Please enjoy these descriptions of our 2023 exhibitions
The Farnsworth at 75
Through December 31, 2023
Founded as a bequest of Lucy Copeland Farnsworth in honor of her father, the museum’s collection began as a modest holding of several hundred objects. Farnsworth at 75: New Voices from Maine in American Art is a two-part exhibition presented on the occasion of the 75th anniversary. The first part–Farnsworth at 75–reexamines a selection of objects that underscores Maine’s important artistic contributions to American art during its early defining moment. Paintings by Alvan Fisher, Martin Heade, Eastman Johnson, Fitz Henry Lane, N.C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth, and Marguerite Thompson Zorach will be punctuated by contemporary interventions by artists Jason Brown aka Firefly, Lauren Fenstersock, Steven Hannock, and others. Today the Farnsworth’s collection is nationally recognized as one of the finest repositories of American art.
New Voices from Maine in American Art unveils new acquisitions to the museum’s collection in the last two years. Organized thematically, these objects revisit histories, narratives, and myths about the sea, industries, identity, community, and places, both real and imagined. Artworks by Eric Aho, Elizabeth Atterbury, Katherine Bradford, Kathy Butterly, Ann Craven, Carly Glovinski, Billy Gerard Frank, Ayumi Horie, Erin Johnson, Daniel Minter, Emilie Stark-Menneg, Aaron Stephan, and Hannah Secord Wade offer thoughtful perspectives when viewed in dialogue with beloved favorites, connecting stories across time and media. As we celebrate Maine’s role in American art, how do art, artists, and ideas encourage us to see things anew?
Maine in America 2023: Celebrating the Alex Katz Foundation
Through September 24, 2023
The Farnsworth Art Museum celebrates the Alex Katz Foundation for its years of philanthropic contributions of artwork by emerging artists, made to museums throughout Maine. These gifts—at times, an artist’s first museum acquisition—helped artists establish and chart the direction of their careers. Maine in America 2023: A Celebration of the Alex Katz Foundation showcases a selection of the more than 60 works the foundation has given to the Farnsworth. The Alex Katz Foundation will also receive the museum’s prestigious Maine in America Award in 2023.
Louise Nevelson: Dawn to Dusk
Through September 29, 2024
When I was growing up in Rockland from grammar school to high school, there was no museum. One of the great joys of my life is that we have a first-rate one now—a beautiful building that encloses creative works that can stand with the great ones. That is something that I had not expected in my wildest dreams to find in a town in Maine—that jewel that shines. –Louise Nevelson
Louise Nevelson (1899-1988) wrote these words following an exhibition of her work at the Farnsworth Art Museum in 1985. In the four years preceding the exhibition, Nevelson donated 87 pieces of art to the museum, including 56 of her own works. Her brother, Nathan Berliawsky, and sister, Anita Berliawsky Wienstein, also made significant gifts, making the Farnsworth’s Nevelson collection the second largest holding of the artist’s work after the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.
In advance of the Farnsworth Art Museum’s 75th Anniversary in 2023, the exhibition, Louise Nevelson: Dawn to Dusk, traces the artist’s formative years to her emergence as a sculptor of international renown through works selected from the museum’s collection. Included are more than forty works of art by Nevelson, from early paintings, drawings, and figurative sculptures, to later abstract painted wood constructions, collages, and examples of the artist’s unique handcrafted jewelry.
Andrew Wyeth: Early Temperas
Through October 16, 2022
Edward Hopper is famed for his images of the big city and its disconnection, while Andrew Wyeth is revered for his visionary practice in rural isolation. An unexpected place and subject matter brought together these two celebrated American artists and a fascinating body of work resulted. On separate visits decades apart, Hopper and Wyeth explored the historic industries of Rockland, Maine, especially lime quarrying and fishing, and produced remarkable watercolors. In celebration of the Farnsworth Art Museum’s 75th anniversary, this exhibition brings rare loans of Rockland works back to the city that inspired them, supplemented by select objects from the collections of the Farnsworth and the Wyeth Foundation for American Art.
Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth: Rockland, Maine is organized by the Farnsworth Art Museum in collaboration with the Brandywine Museum of Art.
The exhibition is supplemented by a fully illustrated catalogue.
Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth: Rockland, Maine
May 27 through August 27, 2023
Edward Hopper is famed for his images of the big city and its disconnection, while Andrew Wyeth is revered for his visionary practice in rural isolation. An unexpected place and subject matter brought together these two celebrated American artists and a fascinating body of work resulted. On separate visits decades apart, Hopper and Wyeth explored the historic industries of Rockland, Maine, especially lime quarrying and fishing, and produced remarkable watercolors. In celebration of the Farnsworth Art Museum’s 75th anniversary, this exhibition brings rare loans of Rockland works back to the city that inspired them, supplemented by select objects from the collections of the Farnsworth and the Wyeth Foundation for American Art.
Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth: Rockland, Maine is organized by the Farnsworth Art Museum in collaboration with the Brandywine Museum of Art.
The exhibition is supplemented by a fully illustrated catalogue.
Farnsworth Mural Project: Rachel Gloria Adams and Ryan Adams
June 17, 2023 through May 1, 2025
Portland-based artists Rachel Gloria Adams and Ryan Adams will create the site-specific mural, You Showed Me Love, on the Farnsworth Art Museum’s campus. This collaborative project merges the artists’ signature styles of vibrant graphic patterns of natural worlds and gem-like lettering. You Showed Me Love draws from lyrics in a Frank Ocean song that was playing in the background of the artists’ first date. For them, this affectionate phrase conveys both personal and communal meanings. On the occasion of the Farnsworth’s 75th anniversary, You Showed Me Love presents a message of gratitude, hope, and positivity.
Alvaro’s World: Andrew Wyeth and the Olson House
June 17 through October 29, 2023
From 1938 to 1968, Andrew Wyeth spent time in and around the Olson House, a saltwater farm in Cushing, Maine. The artist became well acquainted with the family, often painting and sketching them and the house in what is known today as one of his most impressive bodies of work, in which the Olson children, Alvaro and Christina, recur as subjects. This exhibition examines the perspective of Alvaro Olson, an unsung hero who managed the 1870s farmhouse and cared for his sister through Wyeth’s watercolors. In the works on view, Wyeth captures Alvaro’s commitment to life on this remote peninsula, during a time when the Olsons were faced with rural poverty, environmental challenges, and regular upkeep of the farm.
The exhibition is drawn primarily from the Marunuma Art Park Collection in Asaka, Japan.
Preserving a National Historic Landmark: The Olson House
June 17 through December 31, 2023
This exhibition documents the history of the Olson House, set on a two-acre parcel of land in Cushing, Maine that became one of the most celebrated National Historic Landmarks in 2011, and also outlines the Farnsworth Art Museum’s ongoing preservation efforts of the Olson House over the past several years. In 2020, a Save America’s Treasures Grant was awarded to the museum by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior, and with support provided by the museum, to fund the first-ever Historic Structures Report (HSR) to be conducted for the Olson House. This report identifies a prioritized sequence of preservation projects for the site and offers a vision for its future. Preserving a National Historic Landmark: The Olson House presents new findings from this massive undertaking, highlights the historical significance of the House, and shares early preservation efforts.