Capturing New England

End of the Line, Cleveland Circle (2012), by Kate Sullivan

Courtesy of the Boston Athenaeum

Moon Over Mt. Desert Island (2010), by Matt Brown ’81

Courtesy of the Boston Athenaeum

Boston Athenaeum
Through September 3

From skyscrapers to stormy seas, “New England on Paper,” at the Boston Athenaeum, offers 56 contemporary works. They reflect “responses to the region’s built, natural, and cultural environment,” says Catharina Slautterback, curator of the library’s 100,000 prints and photographs. Using the Japanese hanga technique, New Hampshire wood-block artist Matt Brown ’81 created Moon Over Mt. Desert Island (2010). Three impressions of the image hang as a triptych because Slautterback loves how, in “relating to one another, they show the passage of time.” All of the works were bought with help from a print fund for regional artists that honors Francis Hovey Howe ’52, Ed.M. ’73. (The art collector and Athenaeum member was also an early-childhood educator instrumental in forming Harvard’s first daycare centers.) Slautterback clearly seeks a diversity of styles. Eric Goldberg’s poignant etching Deep in the Valley (2006), pairs expansive Connecticut River valley farmlands with an intimate view of a woman reading a letter. Realist painter Kate Sullivan used pastel and watercolor in End of the Line, Cleveland Circle (2012). “It all results in a loud cheerfulness,” the artist wrote in the wall label, “and a distinctive sense of place.”

Click here for the July-August 2017 issue table of contents

Read more articles by Nell Porter-Brown

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