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.
Guess what? Rosamond Purcell: Nature Stands Aside (co-published by the Addison and our friends at @rizzolibooks) was included in the New York Times Book Review’s 2022 holiday book issue as one of the year’s best photography books!
Be sure to pick up your copy of the book wherever fine books are sold (the Addison’s museum store comes to mind for some reason). While books are forever, exhibitions are not. Don’t miss Rosamond Purcell: Nature Stands Aside—on view now through December 31st!
#rosamondpurcell #naturestandsaside #rizzoli #rizzolielecta #catalogue #exhibitioncatalogue #photographybook #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart #nytimes #bookreview
Honor the special 🎲 in your life by gazing upon Rosamond Purcell’s stunning photographs of ruined celluloid dice on view in Rosamond Purcell: Nature Stands Aside on this #NationalDiceDay.
“The ruined celluloid dice, from the collection of the late slight-of-hand artist and scholar Ricky Jay, date from the 1940s and 1950s. They have imploded naturally. Over time, the cellulose nitrate reached a critical chemical moment in which outgassing of the nitric acid began: a virulent process, both smelly and poisonous, that has reduced once perfectly regular cubes to broken surfaces, crumbling facades and, eventually, dust. To the gambler, these dice are now worthless; to the onlooker, they are both marvelous and strange.
The condition of the dice runs the gamut from near new to exhaustion. Their opacity ranges from cloudy to transparent. The surfaces of some, once smooth as ivory, have now begun to sink and fold inward like lava; others develop a surface powder or overall pattern of fissures before they crumble, and still others fall apart into cornices and spikes. Now an X-ray, now a klieg light, the sun illuminates the interiors of the more translucent dice, revealing viscous rooms within mutable walls.”—Rosamond Purcell
Rosamond Purcell (born 1942). Dice, 2003. Inkjet prints. Courtesy of the artist. ©Rosamond Purcell
#rosamondpurcell #naturestandsaside #rickyjay #dice #nitrocellulose #decay #transformation #chemicalreaction #contemporaryart #contemporaryphotography #americanart #whatisamerica #5womenartists #casino #addisongalleryofamericanart
“A good photograph is one that can’t be repeated.” —Harry Benson
The great photojournalist, Harry Benson, was born on this day in 1929 in Glasgow, Scotland. Please join us in wishing our friend @harrybensoncbe a most wonderful 93rd birthday!
Many of Benson’s most indelible images can be found in our current exhibition—Harry Benson: Four Stories (on view through January 29th). 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.
In case you missed it, a recording of Benson’s recent sold-out Q&A can be found on our website!
Harry Benson. John Lewis, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., & Ralph Abernathy singing “We Shall Overcome” on the James Meredith March Against Fear, Mississippi, June 1966. Gelatin silver print. Courtesy of the artist and Gigi Benson
#harrybenson #photojournalism #photojournalist #civilrights #mlk #martinlutherking #johnlewis #ralphabernathy #weshallovercome #mississippi #documentaryphotography #racialjustice #americanart #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart
“I never wanted color to be color. I never wanted texture to be texture, or images to become shapes. I wanted them all to fuse together into a living spirit.”—Clyfford Still
Clyfford Still, the pioneering American first generation Abstract Expressionist painter, was born on this day in 1904 in Grandin, North Dakota.
Clyfford Still (1904-1980). Untitled, 1944. Oil on paper. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Allan Stone (PA 1950), Addison Art Drive, 1991.88
#clyffordstill #abstractexpressionism #abstractexpressionist #abstractart #abstractpainting #americanart #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart
Meanwhile in the galleries…
Students respond to Harry Benson: Four Stories.
#addisongalleryofamericanart #teachingmuseum #harrybenson #americanart #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart #andover #phillipsacademy @harrybensoncbe
The Addison will be closed tomorrow, November 24th, in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday.
Looking for additional ways to avoid talking about politics with your extended family? Bring them to the Addison! Normal hours resume on Friday at 10:00.
Enoch Wood Perry (1831-1915). Preparing for Thanksgiving Dinner, 1872. Oil on canvas. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, museum purchase, 1954.6
#enochwoodperry #thanksgiving #genrepainting #19thcenturyart #americanart #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart
Please join us on Zoom at 6:00 EST on Thursday, December 1st for “The Art of HIV/AIDS.”
Organized by Dr. Tanya Sheehan (PA 1994), New Perspectives: The Collection in Dialogue presents a series of virtual talks by leading scholars of American art that focus on the Addison’s collection. The first lecture in the series takes place on World AIDS Day. The Addison has amassed a strong collection of artworks produced by Americans during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and by artists who continue to be impacted by HIV/AIDS. This includes the work of Mark Morrisroe, Hunter Reynolds, Eric Rhein, Tim Rollins and K.O.S., David Wojnarowicz, and others. In conversation will be Fiona Johnstone (Durham University), author of the forthcoming book AIDS and Representation: Portraits and Self-Portraits During the AIDS Crisis in America, and Jonathan Katz, curator of numerous exhibitions on the art of HIV/AIDS including Art AIDS America (2015).
Please visit the link in our bio to register for this free virtual program!
Generous support for New Perspectives: The Collection in Dialogue has been provided by the Lana Lobell Fund and the Alumni/Alumnae Lectureship Fund.
Tim Rollins (1955-2017) and K.O.S. A Journal of the Plague Year, 1988. Mixed media on canvas. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, Gift of Robert and Evelyn Doran, 2017.15
#timrollins #timrollinsandkos #hivaids #artandaids #markmorrisroe #hunterreynolds #ericrhein #davidwojnarowicz #journaloftheplagueyear @ericrheinart #americanart #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart
As you all know, today is World Television Day—an day the UN created in order to allow people to reflect on the ramifications of the “Cuties Story” footage from Love is Blind Season 3 and, to a lesser extent, the profound cultural, political, and historical significance of television.
Have you taken a photograph with your television yet today? That is, of course, how the world typically observes this day. Enjoy a range of human/television portraits that have entered the Addison’s collection by way of the visionary and exceedingly generous collector of vernacular photography, Peter J. Cohen.
#worldtelevisionday #television #tv #loveisblind #cuties #vernacularphotography #foundphotograph #foundphotography #portraits #midcentury #1950s #americanart #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart @pjcohencollection
“Wait, but I thought you were a Verified Fan?”
Attributed to John Trumbull (1756-1843). Early American Swifties Crying after Failed Attempts to Secure Taylor Swift Tickets, undated. Graphite on paper. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, museum purchase, 1934.61
This post took ⅓ of one All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) to conceptualize and execute.
#taylorswift #swifties #alltoowell #taylorsversion #jakegyllenhaal #scarf #ticketmaster #teardropsonmyguitar #taylorswiftfans #earlyamerican #johntrumbull #americandrawing #privatejet
“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.” —Georgia O’Keeffe
Georgia O’Keeffe was born on this day in 1887 in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Produced in 1919, this striking charcoal composition marks a pivotal moment in O’Keeffe’s early career. After exploring the expressive possibility of the flatness of the picture plane with lush pools of watercolor and swirling charcoal abstractions in nearly one hundred fifty works on paper from 1915 to 1918, O’Keeffe arrived in New York in June 1918 to a creative rebirth in which she destroyed a number of these earlier works and delved into a wholly new investigation of form through oil painting to achieve a personal imagery.
A rare work on paper from this early oil painting phase, Black Lines synthesizes both O’Keeffe’s mastery of flat tone from her previous work and her initial experimentation with tight-cropped, cleanly contoured volumes that would emerge as her stylistic signature. With two sharp black bolts piercing through a defined edge into a smoothly shaded volume, the work resonates with a powerful tension between the abstract weight of light and dark, sharp flatness and smooth volume, and motion and stillness. Considering the resulting image in light of her later enlargements of flower details, we can let ourselves imagine what this pure abstraction might be: a puncture? a bee sting? a piercing note of music? (Jen Mergel, On Paper: Masterworks from the Addison Collection)
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986). Black Lines, 1919. Charcoal on paper. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, museum purchase, 1959.22
#georgiaokeeffe #okeeffe #charcoal #abstraction #abstractart #blacklines #drawing #womenartists #5womenartists #whatisamerica #americanart #addisongalleryofamericanart #modernism #americanmodernism #modernart #earlyabstraction
“Some of us look forward to a great and alive American art. We look forward to a great and alive art in the Middle West, but be reminded of this—the great art is within yourself—within your own heart is the secret of the power that will attract your fellow men.” —John Steuart Curry
John Steuart Curry, the great American Regionalist painter, was born on a farm in Dunavant, Kansas on this day in 1897. Famed for his often fraught, unvarnished depictions of contemporary rural life in Kansas and for his engagement with the violent Bleeding Kansas period, Curry’s work was controversial in his home state.
This masterful drawing was executed shortly after Curry spent several weeks traveling around the Northeast with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. In search of a “new viewpoint of life,” Curry found inspiration of a number of important prints and paintings. Particularly interested bits the remarkable bulk of the circus elephants, he was fascinated by their “shining beady eyes,” finding it “a little disconcerting to see this brilliant animation in such a massive form.”
John Steuart Curry (1897-1946). Elephants, 1933. Crayon and graphite on paper. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, museum purchase, 1935.31
#johnsteuartcurry #regionalism #elephant #ringlingbros #circus #greatdepression #kansasartist #americanart #whatisamerica #addisongalleryofamericanart
“Above all, life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference” ― Robert Frank
The great Swiss-American photographer, filmmaker, and former Edward E. Elson Artist-in-Residence Robert Frank was born on this day in 1924 in Zurich.
The Addison holds one of the most significant institutional collections of Frank’s work and is also one of only four museums in the world to hold a complete set of prints from his seminal series The Americans.
First published in France in 1958, then in the United States in 1959 at the height of the Cold War, Robert Frank’s The Americans is one of the most important and influential photography books of the twentieth century.
In 1955-56, a Guggenheim Fellowship allowed Frank to travel throughout the United States with the goal of creating a book of photographs that he described as a “visual study of a civilization.” An outsider looking in, Frank’s dark and grainy photographs reveal his ambivalence toward his new country. Edited down from thousands, the eighty-three carefully sequenced photographs are a raw and insightful documentation of a country in transition, both celebrating its strengths and exposing the cracks in the veneer of hope and optimism that defined postwar culture. As Jack Kerouac wrote in the introduction to the book, “Robert Frank, Swiss, unobtrusive, nice, with that little camera that he raises and snaps with one hand, he sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film.”
Robert Frank (1924-2019). Rodeo—Detroit from The Americans, neg. 1955-56, print c. 1981. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, museum purchase, 1989.77.5/©Andrea Frank Foundation
#robertfrank #theamericans #whatisamerica #americanart #photobook #rodeo #detroit #1950s #documentaryphotography #addisongalleryofamericanart
