Grateful For Gifts
Exhibition on view November 30 - February 11, 2017 Public Reception December 7, 5:30 – 7 pm
Several Cape Cod Museum of Art galleries will be filled with over 50 recent gifts accepted into the museum’s permanent collection -- outstanding work by individual artists who have a significant place in the history of the Cape’s art as well as well-known contemporary artists.
“We are so proud to include these artworks in our permanent collection and immensely grateful to our donors who are sharing our mission to preserve the Cape’s very strong artistic identity,” said CCMoA Director Edith (Deede) Tonelli. “The range and depth of our Cape-wide collection exemplifies the richness of the influence of the Cape on artists past and present. It’s our joy to be able to use these gifts to expand appreciation of the value and meaning of art in our lives.”
The Robert Spohn Collection, a significant gift of 13 small works by Cape Cod artists from the early 20th century through today, donated by a long-time dedicated docent and museum supporter Robert Spohn, will be exhibited together in the Ocean Edge gallery.
In addition, an installation of the museum’s white-line woodblock prints, a printmaking technique created on the Cape, will include the gifts of “Red Sails with Tulips,” by artist Suzanne Packer, and “Dancing Houses” by William Evaul.
CCMoA’s permanent collection of over 2000 artworks represents the creative depth and diversity of artists from Falmouth to Provincetown, the Islands and the region. It extends from the Cape’s early days as a destination for artists, and later, as an incubator of influential American art movements, right up to the present.
Some of the new artworks are:
“Happy Blowing Bubbles” 1930, by Charles Sydney Hopkinson (1869 – 1962) A Boston-based portrait painter and landscape watercolorist, Hopkinson painted over 800 portraits in a direct style with a palette gradually lightening through his career. Many of his paintings were commissioned by Harvard University, where he acted as house portraitist. Among his sitters were Oliver Wendell Holmes and Calvin Coolidge.
This gift of Mr. and Mrs. Phil H. Neal Jr. is only the latest in the most generous gifts from Mrs. Neal and her late husband Philip. This portrait is especially welcome in our collection, because it helps to provide a context for the portraiture tradition that blossomed on Cape Cod in the late 19th century and has continued through to today.
City Sun IV, 1976 by Budd Hopkins (1931 – 2011) Hopkins was a nationally-acclaimed member of the influential Abstract Expressionist group in New York City and Provincetown starting in the 1950's. His works are in major art museums including the Museum of Modern Art, The Guggenheim Museum, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston among many others. Donating this 13-feet wide multi-canvas (68" x 160") acrylic painting, his daughter Grace Hopkins, an abstract photographer and director of the Berta Walker Galleries, said, "I have recently become more involved with the Cape Cod Museum of Art and have been impressed with the staff and quality of exhibitions that have been shown. I felt it was the right time to give a major painting to the collection.”
“Noblewoman” by Carl Lopes. An artist whose multi-media works are influenced by African design and tradition, Lopes has retired from a distinguished career as an art educator and has consistently shown his work in exhibits across New England for the past 45 years.
Carl Lopes donated his work saying,
“The CCMOA houses the largest visual art collection representing generations of outstanding artists with a regional connection. My decision to donate this painting is in support of CCMOA's outstanding art and cultural stewardship. Having created art on Cape Cod for over 35 years, I am proud to officially be part of the heritage of this premiere collection."
For information about donating to the permanent collection, contact: Angela Bilski at angela@ccmoa.org or 508-385-4477, x17.
