Welcome to The Cape Cod Museum of Art Press Room.
For a listing of current and upcoming Museum exhibitions, please visit our Exhibitions pages.* For information about upcoming events, please see our Special Events page.
If you are a member of the press and require additional information or digital photography, please contact the Public Relations department by email at publicrelations@ccmoa.org or call 508-385-4477 ext 12.
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ONE NIGHT STAND LOGO CONTEST
OPEN TO ALL ARTISTS, DESIGNERS, PHOTOGRAPHERS, STUDENTS, TEACHERS
The winner will be awarded $100
and special recognition by the museum.
CCMA is holding a competition to develop a logo to brand their popular One Night Stand art happenings. On the First Thursday of most months, the museum opens its doors to welcome audiences to break down the walls between art and observer. In an informal evening with wine and music, guests can become intimately involved with the artistic process.
Every event is a cutting edge engagement with a contemporary guest artist who suggests his or her own format for the evening. Artists can include painters, sculptors, dancers, poets, and performers. Previous events have involved an artist drawing her live model accompanied by a singer on guitar; two sculptors working on different stages of their pieces; an interactive audience creation of a painting/sculpture, and modern and ballet dance vignettes.
Here are some comments by guests:
"I love this event. I am more at home in this Thursday night moment than any time.”
“A wonderful program by itself and a wonderful chance to network.”
“I came for March, April and May and I LOVED it!”
“It’s been a wonderful experience. I love the participation of audience and artists.”
“ART is awesome! Thank you for giving us something different to do on Thursday nights.”
“This was fun. We got messy playing with new ways to get paint on paper.”
“Love the museum – your group is generous and welcoming.”
Submissions for the logo must be suitable for publication as a color or black and white image, in a large of small format. Deadline for entry is November 29. Decision will be made by Dec 1 for use in 2008.
Designs can be submitted via email as a TIF OR jpeg in a pdf file to publicrelations@ccmoa.org Call 508/385-4477 x 12 for more information.
CCMA RECEIVES $175,000 BEQUEST FROM ESTATE OF GEORGE & NINA RILEY
CCMA has received a bequest from the estate of the late George H. and Nina L. Riley for $175,000,” it was announced today by Elizabeth Ives Hunter, CCMA executive director. “We are very touched and deeply grateful for the breadth of generosity shown to us by George and Nina Riley, ” Mrs. Hunter said. “This gift came as a complete surprise. We never knew the Riley family, but these residents of Dennis must have cared deeply about our mission to preserve the artistic heritage of Cape Cod in order to offer a gift of such magnitude. We have honored these quiet philanthropists with a plaque on the walkway directly in front of the museum which says, In Memory of George H. Riley & Nina L. Riley, Benefactors of the Arts & Humanities.”
Mrs. Hunter said, “We have been experiencing sustained growth during the past few years. This gift puts the museum on a new level of financial stability that allows us to expand into the future. As the Riley’s wanted, we will be able to enrich the lives of Cape Codders and visitors by deepening their exposure to the visual arts for generations to come.”
SMITHSONIAN “Museum Day”
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Cape Cod Museum of Art is participating in “Museum Day,” presented by Smithsonian magazine and Hyundai Motor America for the second year. CCMA will be open free of charge to SMITHSONIAN magazine reader and Smithsonian.com visitors. SMITHSONIAN offers Museum Day at selected museums and cultural institutions nationwide to celebrate the spirit of their magazine that offers art, history, and culture and to emulate the free-admission policy of the Smithsonian Institution’s Washington, DC-based facilities. This year’s Museum Day is also supported by CITGO Petroleum Corporation and, for the third consecutive year, TIAA-CREF.
Attendees must present Smithsonian magazine’s Museum Day Admission Card to gain free entry. The Museum Day Admission Card is available in the September issue of Smithsonian magazine and a downloadable version is available by the general public on the Museum Day website at www.smithsonian.com/museumdaycard.
ITINERANT ARTIST JOHNATHAN KENDALL: ICONS
A CALL FOR INFORMATION ON THE ARTIST
Johnathan Kendall was an itinerant artist who spent a number of seasons on Cape Cod in the 70’s and 80’s creating religious-themed icons carved and painted on found wood. In 1976, he carved the doors for Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Wellfleet, which have recently been restored and will be featured in this exhibition. The exhibit will include a number of other icons, and represents the first museum exhibit of Kendall’s works. This show is being done in collaboration with Wellfleet Preservation Hall, the group seeking to convert Wellfleet’s former church building into a new community cultural center.
Mark Gabriele is spearheading the effort to save the doors for the town of Wellfleet and to document the life of this itinerant artist.
At the age of 17, Mark Gabriele discovered the doors on a visit to Wellfleet and was immediately drawn to them. They touched him deeply and he never forgot them. Returning to live in Wellfleet as an adult, Gabriele took on the mission to save the doors and to search for more work by Kendall.
He is requesting that anyone with information about the artist call him at 508-349-6608 or contact him at mark.gabriele@listplan.com.
The following is information that Gabriele has gathered to date:
JOHNATHAN A. KENDALL (1939-2004)
ICONS ON “FOUND” WOOD
Johnathan Kendall was an itinerant artist who traveled throughout the country in the 1960’s-1990’s, and produced religious icons in “Byzantine revival” style using scrap wood. His mature work is characterized by carved figures or plaques, colorfully painted and decorated, attached by pegs at varying levels to a back piece for a 3-dimensional or relief effect. While works reflect a wide variety of biblical and ecclesiastical subjects, “Jonah and the Whale” was a favorite.
The pieces are typically signed on a whitewashed area of the reverse side with date, location, and description. His works include diptychs, triptychs, and multi-piece sets (such as Nativity sets, or Stations of the Cross). Some of the “found” wood objects used in his pieces include old doors, ironing boards, table leafs, wooden fences, driftwood, railroad ties, and other scraps.
His work exists in private collections, but can also be seen at Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, NY, La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe, NM, Grace St. Paul Episcopal Church in Tucson, AZ; Holy Trinity Monastery in St. David, AZ: and Our Lady of Lourdes Church (now Wellfleet Preservation Hall) in Cape Cod, MA.
He is known to have spent several seasons on Cape Cod in the 70’s and 80’s. In 1976, Father Jude Morgan of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Wellfleet made an arrangement with Kendall to carve new doors for his church in exchange for camping out in the Church’s back yard. At the time, Kendall was accompanied and assisted by apprentice Charles McLeod. Kendall returned to the Cape in the 80’s, accompanied by John Kreyche. He spent one season in Provincetown, then set up a workshop at Shady Knoll Campground in Brewster, and sold works through Tree's Place Gallery in Orleans and Cape Cod Collections in Dennis.
Kendall usually worked with an apprentice, or in a workshop setting. Only some of his very earliest pieces were signed “Kendall” alone. While associated with Charles McLeod in the 60’s and into the mid 70’s, pieces were signed “Kendall and McLeod.” In the late 70’s he established a workshop at Holy Trinity Monastery, teaching members of the monastic community to make icons, which were signed “Monks of Holy Trinity Monastery.” There he met aspirant John Kreyche and left the monastery with him circa 1980. Together they traveled to New England, signing pieces “Kendall and Kreyche” and/or “Termites Workshop.” After Kreyche’s departure in 1991, Kendall sporadically worked with other individuals, but continued to sign “Termites Workshop” until his death.
Kendall’s travels mostly took him back and forth between New England and the Southwest. He is known to have been in Taos, NM; Manitou Springs, CO; Santa Fe, NM; Tucson, AZ; St. David, AZ; Garden City, KS; New York City, NY; Syosset, NY; West Park, NY; and Cape Cod, MA. However, as an itinerant artist who worked in relative obscurity throughout his career, there are likely many more places yet to be uncovered. He died in Espanola, NM and is buried in Tucson, AZ.
By Kendall’s own account, he was born in Massachusetts: his mother a Cabot (one of Boston’s legendary Brahmin families), and his father from a prominent and knighted British family. He received part of his education in England, where he developed a deep knowledge of theology, ecclesiastical history, and learned woodcarving.
- Mark Gabriele
A reception to benefit Wellfleet Preservation Hall will take place August 5, 5:30 – 7:30 pm at CCMA. Gabriele will show more images of Kendall’s work and Jean Nelson, who restored the doors, will speak. Kendall’s friends from across the country will be in attendance, including Jane Pundt and Father Henri from the Holy Trinity monastery. Tickets are available through www.wellfleetpreservationhall.org.
NEW TRUSTEES NAMED AT CCMA
Douglas Jamieson, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, today announced the appointment of new members to the Board of Trustees of Cape Cod Museum of Art. “We are very pleased to welcome four new board members from across the Cape. Jacqueline Lane from Sagamore has contributed her expertise in several capacities at mfa, Boston and to many Cape Cod institutions. She is currently a trustee of Thornton Burgess Society and Heritage Museums & Gardens. Warren C. Marsh, from Orleans, is Sr. Vice President of The Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank. He has 25 years experience as a financial planner and started the Trust & Asset Manaagment Department at the bank. Donald E. Megathlin, from Cotuit, has semi-retired from his post as Vice President of Talania Realty. He has a life-long interest in the arts, and is actively involved at mfa, Boston. Suzanne McCarthy of Yarmouth Port, as the new president of The Friends of CCMA, also joins the board. We also welcome Alan Peacock from Little Compton, R.I. as a new trustee. He is a philanthropy consultant to private foundations and was formerly a General Partner of Clearfield Partners, a developer of private placement ventures.”
ARTFUL THURSDAYS
Admission by donation all day – 10am - 8pm
Talks at 11, Tours at 2, Art Library 1 - 3
Cape Cod Museum of Art is offering admission by donation all day every Thursday, from 10 am – 8 pm and beginning a new program to deepen appreciation of Cape Cod art and artists –with talks at 11, tours at 2, and special events on selected Thursday evenings.
The talks will be given by exhibiting curators and artists and the tours by museum docents who study the exhibitions and want to impart their deeper knowledge.
Now you can meet your friends, spend more time at the museum and take in lunch or dinner at local restaurants offering Artful Thursdays 10% discounts: The Mercantile for lunch and Center Stage Café for dinner.
There are also special Artful Thursday evening events planned such as:
First Thursday’s One Night Stand,evenings focusing on one emerging artist with music wine and refreshments from 5:30 – 7:30 on the first Thursday of the month.
From Sea to Shining Sea
: A Reflection of America
US TRUST, Julian and Elaine Baird, Henry and Sharon Martin, Grant and Helene Wilson
May 26 - July 15
From Sea to Shining Sea, an exhibition of works by some of America’s finest contemporary Realist and Impressionist painters, is both a positive response to the tragic events of September 11, 2001 and a celebration of the grandeur and diversity of our national landscape. It draws its inspiration from America’s natural wonders as well as its urban and rural settings. It is the artists’ hope that this exhibition would contribute to the nation’s healing process.
As Jean Stern, art historian and Director of the Irvine, CA, Museum, noted in his essay From Sea to Shining Sea: Painting the American Landscape”:
Art is the faithful statement that a society can make about itself. The mood and spiritual temperament of a people at a specific time and place are manifested in their art. Ever since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, Americans have been trying to understand what happened and why. We have used the intervening time to reassert our identity, to take stock of who we are, and to find reassurance in those special things that make us a nation unlike any other in the history of humankind.
More than an art exhibition, “From Sea to Shining Sea” is one of the many cathartic observances that we Americans have performed in search of reassurance and quietude. In viewing this superb collection of landscapes from every part of the United States, we feel the common bond of belonging to this great nation and we re-establish our connection to nature.
The co-curators for this exhibition are two California artists: John Cosby of Laguna Beach and Gil Dellinger of Stockton. They envisioned this show as a collaborative undertaking in which artists from different backgrounds, with different skills and from different parts of the nation, would come together to nurture and inspire one another. With this in mind, they selected artists from 23 different states, all of whom were “team players.” More importantly, however, each was willing to risk venturing outside the doors of their studios to work.
The curators chose three group painting locations that literally stretched from sea to shining sea through America’s heartland. They included New York City and the Hudson River Valley; St. Louis and the surrounding regions along the Mississippi River in Missouri; and the Big Sur area south of Monterey, California.
Beginning in the spring of 2002, participating artists assembled in New York City. Here they toured the waterfront and Ground Zero before venturing up the Hudson River Valley where they drew inspiration from some of the same vistas painted by the famed Hudson River Valley School painters of 19th century America. This was followed by a group paintout in the St. Louis area, with its mix of urban and rural settings. Finally, the largest of the three groups--forty painters—gathered to paint and marvel at one of the most spectacular stretches of California’s coastline, the Big Sur area south of Monterey.
Back in their respective studios, the artists began work on their second submissions—lonely Montana grain elevators, a stunning Grand Canyon panorama, Central Park on a brisk winter’s day, dawn breaking on Catalina Island, a Mississippi delta pastoral, New Mexico scrubland crowned by a magnificent cloud formation, a glorious autumn day along a Texas creek, summer on a Georgia Island. Some of these works are quite detailed and realistic, not unlike the paintings of the Hudson River School artists or American Luminists, but with a contemporary use of color and composition. Others display broader, bolder brushwork more reminiscent of the California Impressionists and Rocky Mountain painters. All, however, are reflections of America by artists who have successfully communicated both their familiarity with, and genuine appreciation for, their subject matter.
In the spring of 2004, The Haggin Museum in Stockton, CA, assembled the works. 47 artists submitted paintings for this collection of 94 images. Now, during this exhibitions two-year national tour, viewers throughout the United States have the opportunity to view these images of America’s bounty and majesty. “From Sea to Shining Sea,” wrote Stern, “is a compendium of landscapes, seascapes, urban scenes, farms and factories, all painted with the aim of depicting the two enduring themes of American art: the people and the land… the exhibition offers a rich and varied pageant that affirms the multitude of ideas, sensibilities, and individual tastes that characterize who we are and where we live.”
Three of the artists included in this exhibition will be giving workshops at CCMA this summer: Joe McGurl, May 21 - 23; Gil Dellinger, June 12 - 14; and John Cosby, August 23. For more information, look under Education, Studio Art Classes on this website.
Images: top; Joseph McGurl, "Coast Near Monterey"; bottom; John Cosby, "First Light"
Gail Levin: Photographs
Hoppers Places & Cape Cod Connections
June 30 - August 5
"New houses now crowd the once spare landscapes Hopper knew, blocking vistas. Still, we can rejoice that the Cape has kept its character and that some of the places Hopper painted remain intact."
Gail Levin is a world-renowned Edward Hopper (1882 - 1967) scholar, and was the first curator of the Hopper Collection at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She has written several books about him, including the classic, Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography, and Hopper's Places.
Soon after Edward Hopper married artist Jo Nivison, they began spending summers in South Truro and built their own home there. Hopper painted the world he saw and so he painted many of the homes on the Outer Cape.
In 1976, Levin set herself a conceptual art project to locate and photograph the sites painted by Hopper. The photographs in this exhibition are some of those included in this project which became, in 1985, the book, Hopper's Places.
While Levin was searching for the sites Hopper painted on Cape Cod, she had many conversations with Hopper's friend, artist Raphael Soyer, who was living in Provincetown. During their conversations, Soyer painted a portrait of Levin, a photo of which is included in this show.
Related Talks: Sunday, July 15, 2 pm Edward Hopper: Inside - Outside Art Historian Al Kochka will talk about Hopper's varied approaches regarding "darkness and light." This includes his "restaurant" series, some of which will be on exhibit at MFA, Boston, through August. Lecture includes slides, Hopper's letters and personal notes. Retail price: $15; Members price: $10
Click here to order tickets online: $10 from members; $15 for non-members.
SOLD OUT: Saturday, July 28, 3 pm Finding Hopper's Places Gail Levin will share some of her extensive knowledge of Hopper, the artist and the man. Retail price: $15; Members price: $10
Images: Provincetown Boarding House, photograph; "Rooms for Tourists," oil painting, Edward Hopper
*Exhibition titles and dates are subject to change. Please contact the Public Relations Department to verify information before publication.
