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.
We cannot wait for you all to behold Alison Elizabeth Taylor: The Sum of It. You won’t have to wait too long (the show opens February 18th) but, in the meantime, enjoy a little sneak peek of the exhibition courtesy of these incredibly seductive close-up detail shots that demonstrate Taylor’s incredible technical mastery and incisive and empathetic eye.
Consisting of approximately 40 large-scale single panel works as well as a room-sized installation, Alison Elizabeth Taylor: The Sum of It traces the evolution of the artist’s work. Taylor’s early paintings explore space, line, color, and form within the limited palette afforded by the grains and tones of natural woods to more recent vividly colored “hybrids” that layer marquetry, paint, and photographic imagery to heighten the tension between textures while directly engaging with the rich art historical lineage of trompe l’oeil. Lately, and in large part due to the pandemic-induced lockdown, Taylor’s attention has turned from desert spaces to the urban outdoors of her Brooklyn neighborhood. Brand new works inspired by the interrelationship of the natural and built environment and the resilience of her neighborhood and community, will complete the presentation.
Alison Elizabeth Taylor: The Sum of It will be on view at the Addison from February 18th to July 30th, 2023.
Generous support for this exhibition has been provided by the Sidney R. Knafel Fund and the Sherrill Collection of American Art Foundation. The accompanying publication has been generously supported by David and Pamela Hornik and the Michael and Fiona Scharf Publications Fund.
#alisonelizabethtaylor #alisonelizabethtaylorthesumofit #hybridmarquetry #marquetry #inlay #contemporaryart #contemporarypainting #americanart #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart @alisonelizabethtaylor @jamescohangallery @delmonico_books
Bundle up, New Englanders!
The Addison is nice and warm and open till 5 today!
Leon Levinstein (1910-1988). Man in Suit, Woman in Fur Coat, negative 1964, printed c. 1980. Gelatin silver print. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, gift of Claudia and Steven Schwartz (PA 1977), 2010.39
#leonlevinstein #cold #freezing #arcticair #furcoat #streetphotography #ellendegeneres #1950s #1950style #documentaryphotography #americanart #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart #brickaf
Betty Parsons, the iconic gallerist and notable abstract artist, was born on this day in 1900 in New York City. Four of Parsons’ works from the Addison’s permanent collection can currently be found on view in Women and Abstraction: 1741–Now!
Artist, collector, and pioneering dealer Betty Parsons, the “den mother of abstract expressionism,” played a major role in establishing the international reputation of
American art in the 1940s and 1950s through her support of young artists and the adventurous exhibitions she mounted of their work. The Betty Parsons Gallery’s opening exhibition in 1946 was organized by Barnett Newman and Tony Smith; two years later, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, and Jackson Pollock joined her stable to form with Newman what she called her “four horsemen of the apocalypse.” In the ensuing 36 years she mounted exhibitions of the work of Ad Reinhart, Robert Rauschenberg, Saul Steinberg, Richard Pousette-Dart, and Agnes Martin, among many others.
Not only an advocate for artists, Parsons studied sculpture and painting in Paris as a young woman. In 1936 her paintings were presented in what was her first one-person show at Midtown Gallery; nine more shows followed over the next two decades. In 1959 Tony Smith designed her house and studio on the North Fork of Long Island. There, she painted and made small constructions (like the three pictured here) of driftwood to which she added bright acrylic paint.
Betty Parsons (1900-1982). Untitled, 1968. Acrylic on weathered wood. Gift of Mark Rudkin (PA 1947), 2012.50
Indian Eye, 1977. Acrylic on weathered wood. Gift of Mark Rudkin (PA 1947), 2012.51
Boat, 1960s. Acrylic on weathered wood.
#bettyparsons #womenandabstraction #abstract #abstractart #abstraction #abstractsculpture #womenartists #5womenartists #longislandartist #foundmaterials #americanart #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart
Sunday is your LAST CHANCE to see Harry Benson: Four Stories! Don’t miss it! 🥊
Scottish born photojournalist @harrybensoncbe came to America with The Beatles in 1964 and in his words, “never looked back.” In the decades since, the award-winning photographer has demonstrated incredible range. He photographed Civil Rights marches and the Watts Riots, was on the scene when Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, and covered conflicts in Kosovo, Bosnia, and the Gulf War. The only photographer who has photographed the last 13 U.S. presidents from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Joe Biden, Benson has also turned his lens on everyone from Mohammad Ali to Queen Elizabeth II. His photographs of historic events, political figures, and luminaries have been published in major magazines including LIFE, The Daily Express, Time, Vanity Fair, W, Newsweek, French Vogue, Paris Match, Forbes, The New Yorker, People, Quest, and The Sunday Times Magazine. The subject of a 2015 documentary, Harry Benson: Shoot First, Benson’s work has also been published in numerous monographs including the recently released Paul celebrating the 80th birthday and career of Paul McCartney.
Building on the Addison’s holdings of works by Benson and amplified with loans from the artist, this exhibition focuses on four powerful photo stories from the 1960s: the building of the Berlin Wall, the Beatles’ first American tour, the James Meredith March Against Fear, and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. These photographs not only catapulted Benson’s career, but also incisively capture defining moments of this tumultuous period in history.
This exhibition has been generously supported by Eileen and Jonathan Otto ’75, P’24.
Harry Benson, Ali Hits George, Miami, 1964. Gelatin silver print, 24 x 30 inches. Gift of Eileen and Jonathan Otto (PA 1975), 2020.1
#harrybenson #harrybensonphotography #muhammadali #georgeharrison #ringostarr #paulmccartney #johnlennon #thebeatles #beatles #photojournalism #celebrityphotographer #americanart #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart #1960s
BEFORE ➡️ AFTER
That lion pissed off the wrong Kardashian/Jenner.
🦁 Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904). Plate 721. Lion; Walking, 1885. Collotype on paper. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, gift of the Edwin J. Beinecke Trust, 1984.6.719
🦁 Kylie Jenner image I found on “irishmirror.ie”
#eadweardmuybridge #schiaparelli #kyliejenner #lion #lionhead #parisfashionweek #paris #fashion #itscalledfashion #lookitup #motionphotography #19thcentury #americanart #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart
Happy #NationalHandwritingDay. I asked my friend to google gentle handwriting-related jokes for me and this is the best one: “a chicken was recently admitted to medical school thanks to its handwriting.”
“Matilda Elizabeth Schmahl proudly presented these calligraphic works as her own, integrating her name into the formal design of Select Sentences. This work date to the early 1850s, when the artist was a schoolgirl, practicing the art of penmanship at New York City’s Public School Number 4, where she would later teach. In the mid-nineteenth century, penmanship was considered an integral part of the education of young people in the United States.
In Select Sentences, Schmahl practiced two distinctly different scripts. The proverbs that fill the center of the work are written in Copperplate and are decorated by flourishes that, drawn after the completion of the central text is similar to Fraktur writing, a style popularized by the Pennsylvania German. Through these works, Malinda Schmahl demonstrating her talent and her education, fulfilling one of the proverbs in Select Sentences that ‘a fair piece of writing is a speaking picture.’” (Gillian G. Spencer)
See this work on view in Women and Abstraction: 1741–Now from January 28th-July 30th.
Matilda Elizabeth Schmahl (1837-1906). Select Sentences, c. 1852. Ink on paper. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, Gift of William B. Miller (PA 1935) in recognition of the 25th Anniversary of the Addison Gallery, 1957.19.2
#matildaelizabethschmahl #penmanship #calligraphy #steelpen #handwriting #womenswork #americanart #abstractart #womenandabstraction #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart #copperplate #copperplatescript #script
Teasing you with a few behind-the-scenes shots taken during a busy week spent installing Women and Abstraction: 1741–Now. Our incredible prep crew has gone above and beyond as per usual and has graciously tolerated me being on the floor all week in full annoying curator mode. We can’t wait to share this show will you next week when it officially debuts on Saturday, January 28th!
Drawn almost entirely from the permanent collection, Women and Abstraction: 1741–Now is not a comprehensive survey. Instead, this installation takes advantage of the Addison’s deep holdings to explore a more nuanced and expansive history of the development of abstraction in America. Through the inclusion of works created hundreds of years before the advent of abstract expressionism as well as objects historically denied the status of fine art, this exhibition explores how women have deployed the visual language and universal formal concerns of abstraction—color, line, form, shape, contrast, pattern, and texture—to create works of art across a wide variety of media (including painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, ceramics, and textiles) from the 18th century to the present day. Rejecting chronology, hierarchies of medium, and the restrictive definitions of art movements, Women and Abstraction invites the viewer to draw aesthetic connections across seemingly disparate objects, complicating ingrained notions of what abstraction is and is not.
Generous support for this exhibition has been provided by the Mollie Bennett Lupe and Garland M. Lasater Exhibition Fund and the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation (@helenfrankenthalerfoundation)
#womenandabstraction #louisefishman #georgiaokeeffe #dorothyhood #heddasterne #lorenmaciver #michellestuart #bereniceabbott #lottejacobi #dorothearockburne #giselafischer #anneryan #josandman #maudmorgan #lizwhitneyquisgard #almathomas #florinestettheimer #bedrug #abstractart #abstraction #5womenartists #americanart #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart
“And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.”—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” 1967
This arresting photograph of Dr. King delivering a fiery speech following the tear-gassing of peaceful protesters taking part in the James Meredith March Against Fear was taken by @harrybensoncbe in June 1966. It, along with other images from the march, can be found on view at the Addison in Harry Benson: Four Stories. The exhibition closes on January 29th, don’t miss it!
Harry Benson. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Canton, Mississippi, 1966. Archival pigment print. Courtesy of the artist and Gigi Benson
#mlk #martinlutherking #martinlutherkingjr #jamesmeredith #meredithmarchagainstfear #civilrights #civilrightsmovement #mississippi #beyondvietnam #racialjustice #blacklivesmatter #harrybenson #photojournalism #americanart #1960s #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart
Happy birthday to the great American expatriate painter John Singer Sargent! His daring Val d’Aosta: A Man Fishing, c. 1907 can currently be found on view in our first floor galleries. Look at that brushwork!
Sargent turned fifty in 1906, which was roughly the period when he painted Val d'Aosta: A Man Fishing. Feeling the burden of his success, he was accepting fewer portrait commissions and made a habit of leaving England on late-summer painting holidays, often spending the first part of the trip in the Alpine countryside that he had learned to love as a youth. On these occasions Sargent indulged in his one sure antidote to formal portraiture: he painted bravura oils and watercolors to celebrate informal moments and savor fleeting visual pleasures. He probably executed Val d'Aosta: A Man Fishing during a stay at an inn in the remote hamlet of Purtud, near Courmayeur. Although the title names the valley in the Italian Alps extending west of Aosta to the foot of Mont Blanc, the imagery connects the work to a group of fanciful pictures that evoke a vaguely Orientalist world of blissful idleness. This example presents two men reclining in dazzling sunlight by the side of a shallow stream. The fisherman holds his rod in one hand and dangles one foot in the water; his loose clothes and brightly colored cap suggest traditional Turkish costume. Although the other figure is represented only by his legs, he brings an element of surprise and humor, while serving as an important formal device in the unconventional composition. The mood of the picture can be described by an Italian expression for the pleasure of doing nothing: dolce far niente. (Trevor Fairbrother)
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925). Val d’Aosta: A Man Fishing, c. 1907. Oil on canvas. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, gift of anonymous donor, 1928.53
#johnsingersargent #sargent #valdaosta #aostavalley #italy #leisure #fishing #brushwork #oilpainting #lgbtqartist #queerartist #americanart #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart
Opening Saturday—Lavaughan Jenkins: Edward E. Elson Artist-in-Residence!
This focused installation provides a glimpse into the impressive body of work that Boston-based artist @lavaughanjenkins_studio has produced over the past six months as the Addison’s Edward E. Elson Artist-in-Residence. Pouring, squeezing, and slathering pigment with brushes, palette knives, and syringes, Jenkins continuously works and reworks his compositions while remaining open to fortuitous drips and spills, creating sculptural paintings that provocatively push the boundaries of the medium. Reveling in the materiality of paint and inspired by a range of sources from art history and personal memory to fashion, racism, and activism, these exciting new works build on the artist’s ongoing quest to redefine painting and pay homage to the Black women who have made an impact on him personally as well as the larger world.
The show will remain open through July 30th.
Lavaughan Jenkins, One time for the big girls, 2022, oil on panel, courtesy of the artist
#lavaughanjenkins #artistinresidence #elsonartistinresidence #contemporarypainting #lizzo #sculpturalpainting #impasto #oilpainting #blackart #blackartists #blackartmatters #andover #americanart #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart
C-SPAN was wildin last night.
George Tooker (1920-2011). Study for Men and Women Fighting, 1958. Graphite on paper. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, gift of the artist (PA 1938) in memory of his parents, George Clair and Angela Montejo Roura Tooker, 1996.80.93
#georgetooker #cspan #congress #speakerofthehouse #toupee #hairpiece #weave #democracy #notawig #decorum #listening #america #washingtondc #magicrealism #capitol #americanart #whatisamerica #notatoupee #addisongalleryofamericanart
Remembering William C. Agee (PA 1955)
“In addition to the art world losing a brilliant art historian, teacher, museum director and curator, the Addison has lost a dear and loyal friend. The first museum he ever visited, Bill often cited the Addison as the place that “brought him to life” and sparked his love for art. Over the years, he returned the favor helping to bring the Addison to life as a mentor, guest curator, donor, and longtime board member. His passion for the museum and its collection was infectious and inspiring. I don’t know that we will ever have a more enthusiastic cheerleader. He shall be deeply missed.” —Allison Kemmerer, The Mary Stripp and R. Crosby Kemper Director
#addisongalleryofamericanart
