Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art

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The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.
Photo courtesy of the Wadsworth Atheneum.

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art

600 Main Street

Hartford, CT

Website:  The Wadsworth Atheneum

The Treasure:  The Wadsworth Atheneum was the first public art museum in the United States.  Over 165 years after its founding, it’s still one of the country’s best.

Accessibility:  The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art is open Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 11 to 5 and Saturday and Sunday from 10 to 5. On first Thursdays, the museum is open until 8.

Background:  It’s almost as if Daniel Wadsworth (1771-1848) willed the Hudson River School into being. Wadsworth was still a boy when the American Revolution changed the nature of his homeland. Casting their lot with the Patriot cause, his wealthy family successfully navigated the stormy political waters. Everything was in Wadsworth’s favor. As a young man, he had vast wealth, the respect due his family’s service, and a new country to lead into the future.

Wadsworth did become an influential leader, but the degree of his impact upon the country has always been easy to overlook. He didn’t go into politics, and he didn’t become a captain of industry. Instead he traveled much and dabbled in the arts. But he quietly cultivated an important vision—a celebration of his country’s natural landscape as a core part of America’s cultural identity. Wadsworth embraced the emerging European interest in the sublime (artistic representations of the power and vastness of nature) and felt that his nation offered landscapes that could truly capture nature’s grandeur. Unfortunately, he didn’t possess the artistic talent to paint this vision on canvas himself.

When Wadsworth learned that the painter Thomas Cole (1801-1848) was working to capture the American sublime, Wadsworth offered his friendship and his financial patronage. With his backing, Cole painted a series of works that launched the movement that came to be known as the Hudson River School.

Wadsworth’s art collection was eclectic, with European old masters, American historical paintings, and these new contemporary American landscapes. At the age of 70, he announced that he was committed to using his art collection as the core of a new public institution to promote the nation’s culture. Ultimately, Wadsworth hoped to promote a distinctively American culture for a new country—a culture with strong roots in its own native wilderness.

Opened to the public in 1844, the Wadsworth Atheneum has grown enormously over the past century and a half. Thanks to many generous patrons, the museum’s holdings became genuinely encyclopedic—one of the greatest art museums in the country. The collections are strong in contemporary art, surrealism, Old Masters, European and American decorative arts, and, of course, the Hudson River School that Daniel Wadsworth was so influential in nurturing. Today, the Hudson River School collection at the Wadsworth Atheneum includes more than 65 paintings, including works by Thomas Cole, Frederic Edwin Church, Albert Bierstadt, John Frederick Kensett, Sanford Robinson Gifford, Martin Johnson Heade, and Worthington Whittredge.

Thomas Cole
American (born England), 1801-1848
Mount Etna from Taormina, 1843
Oil on canvas
Museum purchase, 1844.6

Notes from the Editor:  When the Wadsworth Atheneum opened in 1844, it enticed the public with its 79 paintings and three sculptures. The collection has grown a bit since then…

Today, the encyclopedic collection is home to more than 50,000 works of art. There are more than 1,000 paintings, 400 sculptures and 4,000 works on paper in the American art collection; about 900 paintings, 500 sculptures, and 3,500 works on paper in the European art collection; and large collections of American and European decorative arts, Colt firearms, and costumes and textiles.

Here’s a brief sampling of some of the museum’s American highlights, selected by the Wadsworth Atheneum Curatorial Department:

Frederic Edwin Church
American, 1826-1900
Vale of St. Thomas, Jamaica, 1867
Oil on canvas
Bequest of Elizabeth Hart Jarvis Colt, 1905.21

Ralph Earl
American, 1751-1801
Oliver Ellsworth and Abigail Wolcott Ellsworth, 1792
Oil on canvas
Gift of the Ellsworth Heirs, 1903.7

Winslow Homer
American, 1836-1910
The Nooning, c. 1872
Oil on canvas
The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1947.1

Fall-Front Desk, c. 1870
American, Madison County, Mississippi
William Howard (c. 1805 - after 1870)
Southern yellow pine, salvaged crate wood, and varnish
The Elijah K. and Barbara A. Hubbard Decorative Arts
Fund, the Evelyn Bonar Storrs Trust Fund,
and the Douglas Tracy Smith and
Dorothy Potter Smith Fund, 2012.2.1

Jazz Bowl, 1931
American, Rocky River, Ohio
Designed by Viktor Schreckengost (1906-2008)
Made at the Cowan Pottery Studio
Glazed earthenware
Gift of Owen and Elizabeth Hedden, 1999.34.1

Other Recommended Sites:  In 1844, the Wadsworth Atheneum building included rooms for the use of the Connecticut Historical Society, the Natural History Society of Hartford, and the Hartford Young Men’s Institute. By 1964, these institutions had moved to new homes.

The Hartford Young Men’s Institute evolved into the Hartford Public Library. In 1892, the library moved from the Wadsworth Atheneum into its first dedicated library building.

The Connecticut Historical Society is one of the state’s most venerable institutions, founded in 1825 and committed to preserving the state’s history. Today, the Connecticut Historical Society offers a library and museum with permanent and changing exhibitions that highlight their significant collections.

East view of the Morgan Memorial at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.
Photo courtesy of the Wadsworth Atheneum.

Tour America's History Itinerary

Tuesday’s destination:  Next stop:  Illinois!

© 2012 Lee Price