Mystic Country, Connecticut

FOUR SEASONS: The American Landscape in Transition

Inspired by the beauty of the yearly cycle, Four Seasons brings together scenes of rural and urban life that reflect the activities,atmosphere, and appearances that characterize a year. Nostalgia weighs heavily in the paintings, prints and photographs in the exhibition, eliciting memories of childhood sledding during winter’s first snowfall, the anticipation of spring’s budding flowers, a cool breeze on a summer’s day at the beach, and the crisp, invigorating chill of the air in autumn.

The works in Four Seasons were drawn from the Benton's collection of late nineteenth- to late twentieth-century American art. Among the featured works are Childe Hassam’s The Lilies (1905), Maurice Prendergast’s Early Fall, New Hampshire (c. 1912), Frank Alfred Bicknell’s April Morning (ca. 1920s), Carleton Wiggins’s Unfolding Year (1924), Guy C. Wiggins’s Mantle of Winter (1924), Reginald Marsh’s A Morning in May (1936), Grant Wood’s July Fifteenth (1939), six engravings depicting seasonal sights from drawings Winslow Homer did for Harper’s Weekly in the 1850s and 1860s, and Fairfield Porter’s Sunset and Lilies (1960).

FROM OBJECTS TO OBJECT: Found Sculpture by Leo Sewell

From Objects to Object is a fun-filled celebration of the extraordinary talent of Leo Sewell. The Philadelphia sculptor finds recognizable objects of plastic, metal and wood and he nails, bolts and screws them together to create whimsical and immediately appealing sculptures. On exhibition are more than a dozen of his colorful works—dogs, ducks, dinosaurs, nut bowls, full-size figures, wall hangings and more—all of them “green,” the offspring of trash heaps, yard sales and flea markets.

Sewellgrew up near a Naval community dump in Annapolis, Maryland, where he began playing with its “found” objects before he was ten. With the help of his father and access to his father’s workshop, young Leo began using the items he found to create assemblages that were not yet about art but about building. As a college student in the 1960s, he studied modern art—writing a Master’s thesis on the “Use of the Found Object in Dada and Surrealism”—and decided to dedicate his life to making sculptures from manufactured objects. To date he has produced more than 4,000 sculptures.

GOOD NEWS ABOUT THE DRESS EXHIBITION!

We’re pleased to report that the Benton’s popular spring exhibition, Women of New England: Dress from the Industrial Age, 1850–1900, will reopen in the Gallery at the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, June 8, 2012 with a reception from 6–8 pm. The exhibition will be on view Monday through Friday from 10 am–4 pm through Wednesday, August 15, except July 4.