An EyE for flowErs: womEn Artists ExcEl

by Vivian f. ZoëFlowers are remarkably prevalent themes and subject matter of artists. For centuries, flora have captured the imagination and observation of artists. We find flowers presented as ornamental background and as the central subject. They might be in their growing environment or cut and presented in a vase; a single variety and hue or many grouped together in a riot of color and shape. Flowers may be rendered with photographic, scientific accuracy or abstracted into colorful shapes and color fields. While throughout art history women have struggled to be judged of equal talent and skill, it is often in rendering flowers where women have been allowed due recognition and deemed superior.

Judith Jans Leyster (also Leijster; c. 1609–1660) was born in Haarlem, Netherlands and as a teenager, became known as a professional artist. Some scholars claim that her father’s financial troubles forced her adopt a trade suitable for a girl, but also lucrative enough to support her family. She and her family moved to Utrecht where a group of artists was following the work of Italian painter Caravaggio, known for dramatic motivational lighting in his allegorical work. Leyster was the first female painter registered with the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke and within two years had taken on

Flowering Field by Arthur wesley Dow, 1895, watercolor, private collection.

The Muse

Spring, 2015

The quarterly newsletter of the

Slater Memorial Museum

(Continued on page 4)

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The Muse is published up to four times yearly for the members of The Friends of the Slater Memorial Museum. The museum is located at 108 Crescent Street, Norwich, CT 06360. It is part of The Norwich Free Academy, 305 Broadway, Norwich, CT 06360. Museum main telephone number: (860) 887-2506. Visit us on the web at www.slatermuseum.org.Museum Director – Vivian F. ZoëNewsletter editor – Geoff SerraContributing authors: Vivian Zoë, Leigh Thomas

Photographers: Leigh Thomas, Vivian Zoë, Barry Wilson

The president of the Friends of the Slater Memorial Museum: Patricia Flahive

The Norwich Free Academy Board of Trustees:Diana L. Boisclair Jeremy D. Booty Allyn L. Brown, IIIGlenn T. CarberryKeith G. FontaineLee-Ann Gomes, TreasurerThomas M. Griffin, SecretaryThomas HammondDeVol JoynerTheodore N. Phillips, ChairTodd C. PostlerSarette Williams, Vice Chair

The Norwich Free Academy does not discriminate in its educational programs, services or employment on the basis of race, religion, gender, national origin, color, handicapping condition, age, marital status or sexual orientation. This is in accordance with Title VI, Title VII, Title IX and other civil rights or discrimination issues; Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1991.

A mEssAgE from thE DirEctorAt long last, we see light at the end of the snow tunnel! With lengthening days, the museum has a terrific line up of programs for our dedicated members and aspirants. This issue will reveal something for everyone, beginning with our second Drink & Draw Happy hour which attracted a sell-out crowd in 2014. Look throughout this issue for exhibitions and special events throughout the Spring.

It would be inappropriate of me not to mark the passing of Joseph Peter Gualtieri (1916-1915),

director of the Slater Museum from 1963 to 2000. Joe was face of and artistic vision behind the museum for generations of NFA students and an advisor to community members needing assistance with personal collections. Joe intuited what the museum needed during his long tenure and we stand on his broad shoulders today.

UPcoming ExhiBitions, ProgrAms AnD EVEnts

friday, march 205:00-7:00 pm

saturday, march 28

sunday, march 291:00-3:00 pm

friday, may 15:00-7:00 pm

friday, may 85:00-7:00 pm

sunday, may 171:00-5:00 pm

hAPPy hoUr Drink & DrAw: Join us for an evening of fine art and fine wine! Spend the evening sketching in our galleries and sampling an array of spirits and light bites to refresh your palate and loosen your creativity!

AmEricAn tExtilE history mUsEUm BUs triP: The trip includes a private demon-stration and viewing of the special exhibition, Artist Textiles: Picasso to Warhol.

oPEning rEcEPtion: 121st Saturday Morning Childrens’ Exhibiton.

friEnDs of slAtEr AnnUAl mEEting: This program is free to all current members, in-cluding those who join at the event. More infor-mation on page 13.

oPEning rEcEPtion: The 125th Norwich Art School Student Exhibition.

thE crAft of cAsting: Demonstration and lectures on Giovanni (Cico) Luchini and the ancient art of mould-and cast-making. to today. See page 13 for more information.

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71st AnnUAl connEcticUt Artists jUriED show AttrActs rEcorD crowDs

The 71st Annual Connecticut Artists Exhibition opened February 8 with over 200 artists from literally every corner of the state, submitting 464 works of art.

This year’s juror of selection and awards was Dr. Cynthia Roznoy, curator at the Mattatuck Mu-seum in Waterbury, CT, who has organized more than 25 exhibi¬tions of American art and written essays for the catalogs that accompany them. She received a Ph.D. in art history from the Gradu-ate Center of the City University of New York. She was director and curator at the Stamford, CT branch of the Whitney Museum of American Art, based in New York City until 2000, after which she taught art history at the University of Con-necticut, Stamford. Prior to her arrival at the Mat-tatuck Museum in 2007 she worked as senior as-sociate for Viart, a New York City corporate art consulting firm. She chose to assign awards ac-cording to media. At the reception, winners were announced:

For painting, Rachel Carlson of Deep River; for sculpture, Randall Nelson of Willington; for photography, Kathy Conway of North Haven; for watercolor, Bob Desaulnier of East Hampton; for drawing, George Jacobi of Mansfield; for pastel, Terry Lennox of Hamden; and for mixed media, Sheena Emma of Norwich.

Each year, submission fees fund awards and for the past three years, the Katherine Forest Crafts Foundation has made it possible for an Award for Excellence in Fine Crafts. The 2015 Fine Crafts winner is Barbara Barrick McKie of Lyme.

The exhibition continues through March 20, 2015.

Above: Macchu Picchu Visitor by Barbara Barrick McKie, fiber art. Below: Absence of Being by rachel carlson, oil on canvas.

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(Continued from page 1)

father, a Swiss artist, and became known and recognized as a teen-ager. She was one of two female founding

members of the Royal Academy. Moser is particularly noted for her depictions of

flowers.

Like Ruysch, Moser received a prestigious Royal commission; unlike Ruysch, after her marriage at the age of nearly 50, she

retired and began exhibiting as an amateur. After her death, it would be more than one

hundred years before another woman was elected to the Royal Academy.

Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot (1841–1895) was born in Bourges, central France,

south of Paris and her family moved to Paris when she was a girl. Her mother was related to

Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), an important Rococo painter. Her family was comfortably middle

class, exposing her and her sister to art training and museums at an early age. Their art practice included standing before masterworks in the Louvre to copy them. Her study at the Louvre exposed her to other artists, including the Barbizon School painter Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, a key member of the group of “realists” who celebrated the working man, painting

plein air or in the field.

She became one of three women noted as Impressionists in France. At the age of 23, and for six years, her work was accepted into the prestigious Salon de Paris of the French Academy. Eventually rejected, she joined a group of mostly male artists including Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas and Pierre-August Renoir in an exhibition of refused work. From this act of rebellion, the term Impressionism was born and she was recognized among the artists first associated with the style.

Although she married, she exhibited under her full maiden name instead of her married name. At that time, it would not have been considered abnormal to adopt a nom de plume, or pen name after marriage.

Perhaps most associated with flowers to today’s art lovers, Georgia Totto O’Keeffe (1887 –1986) was born in Wisconsin. She emerged as an important painter in New York around 1916, painting flowers that filled the page with, in some cases, single blossoms. At that time,

three male apprentices. At 25 she married and moved to Amsterdam, later moving back near Haarlem. In painting tulips, Leyster may have been producing something she thought would sell well. Always immensely popular, in the 17th century, tulip bulbs had become extremely expensive, even in Holland. Leyster created a book of illustrations of tulip varieties. She was only fifty when she died.

Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750) was possibly the best know female painter of her era. Born in the Hague, she lived to be 86 and was productive her entire life. Unlike Leyster, Ruysch was born into a prosperous family. Her father, a professor of anatomy and botany, was an amateur painter. Ruysch used her father’s specimens as subject matter for still life. Through her father, she was exposed to scientists and suppliers who exposed her to and provided her with material to hone her illustration skills.

Ruysch was apprenticed to a flower painter as a teen ager and married a portrait painter, moving to Amsterdam. At 35, she became the first female member of a painters’ guild in the Hague and two years later, the larger Hague Painters’ Guild invited her and her husband to join. By 1708, Ruysch became Court Painter to Johann Wilhelm II in Düsseldorf.

Ruysch’s early exposure to science made her a keen observer of nature and her early training made her an excellent draftsman. She infused her

work with accuracy, skilled technique and sensitive artistry.

Mary Moser (1744 – 1819) was born in London and became one of the most celebrated female artists of 18th century England. Like Ruysch, Moser was taught by her

Above: Tulip by judith jans leyster, c. 1643, collection of the frans hals museum, haarlem, netherlands. At left: Flower Still Life by rachel ruysch (1664-1750)

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she was also painting the New York street scene. By 1929, she began working in New Mexico visiting annually for twenty years, when she moved there permanently. Her work began to focus on desert flora and scenes. O’Keeffe depicted subjects specific to that area. Many scholars view O’Keeffe as the Mother of American Modernism.

O’Keeffe studied at the Art Institute of Chicago 1905 to 1906 and the Art Students League in New York in 1907, where she studied with William Merritt Chase. Although she earned a prize to study in upstate New York in 1908, that same year she became disillusioned with her talent, unable to reconcile her abstractionist leanings with the prevalent academic approach. A teacher at a summer program in which she had enrolled introduced her to the work of Arthur Wesley Dow (1857-1922). O’Keefe then studied with him at Columbia 1914-1915. Dow was an American Painter, printmaker, photographer, and influential arts educator. Dow taught at three major American arts training institutions over the course of his career beginning with the Pratt Institute from 1896-1903 and the New York Art Students league 1898-1903; then, in 1900, he founded and served as the director of the Ipswich Summer School of Art in Ipswich, Massachusetts. From 1904 to 1922, he was a professor of fine arts at Columbia University Teachers’ College.

Dow can be viewed as a father of American abstraction. He taught that art comprises elements of composition; line, mass and color, rather than a strict observation of nature.

The Garden at Bougival by Berthe morisot, 1884

Two Calla Lilies on Pink by georgia o’keefe, 1928, collection of the Philadelphia museum of

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His ideas were published in the 1899 book Composition: A Series of Exercises in Art Structure for the Use of Students and Teachers. His ideas were considered revolutionary, but they influenced a new generation of artists.

O’Keefe went on to teach at West Texas State Normal College, south of Amarillo and used the Palo Duro Canyon as inspiration for her work. Her work was shown to Alfred Stieglitz, who exhibited them at his gallery, eventually meeting O’Keefe and offering her a one-person exhibition. The two married after Stieglitz’s divorce and he began a series of photographs of her over twenty years.

In the second and third decades of the 20th century, O’Keefe entered the world of American modernists, mostly men, She also switched back to working in oils instead of aquamedia.

By the mid-1920’s, O’Keeffe began making large paintings of natural forms filling the canvas with limited imagery. Her first large-scale flower painting was Petunia, No. 2, 1924. Her work became more representational as it was examined by critics for sexual themes. She denied the intentional depiction of flowers as representatives of human female physiology, but later 20th century women artists would find in it feminist inspiration.

When her success seemed to be winding down, she was offered a commercial job in Hawaii which led her to create a series of vivid, florid paintings that launched a new direction for her. Exposure to the tropical environment had clearly inspired her.

In 1929, O’Keefe found new inspiration in New Mexico. Eventually, she would make Ghost Ranch in Northern New Mexico her permanent home. By the mid 1930’s, her work again gained popularity and critical acclaim. She was invited to exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York would create a catalogue raisonné of her work in the mid-1940’s. In the 1950’s, she began making cloud studies her focus. When her eyesight began to fail due to macular degeneration, O’Keefe began making pottery.

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Name: Street:City: State: Zip Code:Daytime Telephone: (___) Evening Telephone: (___)Email:

To pay with your credit card, please fill out completely:Credit Card (MasterCard/Visa only): #______________________________ Exp. Date:___________Credit Card Security Code (CVC2/CVV2, last 3 digits on signature strip):______________________

Signature Date

Happy Hour Drink & Draw

PlEAsE join Us for An EVEning of finE Art AnD finE winE!

friDAy, mArch 20, 2015 5:00 Pm - 7:00 Pm

Spend the evening sketching in our galleries and sampling an array of spirits and light bites to refresh your palate and loosen your creativity! We provide the paper, pencils and sketchboards, or bring your own. Refreshments are included in your admission fee. No artistic experience

necessary, but ID is required!

Tickets for this event may be purchased in advance by calling (860) 425-5563, in person at the Slater Museum Visitor center or by completing the form below and submitting it with your payment.

Advance purchase price: $20 / $15 members(Advance purchase ticket orders must be received no later than Tuesday, March 17, 2014)

regular purchase price: $25 / $20 members

To make a reservation this event, please clip and remit with payment. Forms and payment should be mailed to: Slater Memorial Museum ● 108 Crescent Street ● Norwich, CT 06360

# of reservations:________ x Advance rate: $ ______ Regular rate: $ ______

total due: $ _______

Check enclosed (payable to Slater Memorial Museum) Visa Mastercard

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American textile History Museum bus tripSaturday, march 28, 2015

Join the Slater Memorial Museum as we travel to Lowell, MA to visit the American Textile History Museum!

An affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, MA, tells America’s story through the art, history, and science of textiles. ATHM holds the world’s largest and most important col-lections of tools, spinning wheels, hand looms, and early production machines, as well as more than five million pieces of textile prints, fabric samples, rolled textiles coverlets, and costumes.

Our group will have the opportunity to view the special exhibition, Artist Textiles: Picasso to Warhol, which traces the history of 20th century art in textiles. Currently on loan from the Fashion and Textile Museum in London, the exhibit includes highlights by Georges Braque, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí, Barbara Hepworth, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and many more! Artist Textiles shows how ordinary people were once able to engage with modern art in a personal and intimate way through their clothing and home fur-nishings. With over 200 rare pieces, many of which have never before been on public display.

Trip Itinerary8:30 am Departure from Norwich (Commuter Lot: Exit 80 off I-395)10:30 am Arrival at the American Textile History Museum. Our group will be treated to an orientation talk by an ATHM educator. You are then free to explore the museum at your own pace.1:00 pm Lunch at the museum cafe. Includes choice of wrap and fruit, chips, dessert and a soft drink.2:30 pm Departure from the ATHM4:30 pm Arrival back to Norwich.

Please detach and send form with payment to Slater Memorial Museum, 108 Crescent Street, Norwich, CT 06360. Price includes transportation, ATHM admission and lunch. Reservations must be made by Monday, March 16. Seating is extremely limited - don’t miss out!

Name(s): __________________________________________________________________________________

Address: _____________________________________________________ Phone: ______________________

Email: ______________________________ Number attending: Members ______ Non-members ______

Lunch option for each participant: Turkey: ______ Tuna: ______ Vegetarian: ______

Total enclosed ($45 member / $50 non-member): $ _______ Please make checks payable to Slater Memorial Museum. Fill out lower portion for credit card payment. Telephone orders accepted at (860) 425-5563.

Visa Mastercard Card number:_______________________________________ Exp. date: ______

Signature: _________________________________________________________

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Recently, the Slater Museum has received as donations to collections objects that reflect the immense influence of Georgia O’Keefe and Arthur Dow in the 20th century. Younger than O’Keefe, Hazel Hartman Keiffer, (1898-1995) was born in California and graduated from Fresno Normal School and Teachers College, Columbia University in 1929. Teachers in Fresno, who had graduated from Columbia, saw her talent and encouraged her to attend. At Columbia, like Georgia O’Keefe, Hazel studied with Arthur Dow. In 1932, Hazel attended classes in Los Angeles with Hans Hofmann, whom she met in Hawaii. She was one of three Americans invited to Munich to continue studies at his workshop. About him, www.hanshofmann.org states, “Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) is one of the most important figures of postwar American art. Celebrated for his exuberant, color-filled canvases, and renowned as an influential teacher for generations of artists—first in his native Germany, then in New York and Provincetown—Hofmann played a pivotal role in the development of Abstract Expressionism.”

Hazel later recounted that she had met O’Keefe in New Mexico. Certainly although they were not there at the same time, both artists’ exposure to Hawaii influenced their work. Hazel would later declare that Hawaii was an artist’s paradise, particularly when the principal subject matter is flowers.

After her graduation from Columbia University, Hazel was commissioned to design a stained glass window as a gift to the library at Columbia University, now the third window in Russell Hall. She taught art at the University of Wisconsin; Kamehameha School for Girls in Honolulu; the University of Hawaii, Fresno State College in California; Miami University, Oxford College in Ohio; the College of William and Mary in Virginia and the University of Connecticut. Her paintings were exhibited in the 1930’s at the Honolulu Academy of Art; San Francisco’s Palace of the Legion of Honor and at the Morton Gallery in New York City.

In 1934, Hazel married Jean Kieffer who at the time was the supervisor for the X-ray departments for all tuberculosis sanatoriums in the state of Connecticut. Jean invented an advancement of the X-Ray, making it possible

opposite page (top): View of Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada by Arthur wesley Dow, 1919; (bottom): Music Pink and Blue No. 2 by georgia o’keeffe, 1918, collection of the whitney muse-um of American Art. this page (top): Untitled watercolor with daffodils by hazel hartman kieffer, collection of the slater memorial museum; (below) Amaryllis Special by hazel hart-man kieffer, collection of the slater memorial museum

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for physicians to view the body in three dimensions. They lived in Norwich, where their three children were born, in 1936, ‘39 and ‘40, all attending NFA. The family remained in the city until 1954, when they moved to Jewett City. In 1948 Hazel taught at the University of Connecticut. She later worked as an interior designer for G. Fox and Company in Hartford. Hazel was on the board of the Norwich Art Association (NAA) and served as program chairperson, 1936-1937; and president, 1948-1949. She was instrumental in bringing prominent artists to Norwich to lecture and teach, including William Zorach and Yasuo Kuniyoshi. In her program chairman’s capacity, she tapped liberally into her connections to Columbia University and New York, bringing art faculty

and Metropolitan Museum curators to Norwich for lectures and demonstrations.

Among her associates in the Norwich Art Association, Hazel worked with Dorothy Tredennick (1914-2011), assistant director of the Slater Memorial Museum, whose pay was made possible by the Works Progress Administration, Federal Arts Project. Tredennick was charged with using the museum’s collections to see that rural schools and children were exposed to art and artifacts. She created touring cases that were sent to Norwich’s surrounding agricultural communities. Tredennick would go on to teach nearly her entire career at Berea College in Kentucky. Among other leaders of the NAA, were Charlotte Fuller Eastman, director of the Norwich Art School (NAS) of Norwich Free Academy, and Margaret Triplett, NAS teacher who would succeed Mrs. Eastman. Joseph Gualtieri, NAS teacher who would go on to become director of the Slater Museum was vice president when Hazel was president; also serving on the board was Slater Museum director Hannah Sprague Dodge, widow of past NAS director Ozias Dodge.

Hazel exhibited with and certainly befriended NAA members, NFA alumni and Saturday Morning Art Class Alumni including Margaret Hansen, Annie

Hazel Hartman Kieffer

left: Gladiolus by hazel hartman kieffer, 1979, watercolor, collection of the smm. Above: excerpt from the norwich Bulletin

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Ruggles, Edith Abbot, Frido Urbinati, Theodora Goberis and Blanche Browning. All are also represented in the museum’s archives and collections. Her husband Jean was also a member of the NAA and submitted photographs and watercolors, making art most likely a relaxing diversion from his daily work.

Although she painted landscapes, designed textiles and created cards and cartoons, Hazel became known for her floral work. Her paintings, mostly aquamedia, (watercolor on paper) reflect the era of which she was a part. Nearly every one of her portraits of flowers include the plants’ name, but her exuberant use of color and abstraction reflects the influence of instructors Arthur Dow and Hans Hoffmann. Although Hofmann counted among his students Robert DeNiro, Sr., Larry Rivers and Wolf Kahn, he was unusually open for that time to female artists including Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, Nell Blaine and Louise Nevelson. Kieffer signed her work “Hartman” or “Hartman Kieffer” representing what she thought of as a late marriage, at the age of 35. Even when both she and her husband exhibited in the same NAA shows, he is listed as Jean Kieffer, and she as Hazel Hartman. Her last exhibition was in California in 1994 and she painted until shortly before her death. Late in 2014, her son-in-law, son and grandson each donated work from their personal collections, totaling over 150 works, plus an archive

detailing their lives in Norwich. She began working in cloth, staying true to flowers, creating designs in bright colored quilts.

Slightly younger than Hazel Hartman Kieffer, celebrated artist Cynthia Reeves Snow was born in North Carolina and educated at the University of North Carolina and Peabody College of Education at Vanderbilt University. After teaching in North Carolina and Florida, Mrs. Snow joined the faculty of the University of Connecticut the same year as Kieffer, 1948. Snow retired in 1977 and died in 2001 and, like Kieffer, was painting until shortly before her death at 94. She received dozens of awards in regional and national juried exhibitions and was featured in many one person shows. Her work was included in several international touring exhibits throughout Japan, South America, Mexico, and France. Upon her retirement Mrs. Snow moved to Del Mar, California and in 1985, was awarded first prize in the Del Mar Centennial Artists’ Juried Exhibit. Mrs. Snow continued to exhibit until 2000. Like Kieffer, or Hartman, Snow continued to sign her work “Reeves” throughout her life.

“Although she moved to Del Mar to be near her son and daughter-in-law, Cynthia never lost her affection for, and her ties to UConn and Storrs,” says longtime friend Norman Stevens, former director of University libraries.

Southern Echoes by cynthia reeves snow, 1947, watercolor, collection of the slater memorial museum

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“Cynthia continued to paint while in California, even though she found the differences in the nature and the quality of light a real challenge, almost until the time of her death,” Stevens says. “Her spirit of innovation remained strong well into her 90s,” adds Stevens. “My wife Nora and I were intrigued to find several years ago that she had begun a series of calligraphic paintings done on the backs of brown paper shopping bags from her local supermarket.”

Many of Snow’s paintings done during her years in Storrs, while abstract, are based on strong images of local landscapes. She donated a number of her works to UConn and her son and daughter-in-law, John and Carol, donated 62 of her bright, bold aquamedia paintings on paper to the Slater Museum in 2012.

Roger Crossgrove, emeritus professor of art at the School of Fine Arts at Uconn, praised Snow’s teaching and her talent. “Cynthia was not only an extremely devoted teacher who inspired a longtime devotion in so many of her students, but was also an exceptional painter who had earned the admiration and respect of her many friends and collectors of her work,” Crossgrove says.

To say that women have held a singular role in creating floral art would not be accurate. But their influence in the

realm is undeniable. While women artists struggle for parity now as they have in the past, the era including the first decades of the 20th century to the second World War formed a highpoint in their achievement and recognition. Hartman and Reeves were products of their innate talent and drive, but also of an era open to their warranted success. The Slater Museum is fortunate to have in its collection work representing these two remarkable artists as examples to young women today.

Enchantment of a Spring Night by cynthia reeves snow, 1957, watercolor, collection of the slater memorial museum

Vase of Flowers by roger cross-grove, 1950, watercolor, collection of the slater memorial museum

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MArk your cAlendArS for two new progrAMS in MAy!

friendS of SlAter MuSeuM AnnuAl Meeting

Join us Friday, May 1, 2015 from 5 - 7 PM for the Friends of Slater Museum Annual Meeting. This program is free to all current members, including those who join at the event.

Perhaps one of the most exciting portraits in the museum’s collection is a portrait of a seated gentleman, found in the Slater building’s attic, hiding in plain sight. This imposing portrait, painted in 1857, of Russell Hubbard, a founder of the Norwich Free Academy and Slater Family relative, suffered poor de-installation, followed by poor early attempts at “restoration,” and decades of neglect and deterioration. Now, it will be unveiled for the first time following an extensive two-year conserva-tion campaign and re-creation of a period-accurate frame. Brief annual reports will be followed by a presentation by the conservators. Recep-tion to follow.

Russell Hubbard, (1795-1857) by Alexander Hamilton Emmons (1816-1884), was conserved through generous support of the NFA Foundation, the Friends of Slater Museum and Dr. Mary Lou Bargnesi and Fritz Gahagan.

tHe crAft of cASting

For over 125 years Giovanni (Cico) Lugini, an Italian immigrant from Lucca, has been credited with installing and finishing the Slater Memo-rial Museum’s initial plaster cast collection. While reams of information exist about the men who selected and financed the collection, the identi-ties of those who physically assembled it have long faded with memory.

Who was Cico? Where did he learn his craft? How did he arrive in Norwich at the Slater Museum? Research to answer those questions ex-posed nothing. Like a phantom, his trail was cold. Despite the obvious proof of his handiwork in our cast collection, it was as if Cico never existed.

Join us Sunday, May 17 at 1:00 PM in the Slater Auditorium as we re-veal how a year-long investigation solved a case of mistaken identity, involved national and international scholars, and ultimately restored dig-nity to a man who built a legacy. This fascinating program will, finally, tell Cico’s story and include a presentation by Alan Wallach, Professor of Art and Art History at the College of William and Mary and author of Exhibiting Contradiction, Essays on the Art Museum in the United States and Robert Shure, acclaimed sculptor and cast-conservator. Free. Reception and book-signing to follow.

CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED

thE 121st sAtUrDAy morning Art clAss ExhiBtion

March 29 - April 29, 2015Opening Reception: March 29, 1 - 3 p.m.

thE 125th norwich Art schoolstUDEnt ExhiBition

May 8 - June 7, 2015Opening Reception: May 8, 7 - 9 p.m.

Two successive exhibitions will feature art work byNFA and elementary students who participated in the

various art courses offered during the academicyear. Paintings, drawings, prints and mixed

media pieces, photography and graphic designs,sculpture, clay objects, metal and jewelry creations,

and wood working projects will be displayed.

nEED imAgE

Teardrop Color Theory Drawing by Jade Eleazer (C Group, 6th-7th Grade).