For Immediate Release: April 29, 2019
Contact: Susan Strano, Marketing Director
802-447-1571 ext. 204
sstrano@benningtonmuseum.org
Images:
Hairnet Drawer
Photographed by Neil Rappaport (1942- 1998)
Colored by Susanne Rappaport (1944-2015)
Hand-Colored Silver Gelatin Print, 16 x 20 inches
Courtesy of the Vermont Folklife Center
Emily Mason (b. 1932)
Seed Fall, 1967
Oil on paper, 11 x 15 inches
Collection of the Artist
Courtesy of Miles McEnery Gallery, NY, and LewAllen Galleries, NM
© Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
FREE Admission to Bennington Museum
On Saturday, May 11 from 10 am to 5 pm admission to Bennington Museum is FREE for ALL visitors and the lineup for engagement is outstanding. At 11:00 am, join Eileen Travell, senior photographer for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC and Jamie Franklin, Bennington Museum’s curator for an up close gallery exploration of Up Home: Hand-Colored Photographs by Susanne and Neil Rappaport. Minnie Griswold died in 1952, at which time her sons locked up their mother’s house in Pawlet, Vermont and left all her belongings in place, untouched, unaltered. Thirty years later, Pawlet documentarians Susanne and Neil Rappaport were invited by Charlie, one of Minnie’s sons, now 85 years old, into the home, and went on to produce a collection of hand-colored photographs of Minnie’s home. This exhibition brings together the best in documentary work and artistic expression. Between 1:00 and 4:30 pm, try your hand at hand-coloring in the Paresky Wing. See how your pictures take on a whole new dimension after being colored.
At 3:00 pm, join us as we open Color | Gesture: Early Works by Emily Mason on view through September 8 in the Works on Paper Gallery. For more than sixty years Emily Mason has been creating lyrical abstractions on canvas and paper, where strong gestural marks contrast with delicate washes of color and spontaneous splashes and drips. Mason attended Bennington College from 1950 to 1952 before immersing herself in the vibrant art scene of 1950s New York City. Today, Mason divides her time between New York City and Brattleboro, Vermont, and “she freely recognizes that the work she creates in the two places is different. Her painting studio in Vermont has one entire wall that opens to the view. She revels in the natural world she encounters in Vermont, but never illustrates it. Like the words and phrases she collects, she also gathers visual impressions: the particular look of the wind tossing a flowering shrub, the texture of moss, morning light,” states Robert Wolterstorff. This exhibition traces the development of the artist’s distinctive style of abstraction through paintings on paper created in the 1950s and 1960s.
AND THERE IS MORE!
Enjoy the opening of the Museum’s spring Trail Tale titled “Call Me Tree/Llámame árbol” by Maya Christina Gonzalez. This tale will be up along the George Aiken Wildflower Trail through July. You are welcome to visit the trail between dawn and dusk. Feeling creative? Try your hand at creating tissue paper flowers in the Grandma Moses Schoolhouse. Want to add even more history to your visit? Stop in the Museum’s Research Library and explore the volumes of interesting books and articles that reach back in time. And finally, don’t forget to get your deep discounts in the Museum Store. Museum members receive 25% discount and Not-Yet-Members, a 15% discount on their entire purchase. So much to do. Plan to spend the day with a picnic lunch on the hillside.
VISIT OUR GALLERIES
In the Regional Artists Gallery, is The Mind’s Eye: Paintings, Sculpture, and Books by Paul Katz. Closing on May 27, this exhibition features a variety of works, including paintings, sculpture and drawing books, mainly from Katz’s Prelude and Interlock series. The Preludes includes paintings and everyday found objects with words painted on them as if on intertwined ribbons. The words are all taken from William Wordsworth’s poem “Prelude.” The look of the work was inspired in part by a photograph Katz saw in The New York Times™ in the days following 9/11. The image was of an office in which everything was covered by grey ash so that ordinary things like desks and computers took on the aspect of an ancient site exhumed.
Closing May 26 is the small but intriguing installation titled Vermont Folk Sculpture: A Recent Acquisition. Unique works in this exhibition include a carved fence post created in 1900 by Russell Risley (1842-1927) of Kirby, Vermont. Risley spent his entire life on his family’s farm where he went about painting on the walls of the house – inside and outside – as well as the out buildings such as the barn. He also carved fence posts, rock, and blocks of wood. The Carved Corner Post is one of the Museum’s newest acquisitions which was purchased with the assistance of Lyman Orton.
Stepping into the Museum, art and history are all around, and “creative collisions” can be found around almost every corner. Explore the permanent exhibitions such as Grandma Moses, Gilded Age Vermont, the Battle of Bennington Gallery, Bennington Modernism, and one of the newer galleries Early Vermont.
About the Museum
Bennington Museum is located at 75 Main Street (Route 9), Bennington, in The Shires of Vermont. The museum is open 10 am to 5 pm Thursday through Tuesday, closed Wednesday February 2 through May. It is wheelchair accessible. Regular admission is $10 for adults, $9 for seniors and students over 18. Admission is never charged for younger students, museum members, or to visit the museum shop. Visit the museum’s website www.benningtonmuseum.org or call 802-447-1571 for more information.