The Addison Gallery, located on the campus of Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, is free and open to the public. Plan your visit >
Our Mission
Home to a world-class collection of American art, the Addison Gallery, located on the campus of Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, presents an adventurous exhibition program, hosts a vital artist-in-residence program, and works collaboratively with students and faculty at the Academy and in neighboring communities. Through our ongoing query What is America?, the Addison seeks to engage with the history of American art and American experience—past, present, and future.
About Our Collection
Comprised of more than 25,000 works in all media—painting, sculpture, photography, drawings, prints, and decorative arts—from the 18th century to the present, the Addison Gallery’s collection of American art is one of the most important in the world.
The museum’s founding collection included major works by such prominent American artists as John Singleton Copley, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Maurice Prendergast, John Singer Sargent, John Twachtman, and James McNeill Whistler.
In the nine decades since, aggressive purchasing and generous gifts have added works by such artists as Mark Bradford, Alexander Calder, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Marsden Hartley, Hans Hofmann, Edward Hopper, Kerry James Marshall, Eadweard Muybridge, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, Charles Sheeler, Lorna Simpson, John Sloan, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Frank Stella, Kara Walker, and Stanley Whitney.
![Please consider supporting the Addison today on Giving Tuesday! Thanks to thoughtful donors like you, our world-class teaching museum sparks discovery and inspiration.
Your generous gifts enable us to present a range of ever-changing exhibitions, expand our extraordinary collection, provide education outreach initiatives for diverse audiences, and offer free admission to all.
We are most grateful to our many donors from around the corner to around the world who help make our work possible. We hope that you will join the growing group Addison supporters.
Please click the link in our bio to support the Addison! Thank you!
[Image Caption: Students meet with Reggie Burrows Hodges, inaugural Hayes Prize winner, in Reggie Burrows Hodges, Turning a Big Ship. Photo by Neil Evans]
#givingtuesday #teachingmuseum #americanartfair #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart](https://addison.andover.edu/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed-pro/img/placeholder.png)
Please consider supporting the Addison today on Giving Tuesday! Thanks to thoughtful donors like you, our world-class teaching museum sparks discovery and inspiration.
Your generous gifts enable us to present a range of ever-changing exhibitions, expand our extraordinary collection, provide education outreach initiatives for diverse audiences, and offer free admission to all.
We are most grateful to our many donors from around the corner to around the world who help make our work possible. We hope that you will join the growing group Addison supporters.
Please click the link in our bio to support the Addison! Thank you!
[Image Caption: Students meet with Reggie Burrows Hodges, inaugural Hayes Prize winner, in Reggie Burrows Hodges, Turning a Big Ship. Photo by Neil Evans]
#givingtuesday #teachingmuseum #americanartfair #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart
The Addison will be closed on Thursday, November 23rd. Normal hours resume on Friday! Stop by and bring the whole family—remember, we’re 𝙖𝙡𝙬𝙖𝙮𝙨 free!
This recently acquired work by Doris Lee can currently be found on view for the first time at the Addison in Free Association: New Acquisitions in Context!
Doris Lee (1905-1983). Home for the Holidays, c. 1935. Oil on board. Museum purchase, 2023.138
#dorislee #thanksgiving #homefortheholidays #americanscene #regionalism #1930s #womanartist #americanart #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart
Ana Mendieta, the pioneering Cuban-American performance artist, video artist, sculptor, and painter, was born on this day 75 years ago in Havana, Cuba.
In a brief yet prolific career, Ana Mendieta created groundbreaking work in photography, film, video, drawing, sculpture, and site-specific installations. Born in Havana, Cuba, she immigrated to the United States at the age of twelve with her sister as part of a US government asylum program for adolescents after the Cuban revolution. The artist’s separation from her parents and nomadic early life had a profound effect on her, and much of her work addresses her desire to return to her homeland. This photograph exemplifies Mendieta’s persistent engagement with the female body and the landscape. As she described,
“I have been carrying out a dialogue between the landscape and the female body. I believe this has been a direct result of my having been torn from my homeland during my adolescence. I am overwhelmed by the feeling of having been cast from the womb. My art is the way I re-establish the bonds that unite me to the universe. It is a return to the maternal source.”
Mendieta’s Untitled, 1983 can currently be found on view at the Addison as part of Free Association: New Acquisitions in Context.
Ana Mendieta (1948-1985). Untitled from the series Jungle, 1983. Gelatin silver print. 7 1/4 x 9 1/2 inches. Museum purchase, 2023.143
#anamendieta #mendieta #feministart #feministartist #earthart #landart #cubanamericanartist #americanart #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart
Today, in honor of Ryan Gosling’s 43rd birthday and Barbie’s incredible 11 Grammy nominations, we reveal the mastermind behind the entire Barbie juggernaut for the first time ever…1972’s Valerie from the OC.
Bill Owens (born 1938). This is Valerie’s world in miniature. She makes it what she wants it to be. . . without war, racial hate or misunderstanding. Ken and Barbie (dolls) are man and woman rather than Mom and Dad. They enjoy living and having a camper truck is the good life. Today Valerie has the chicken pox and can’t go out and play., from Suburbia, 1972, printed 1998. Gelatin silver print. Gift of Katherine D. and Stephen C. Sherrill (PA 1971, and P 2005, 2007, 2010), 2006.77.84
#barbie #barbiedoll #vintagebarbie #barbiemovie #ryangosling #ken #billowens #suburbia #billowenssuburbia #orangecounty #mushrooms #1970s #70s #70sfashion #70sstyle #1970sinteriors #mattel #gretagerwig @barbiethemovie @barbie #americanart #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart
Robert Frank, the great Swiss American photographer, was born on this day 99 years ago in Zurich. The Addison is proud to be a major institutional repository of Frank’s work and is one of only four institutions in the world to hold the complete set of the images that comprised his magnum opus, The Americans.
In honor of Frank’s birthday, we’re pleased to announce the Addison’s presentation of Robert Frank and Todd Webb: Across America, 1955.
In 1955, two photographers received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation for U.S. survey projects: Robert Frank and Todd Webb. Frank’s cross-country trip by car would result in the celebrated book The Americans. Webb was awarded a grant to walk, boat, and bike across the United States to depict “vanishing Americana, and the way of life that is taking its place.”
Though the men had no knowledge of each other during the application process, both secured a recommendation from famed photographer Walker Evans, and both completed their cross-country surveys—though in radically different ways. Frank’s resulting work became a landmark text in the history of photography, and Webb’s project remains almost entirely unknown. Robert Frank and Todd Webb: Across America, 1955 brings together both 1955 projects for the first time.
Organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (@mfahouston) this exhibition will be on view at the Addison from February 10 through July 30, 2024.
Additionally, a selection of Frank’s work will be on view concurrently in A Long Arc: Photography and the American South since 1845 (organized by the @highmuseumofart). More on that soon!
Robert Frank, Parade, Hoboken, New Jersey, 1955–56, printed 1972–77, gelatin silver print, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Target Collection of American Photography, Museum purchase funded by Target Stores. © The June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation/@leaffrankfoundation
Todd Webb, Diner, Ouray, CO, 1955, printed 2023, inkjet print, courtesy of Todd Webb Archive. © Todd Webb Archive/@toddwebbarchive
#robertfrank #toddwebb #acrossamerica #1955 #theamericans #americanart #whatisamerica #hoboken #ouray #roadtrip #addisongalleryofamericanart
4 out of 5 babies agree—the Addison is a great place to commune with incredible art!
We at the Addison strive to inspire visitors of all ages—including infants—to become avid museum-goers. Susanna Gibbons, daughter of Head of Education Jamie Gibbons, is our newest fan and spent a recent afternoon in the galleries. Susanna was particularly taken with Andrea Chung’s A Scene from Anthropocene No. 2, noting that it was a thrill to see the 19th-century cyanotype process deployed in order to speak to the contemporary legacies of colonialism and migration and their relation to environmental collapse.
#andreachung #cyanotype #lionfish #anthropocene #teachingmuseum #museumbaby #americanart #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart @andreachungstudio @dremae
Event alert! Please join us Sunday, November 5th at 2:00 pm for Community Conversation: Music and Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawing #123.
This fall, members of the Phillips Academy (@phillipsacademy) orchestra explored the intersection between minimalist art and minimalist music as they installed Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawing #123 in the Addison’s Museum Learning Center. Join Assistant Curator Rachel Vogel, Music Instructor Christina Landolt, and members of the orchestra to learn more about the wall drawing, its creation, and its connection to composer Terry Riley’s In C. Light refreshments will be served. A performance of In C, along with a multimedia and interactive performance of Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Moussorgsky, will follow at 4:30 pm in Cochran Chapel, across the street from the Addison.
See you there!
Photographs of members of the Phillips Academy orchestra installing Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawing #123 courtesy of Rachel Vogel.
#sollewitt #walldrawing #minimalart #minimalmusic #minimalism #conceptualart #terryriley #modestmoussorgsky #phillipsacademy #andover #teachingmusic #americanart #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart @musicatandover
Happy Halloween from the ghouls and goblins at the Addison Gallery of American Art! While nothing in our collection can match the spookiness of our current moment, I thought I’d share this little animation of a galloping skeletal horse adapted from Eadweard Muybridge’s The Attitudes of Animals in Motion (1881). Goodbye horses!
Did you know that in addition to The Attitudes of Animals in Motion the Addison owns the entirety of Muybridge’s Animal Locomotion—all 781 plates consisting of some 20,000 individual images? They aren’t all horses—we have the weird stuff, too.
Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904). Images from The Attitudes of Animals in Motion, 1881. Albumen prints. Partial gift of The Beinecke Foundation, Inc., 1987.21.1-174
#eadweardmuybridge #attitudesofanimalsinmotion #motionphotography #albumenprint #19thcentury #19thcenturyphotography #skeleton #americanart #goodbyehorses #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart
"When I paint flowers, I paint more than I see. I paint what I know is there. For example, I know how the poppy bursts its calyx, so that when I paint poppies they are true to nature.”—Maria Oakey Dewing
The pioneering American painter Maria Oakey Dewing was born on this day in 1845 in New York.
Maria Oakey Dewing's reputation as an artist is based on only a handful of surviving works, nearly all of them flower studies such as this one—a genre deemed particularly appropriate for women artists at the turn of the century. Her teachers included John La Farge, to whom she acknowledged "an unpayable debt," and whose flower paintings she called "the most beautiful in all the world.” She also studied briefly with William Morris Hunt in Boston, and in 1876 traveled to France to work under Thomas Couture, who encouraged his pupils to experiment with painting flowers.
Even though her choice of flower painting seems conservative, the relative daring of Maria Dewing's canvases can be appreciated when one compares A Bed of Poppies with contemporary renderings by Childe Hassam of Celia Thaxter's famous poppy-filled garden on the Isles of Shoals off the coast of New Hampshire. Unlike the more standard treatment adopted by Hassam, complete with foreground, middle ground, and background, Dewing does away with any suggestion of a horizon line and gives the viewer a radically reduced perspective, denying any sense of depth and depicting the dramatic red and white flowers as delicate patterns dancing against the shifting green of the foliage. In light of her novel approach to the subject, it is interesting to note her instructor Couture's directive to "never forget to make yourself into an ant or a bee; [and] plunder everywhere.”
The Addison is proud to have held A Bed of Poppies, 1909, one of Dewing’s most iconic works, in its permanent collection since the museum’s opening in 1931.
Maria Oakey Dewing (1845-1927). A Bed of Poppies, 1909. Oil on canvas. Gift of anonymous donor, 1931.2
#mariaoakeydewing #mariadewing #womenartists #womanartist #flowerpainting #poppies #americanart #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart
We were deeply saddened to hear of the passing on Sunday of the great American feminist multi-media artist Ida Applebroog.
In the 1970s, Ida Applebroog developed her signature style of boldly outlined simplified figures, reminiscent of comics. Thank You Very Much plays with gender politics and power dynamics but its narrative is characteristically ambiguous. It shows five women—clad only in underwear and heels—standing shoulder to shoulder. Why are they lined up? Is someone judging them? The artist once said, “It’s always your story: It’s never my story, it’s never someone else’s story. You come with the content in your own head and do a Rorschach kind of association, so whatever it is that you’re looking at is a do-it-yourself projective test. But it’s also a chaos of nameless possibilities.”
Ida Applebroog (1929-2023). Thank You Very Much, 1983. Acrylic and rhoplex on unstretched canvas. 82 1/2 x 88 inches. Gift of Robert Feldman (PA 1954), in memory of his parents, 2001.3
#idaapplebroog #applebroog #feminism #feministart #heresies #thankyouverymuch #1980sart #unstretchedcanvas #americanart #addisongalleryofamericanart
This is a sign to come visit the Addison. You don’t want to miss our current slate of exhibition, including Sea Change!
Sea Change presents selections from the Addison’s rich collection of seascapes, maritime art, and model ships to explore the ocean and its shores as spaces of labor, leisure, passage, and danger. In the first gallery, the sea is presented as a source of sustenance and a site of commerce in works that highlight fishing, whaling, shipbuilding, and shipping. In the adjacent gallery, images of recreational sailing and time on the beach evoke the pleasures of lulling waves, cool breezes, and warm sand. A gallery across the rotunda is dedicated to the movement of people across oceans and the ways those transits have shaped the American experience, juxtaposing images of exploration, immigration, and sea travel with works that contend with the brutal histories of colonialization and the transatlantic slave trade. A connected gallery presents works that convey the perils of the sea, from churning waves that threaten to capsize vessels to the wreckage that has washed ashore. Finally, a small selection of works playfully takes up the strangeness and surrealism of the sea and its inhabitants.
This is not your surly seafaring grandfather’s maritime art show! Installation photos by @juliafeatherphoto.
This exhibition is generously supported by the Sidney R. Knafel Fund.
#seachange #maritimeart #marine #maritime #modelships #shipmodels #charleswmorgan #corsair #reggieburrowshodges #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart #americanart
“It’s not hard to read the piece, and the show, as a response to marine painting’s blithe celebration of a young nation’s adventurous, seafaring spirit. That’s not the half of it. The sea brought settlers, then trade, and with it, enslavement and its harrowing fallout, still so present even now. The big ship to turn, it seems, remains America itself, forever on a tack and jibe of two steps forward, one back.” (Murray Whyte)
Thank you to the @bostonglobe for their insightful review of Hayes Prize 2023: Reggie Burrows Hodges, Turning a Big Ship!
#reggieburrowshodges #turningabigship #hayesprize #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart
