Boulder Coasts and Bolder Strokes: Celebrating Seascapes from Massachusetts to Maine opens this Spring 2022 with new acquisitions by Eric Hudson, William Meyerowitz, Yolanda Fusco, and William Thon, major artists of the 20th century with legacies extending across the islands, beaches, shoals, and cliffs of this dynamic intersection of sea and shore.
Thousands of years prior to European contact, artists of Indigenous nations including Wampanoag, Pawtucket, and Wabanaki all flourished on these coasts, creating sophisticated works such as ornate wampum shell beadwork and elaborate ash basketry. Renowned artists of these nations continue to create museum-quality works across a wide range of mediums.
For centuries after Europeans colonized this area, scores of prestigious artists in America – and beyond – have descended upon a scattering of art colonies spread across the New England shores, like barnacles congregating in pools left by the outgoing tide. Washed up and rinsed out on the picturesque, rocky coastlines of Cape Ann, Ogunquit, Mount Desert Island, and Monhegan, these seaside salons have endured the trials of time and weather. Artists working in New England shorefront locations have defined the direction and content of American and contemporary art, pioneered bold and novel techniques, and developed successive generations of artists at the forefront of current artistic conversation.