Slater MuSeuM’S CaStS have uK CouSinS

by Vivian F. Zoë

By European and British standards, the Slater Museum’s iconic inaugural collection of plaster casts is a relative late-comer. While Slater’s collection is possibly the earliest American collection, after Yale’s and Harvard’s, and certainly remains the most intact, most curators of European collections have been unaware of the existence of Slater’s collection. A 2007 World-wide conference in Oxford, England, did not include discussion of the Slater’s collection, nor were its keepers represented. Nevertheless, from time to time, the one-on-one visit and discussion among colleagues with similar purposes is more productive than the mass-gathering. Since a 2008 visit to the oldest known cast collection at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany, as Slater’s curator, I have been pursuing pilgrimages to the World’s most renowned collections to explore the connections among cast collections.

A 2013 expedition covered the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (1864 &73), affectionately known as the V&A; the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (1660-1908), and the collection at the Edinburgh College of Art (c. 1800), Edinburgh University.

Cast Installation at the Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh, Scotland.

The Muse

Winter, 2014

The quarterly newsletter of the

Slater Memorial Museum

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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 DirectorA busy autumn season comes to a close as we prepare for winter. An unusually busy fall, with three exhibitions, each about a month in duration, in Converse and in the Atrium, included several community gatherings in the Atrium. We welcomed the new President of the Community Foundation of Eastern CT, Maryam Elahi and celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Norwich branch of the NAACP.

Winter brings with it the Annual Connecticut Artists Juried Exhibition. This year’s is

the 70th and will be juried by Erin Monroe, Assistant Curator of American paintings and sculpture at Hartford’s Wadsworth Atheneum. I am delighted to welcome another museum professional, bringing prestige to the exhibition. In the meantime, don’t forget to visit the museum for the combined art quilt exhibitions in the Converse Gallery, on view through January 17, 2014.

Of further interest to our devoted members is surely the departure recently of the magnificent portrait of NFA corporator Russell Hubbard. We released the painting to the expert hands of Joe Matteis of the Clinton Fine Arts Studio for its comprehensive conservation. The painting, at 5’ X 7’, presented challenges simply in transport. Support for conservation came from alumna and retired NFA Head of School Mary Lou Bargnesi and her husband Frederick Gahagan, matched by you, the Friends of Slater Museum as voted by your Board of Directors. Stay tuned for more information about this exciting project.

UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS, PROGRAMS AND EVENTS

Saturday & Sunday,January 25 & 261:00 - 4:00 pm

Saturday, January 253:30 pm

Sunday, February 91:00 - 3:00 pm

ARTIST DROP-OFF The Slater’s Annual CT Artists Juried Show is back! Find the prospec-tus on our website, www.slatermuseum.org

BOOk SIGNING: Tricia Staley, author of Norwich in the Gilded Age: The Rose City’s Millionaires’ Triangle, will discuss her book. Signing to follow. Details to be posted at www.slatermuseum.org

OPENING RECEPTION AND AwARDS for the 70th Annual CT Artists Juried Show. Light refreshments will be served. This event is free and open to the public, all are welcome. Awards presentation at 2:00.

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Important paIntIng on Loan to SLater

Recently, a painting of great significance to the people of Norwich and its environs was placed on long term loan to the Slater Memorial Museum. Forge Brook Pond, Poquetanuck Cove, Preston, an oil on canvas by John Denison Crocker (1822-1907) was unveiled at a private gathering at the museum on November 13.

Loaned by the Town of Preston, the painting underwent significant conservation at the Clinton Fine Art Conser-vation Studio before being placed on display in the museum.

As early as the 17th century, the village of Poquetanuck became an industrial center, using power from the two brooks that flow into the head of Poquetanuck Cove. A gristmill was established in 1685 and later, an ironworks on Forge Brook, now either Cider Mill Brook or Joe Clark Brook, at the head of the cove. The location was actually in the town of Groton at that time. In 1725, Walter Capron established an ironworks on Poquetanuck Brook in the town of Norwich. Other activities soon followed including shipbuilding, export of products of the countryside and a variety of handcrafts.

Despite these long-standing industrial landmarks, Crocker chose to depict the bank as idyllic and rural. A lone figure follows the path along the bank while his dog trots ahead, probably exploring for small animals. The figure carries something in each hand, perhaps returning from work at a nearby mill. The landscape is depicted in lush late summer with hazy sunshine suggesting a hot humid day typical of Southeastern Connecticut.

The painting was a gift to the Town of Preston from Myra (Mira) Gager (1875-1961), granddaughter of the artist. She lived with her parents Herman and Emma Rallion at 64 Oak St., Norwich, (still standing) and worked as a bookkeeper. Myra married Charles A. Gager, Jr., (1876-1956) around 1906, and they lived at 116 Broadway (still standing). They had no children.

John Denison Crocker was born in Salem, Ct., but came to Norwich as a toddler. He remained in Nor-wich his entire life, leaving only briefly to study in New York and to travel in New England and New York where he painted the same scenes depicted by the art-ists of the Hudson River and White Mountain Schools. Crocker invested his local landscapes with accuracy and romanticism, apparently envisioning the coming evolution of the region’s agrarian past into its industrial future. Imbued in these works is a sense of nostalgia that Crocker must have felt, having observed Norwich during a long period of transition.

The painting had endured long storage in a potato barn, followed by exhibition in a conference room where it was subject to a damaging environment of a different nature. Realizing its risk, the Preston Town Council, ably led by First Selectman Robert Congdon, proposed the conservation project and loan. In its present loca-tion, it will be viewed by thousands of visitors to the Slater Museum, including NFA students who call Pres-ton home.

Above: Museum Director Vivian Zoe and NFA Head of School David klein prepare for the unveiling of the loaned Crocker painting. Background: Detail of Forge Brook Pond, Poquetanuck Cove, Preston by John Denison Crocker.

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(Continued from page 1)

The South kensington Museum, London

Henry Cole

The curator of sculpture of the Victoria and Albert Museum gave instructions to appear at the museum’s “secretariat gate,” on the Brompton Road by the Brompton Oratory. The latter is a small church with a fence and gates where posted were advertising for various concerts that looked enticing.

The South Kensington Museum (as the V&A was originally known) was at the forefront of enthusiasm for collecting plaster cast reproductions

and electrotypes, obtained through a variety of means. Electroypes were large format, high-resolution photographs which, in this

case, depicted many of the ancient sites of the originals from which the casts were made. Similarly, the Slater Museum

also displayed electrotype images when it opened and for many years after. At the V&A, curator of sculpture Marjorie Trusted has one of the most appropriate names among museum curators, also known in the UK as “keepers.” Ms. Trusted met with me briefly and graciously in her tiny office after we had spent time in the impressive V&A cast galleries. Many of the casts at the V&A were gifts from other institutions, or came via the Convention for Promoting Universal Reproductions of Works of Art, the brainchild of Henry Cole, the Museum’s first director, who saw the great educational benefits in

amassing a comprehensive collection of casts. London is peppered with plaques on buildings where historical

figures lived or important historic events occurred. On the front of a relatively typical London residential white

stone building across from the V&A is a plaque indicating that it was the home of Henry Cole. His daily commute

was crossing Thurloe Place between Brompton and Cromwell Roads to the hulking museum building within a stone’s throw.

In 1867 Cole encouraged fifteen European

princes, including Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, and Prince Jérôme Bonaparte of France, younger brother of Napoleon, to enter into an agreement to establish a formal procedure for the exchange of casts between European museums. Interestingly, the Slater’s first curator, Henry Watson Kent, produced a booklet about amassing cast collections after being deluged with inquiries from other regional museums.

In Europe, casts were bought or commissioned from the many specialist manufacturers of the day, whose well-illustrated catalogues included what were felt to be key

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new reSearCh iS underway!!

Interested in learning more about the art of cast-making? Slater Mu-seum volunteer Mary Edgar has been researching Cico Lucchini, the head plasterer who installed our own cast collection in 1888. Stay tuned for the story about the unsung heros of cast collections, which will be told in an upcoming issue of The Muse!

Cast of Trajan’s Column, collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

works in the history of art, or the “canon.” Given the particular interest in obtaining reproductions from the Italian Renaissance, it is not surprising that most of these cast manufacturers were based in Italy. The manufacturer most widely represented in the V&A’s cast collection is Oronzio Lelli, whose Florence-based firm produced high quality work from all periods.

By the 1850’s copying works of art had become a lucrative business all over Europe. Auguste Gerber was one of the manufacturers active in Germany, and a number of Anglo-Italian businesses were established in London, most notably those set up by Giovanni Franchi and Domenico Brucciani.

Casts were sometimes commissioned directly from the formatore (Italian term for specialist Italian mold- and cast-makers). Domenico Brucciani was one such formatore who had special links with both the British Museum and the South Kensington Museum. Born in Lucca in 1815, he set up business in London, establishing a Gallery of Casts in Covent Garden by 1837. His most illustrious commission for the South Kensington Museum was the casting of the Pórtico de la Gloria, the 12th-century façade of the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, which he did in 1866. This monument was considered so important that when the Cast Courts (then called the Architectural Courts) were built in 1873 they were specially designed to accommodate the whole 18-metre width of the enormous cast.

Brucciani’s business continued after his death in 1880, and a number of the Slater’s casts (1888) come from that studio in London. The business failed when the demand for plaster casts declined in the early 20th century. The company was taken over by the British Board of Education in 1922 and run by the V&A as a museum service, renamed the Department for the Sale of Casts. In 1951, however, financial losses forced its closure.

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The cast of Trajan’s Column taken from the original 1st century CE monument, represents sculpture from the earliest period in the Cast Courts. The cast of the column was obtained for the Museum in 1864 at a cost of £2,498 11s 2d (which translates approximately to £107,164 or $167,200 in today’s money). Pieces of relief were cast in sections from metal molds held in the Louvre which had been cast under the direction of Napoleon III.

The gallery is not high enough to accommodate the column in one piece even without the surmounting figure of St Peter. In the original catalogue of 1874 the display of the column in two sections was seen as a distinct bonus, providing the opportunity to see much of the detail of the reliefs not clearly visible on the original.

First opened in 1873, the Cast Courts are among the most popular galleries in the V&A and house some of the Museum’s largest and most loved objects, such as the 18-foot- high cast of Michelangelo’s David and the Trajan’s Column.

Originally designed by General Henry Scott, the Cast Courts are arranged as two double-height, day-lit atria. Under the supervision of Moira Gemmill, V&A’s Director of Projects, Design and Estate, the V&A plans to renovate one of the courts to re-create the decorative scheme of the original Victorian design and tiled floor. She recognizes that “Collecting

replicas of famous sculptures and monuments was a 19th-century phenomenon, and the real challenge in refurbishing this Cast Court is to bring it up to the standards of the 21st Century while retaining its Victorian charm.” This goal should sound familiar to Slater supporters. The V&A’s cast collection is seen today as an example of the artistic taste of Victorian curators and audiences. Many other European, British and American collections were destroyed or broken up during the first half of the 20th century, when the value of casts was questioned and they were seen as inferior substitutes for original works.

Refurbishing the Cast Courts will also provide the V&A sculpture curators and conservators the opportunity to further research the casts from both a historical and technical point of view. It was delightful to have an opportunity to share our work at Slater and to recommend the practices and wisdom of the Slater’s cast conservator, Robert Shure.

The trip to Oxford began with an early morning tube ride from Victoria station near Pimlico on the edge of fashionable Belgravia, to Paddington Station in Northwest London. From there the trip by train to Oxford is a one hour ride. On a Saturday in August, riding the same train were thousands of people, already energized and loud, heading to Legoland in Windsor. Most on their way to Oxford were more sedate.

Exterior of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Uk.

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Mention this ad before December 22 and receive a 10% discount on your purchase!*

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ruSSell hubbard advanCeS!

The magnificent portrait of NFA founding Board Chairman, Rus-sell Hubbard, oil on canvas, 1858, by Alexander Hamilton Emmons is deeply ensconced at the Clinton Fine Art Conservation Studio. Coatings of coal dust, attic dirt and old varnish have been removed. The several layers of varying backing boards are being painstak-ingly (and surgically) sliced away by conservators Joseph Matteis and Morgan Beckwith.

Our attention has turned to finding or building the perfect frame for this important object significant to the history of NFA and Norwich. The most appropriate frame would be highly ornamented and gilt, like so many of the mid-19th century. The museum is grateful to Dr. Mary Lou Bargnesi and Frederick Gahagan for their support of the conservation project. The Board of The Friends of Slater Museum also matched funding from the museum’s Conservation and Acquisitions fund. But there is a role that you can play. If you

would like to contribute in any amount, please send your gift to Restore Russell Hubbard, Slater Museum, 108 Crescent Street, Nor-wich, 06360. An unveiling event is planned for the future when the work is complete!

Conservator Morgan Beckwith cleans the Slater Museum’s portrait of Russell Hubbard.

Stroll down Norwich’s most fashionable mile of millionaires’ mansions and mingle with the extraordinary people who lived and played behind their elegant façades during the glamorous Gilded Age. Wealthy manufacturers and merchants constructed magnificent mansions, many of which survive today, along this trendiest triangle in the glitzy Rose of New England. Tricia Stal-ey has uncovered forgotten scandals like the Blackstone baby kidnapping and the bank cashiers who embezzled thousands of dollars from the wealthy residents, as well as the drama of fortunes made and lost. Meet Tiffany’s founding partner John Young, rubber shoe manufacturing king William A. Bucking-ham, the Slaters, Greenes, Hubbards and more salacious, stylish titans of industry and extravagance.

JOIN US SATURDAY, JANUARY 25 AT 3:30 PM FOR THE OFFICIAL BOOK LAUNCH!

Author Tricia Staley will discuss the book and sign copies. More details to follow at

www.slatermuseum.org.

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Oxford is a Mecca for hundreds of foreign student groups, many from China, who know exactly the Holy Grail they seek. In addition, Oxford, a college town like New Haven, on the weekend becomes a haven for over-aged former students hoping to relive their youth, strolling the Medieval streets for a split second and then hitting the pubs for the remainder of the day. The Ashmolean Museum is, at a brisk pace, about a ten minute walk from the Oxford train station. The brief walk over cobblestone streets provides a glimpse of the British academic life sought and lived by so many scholars over the centuries. Saturday crowds make the impossibly narrow sidewalks (really broad curbs) impassible, so the hoards of pedestrians walk in the streets, adding to the medieval flavor and college town feel. The present Ashmolean was created in 1908 by combining two ancient Oxford institutions: the University Art Collection and the original Ashmolean Museum. The older partner in the merger, the University Art Collection, was based for many years in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The collection began modestly in the 1620’s with a handful of portraits and curiosities displayed in a small room. In 1636 and 1657, respectively, Archbishop Laud and Ralph Freke added notable collections of coins and medals later installed in a strong room and now incorporated into the Ashmolean coin collection.

The objects of curiosity included Guy Fawkes’ lantern and a sword said to have been given by the pope to Henry VIII. A number of more exotic items, including Jacob’s Coat of Many Colors, have long since been lost.

In the 1660’s and 70’s, the collection grew rapidly. At first a gallery of portraits of distinguished contemporaries, it became more historical with the

addition of portraits of people from the past -- college founders, scientists, soldiers, monarchs, writers and artists. Several painters donated self-portraits. In the eighteenth century, a number of landscapes, historical paintings and scenes from contemporary life were added. Other donors, former members of the University, added collections of Old Masters so that by the early nineteenth century, it had become an art gallery of general interest and an essential stop on the tourist map. Over the course of a century, the collections grew to become what is often called a cabinet of curiosities. It included, in addition to the portraits of founders of various colleges at Oxford, anthropological material and fine and decorative art. Much of the Ashmolean’s history, prompted reflection upon Slater Museum, whose past, though much, much shorter, followed similar paths. It was with the gift of a collection of ancient Greek and Roman statuary from the Countess of Pomfret in 1755 that the need for a new art gallery appeared urgent for the Ashmolean. Not until 1845, however, was a new structure built to house ever-expanding collections covering the breadth of British sensibilities.

The Ashmolean Museum is now celebrating its 350th anniversary and has undergone significant expansion, re-installation and re-interpretation. In another parallel to the Slater, their new structure is called “The Atrium”! The exhibition values of the

The Cast Collection at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Uk

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new installations are of the highest quality with excellent mounts, cases and lighting. Objects are interpreted explaining not only their specific meaning and significance, but when, by whom and how they were collected, and how they came to be in the collection; in short, interpretation includes their provenance.

In addition, in 2010 the Ashmolean completed the reinstallation of its Cast Gallery, once a separate building, now an integral part of the Museum. Their cast collection began in 1884 and received its own purpose-built gallery in 1960. Until 2006, when the nineteenth century galleries behind the famous Ashmolean façade were demolished, visitors to the Cast Gallery had to leave the Museum to access the casts. Now the gallery is joined to the main Museum building through large, sliding glass double-doors and a light-filled, glass ceilinged promenade.

The Atrium project integrates the cast collection with those of Ancient World Galleries, allowing visitors to see the sculpture of the ancient Mediterranean in a wider cultural and historical context. The casts are displayed showing them in the variety of settings in which sculpture was found in the Greek and Roman worlds – sanctuaries, public squares, cemeteries, country villas. The entrance

to the Gallery is flanked by a display of Roman imperial reliefs – casts of the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, Trajan’s Arch at Beneventum, and the Ara Pacis Augustae. In a space flooded with natural light, a cast of Marcus Aurelius has been polychromed (painted many colors) to represent the painted marbles of ancient Greece and Rome. Their color choices are stunningly brilliant … who can say if they are accurate?. The Ashmolean Museum’s collection of plaster casts is one of the oldest, largest, and best preserved collections in the UK, containing over 900 casts, some of which date to the 18th century. The Ashmolean Cast Gallery’s history began almost two hundred years ago, when plaster casts of ancient Greek and Roman statues could be found in several parts of the University. They served to decorate rooms, especially libraries, and to proclaim the Glory of Greece and the prestige of Oxonians who had made the Grand Tour to the Mediterranean. A number of the older casts are in better condition than the acid-damaged originals from which they were taken – such as the Caryatid Sculpture from the Erechtheion Temple. The collection is especially strong in casts of Classical sculpture, but also has important Hellenistic and Roman copies, including iconic pieces such as the Venus di Milo, the Nike of Samothrace and the Laocoön. The Ashmolean views its collection as an invaluable resource for teaching students in a range of subjects, for artists,

Images (above): Polychrome cast of Marcus Aure-lius, collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Uk. (top left:): The Ashmolean Museum Atrium

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and for members of the public who do not have access to sculptures from all over the world. This view of the value of the collection as an educational resource for the community is also similar to the Slater Museum’s.

The Ashmolean’s new cast gallery installation is visible behind huge sliding glass doors, more like wall partitions than doors. The new, primary Ashmolean cast gallery exemplifies a simple and spare installation, but the majority of their casts reside most often in a basement “storage” area. Literally hundreds are crammed into a large L-shaped room with small clerestory windows where, apparently, students are allowed access to draw and study. However, the interpretation of the casts at the Ashmolean Museum provides very little assurance to visitors that these are copies. Most of the available information makes it appear that one is looking at the original.

Moved to prime real estate in the new Atrium, Asmolean’s Marcus Aurelius has been polychromed in a nearly shocking display of brilliant color.

On a train from Kings Cross Station, the trip to Edinburgh is about five hours. In August three concurrent festivals take place in Edinburgh: The Fringe, The International and The Arts Festivals. In concordance with the

2013 Arts Festival, the Edinburgh College of Art (ECA), now a department of Edinburgh University, engaged Dutch artist Krijn de Koning to install a site-specific piece, Parley, in their sculpture court or main cast gallery in the college’s main building. The installation comprised a series of staggered-height platforms built around the casts. As the viewer entered deeper into space and wandered about, he could either see the tops of figures’ heads, or get a different perspective of them.

The Main Building of the Edinburgh College of Art, a brownstone replica of a Greek temple, is unmistakable as a place with academic art in its history. Neil Lebeder, a young professor at the Edinburgh College of Art led a visitor first to the de Koning installation. On the landings of a very large double central staircase were casts of reclining Greek maidens and Aphrodite from the Eastern Pediment of the Parthenon. Other significant pieces were stashed hither and yon throughout the school’s spaces, making a direct comparison to the Slater’s collection difficult.

Images (below): Installation of the casts at Edinburgh College of Art; (opposite): View of Edinburgh College of Art with Edinburgh Castle in the background.

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The Edinburgh Cast Collection comprises 265 plaster casts of Antique, Renaissance, and Gothic statues, bas reliefs, and architectural elements at the Edinburgh College of Art and the University of Edinburgh. The plaster casts at the Edinburgh College of Art are displayed in a beautiful neo-Classical sculpture court specifically designed to house casts of the Parthenon frieze. The latter were donated directly by Lord Elgin for the education of artists in Scotland. The casts at the University of Edinburgh were acquired at the end of the 19th century as a teaching collection to illustrate Classical art history.

The collection of plaster casts of the former Trustees’ Academy in Edinburgh, now Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) was acquired in the late 18th and early 19th century for training artists in Scotland. ECA was the first public school of art in Britain, founded in 1760. The cast collection was eventually transferred to the Edinburgh College of Art in 1911 on condition that it remain open to the public (as it continues today). A smaller group of pieces sold off in 1838 are now part of the teaching collection of the Classics Department of the University of Edinburgh. The collection of 194 casts at the College includes Greek, Roman, Renaissance and Gothic statues, bas reliefs, and architectural casts. The first printed catalogue dates from 1837 (reissued four times until 1904). The collection at the University, which was founded for the education of classical scholars, comprises 71 casts from the Antique (Greek and Roman statuary).

The Edinburgh collection is still displayed in the setting designed for it in 1910, a survival similar to the Slater’s collection. Like the Slater’s, ECA’s cast collection is an early example of a teaching and public collection. The use of casts prevailed from the Renaissance to the early 20th century for historical and archaeological education as well. The ECA and University of Edinburgh saw their collections as contributing to the re-invention of Edinburgh as the “Athens of the North” in the 19th century.

A brochure about the Edinburgh collection’s history indicated that, like Slater, it included a rare copy of the Dying Gaul. In August, 2013, after a recent conservation, the Edinburgh Dying Gaul rested in one of the rooms which in the fall was to be split into studio cubicles for graduate students. Even though their magnificent Dying Gaul held court alone in the space, eyes were drawn irretrievably to the huge windows facing North for constant light, but more importantly, to a view of Edinburgh Castle literally filling the monumental windows. The space is a minimum of 1,000 square feet with a 15 foot ceiling and ten foot high windows running the entire 100 foot length of the studio. The original Main Edinburgh College of Art building is slightly south and downhill from the castle, paralleling the same latitude. Thus , graduate studios have this magnificent view of the Castle. One wonders if the students know what they have. A similar question is often posed to NFA students!

CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED

70TH ANNUAL CONNECTICUTARTISTS EXHIBITION

FEBRUARY 9 - MARCH 21, 2014

CALL TO ARTISTS - The prospectus for the 70th Annual CT Artists Exhibition is now available online.

Full details at www.slatermuseum.org

Up to $1,000 in awards, including a Katherine Forest Crafts Foundation gift.

Erin Monroe of the Wadsworth AtheneumMuseum of Art will be the juror for the 70th

Annual CT Artists Exhibition.

Opening reception and awards ceremony Sunday, February 9, 2014

from 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.Awards ceremony at 2:00.

Free and open to the public - all are welcome!At left: Fish Dot Calm by Ramona Agro, Best work on Canvas Award winner, 69th Annual CT Artists Exhibition, SMM.