Arthur Wesley Dow: Nearest to the Divine

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.