Artist

online story

Drawn almost entirely from the Addison’s collection, this exhibition explores the prodigious and multifaceted oeuvre of the Ipswich-born artist, educator, and theoretician, Arthur Wesley Dow. Featuring over 100 works…

Digital Portfolio

See the works included in the exhibition

Virtual Tour

Virtual Tour by Dongcheng Han

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Bartlett H. Hayes Prize Recipients

2023:

Reggie Burrows Hodges

Exhibition | Residency | Publication | Acquisition

2025:

Tommy Kha

Exhibition | Residency | Publication | Acquisition