Exhibitions

May 21-September 18, 2022

Dana Sherwood: Animal Appetites and Other Encounters in Wildness

In her first museum survey, Dana Sherwood (b. 1977) exhibits films, sculpture installations, oil and watercolor paintings created over the past ten years that interrogate the relationship between wild nature and domestic culture. Drawing on her research into cross-species communication, the exhibition is a whimsical yet thought-provoking exploration of the relationship between humankind and our animal neighbors.

During the summer of 2021 Sherwood served as the Museum’s Artist-in-Residence, creating a new commission inspired by the story of the Lyme Art Colony. An outdoor reimagination of one of the historic period rooms was home to an inviting banquet for animals and it was filmed to capture nocturnal feasting. Both the set and the film created upon it will be featured in the exhibition.

An exciting, contemporary vision awaits you at the Museum. After all, “when you invite the chaos of nature as a collaborator, there’s no telling what’s going to happen.” —Dana Sherwood

Image: Dana Sherwood, “The Confectionery Lives of Artists and Other Organisms,” 2021. Resin, clay, glass bell jars with snails, natural material, and cake. Courtesy of the artist and Denny Dimin Gallery, New York
Installed in the Florence Griswold Museum dining room. Photographed by Paul Mutino.

Ongoing

An American Place: The Art Colony at Old Lyme

During the first two decades of the 20th century, the village of Old Lyme, Connecticut was the setting for one of the largest and most significant art colonies in America.

October 1, 2022 - May 14, 2023

Dreams and Memories

Dreams and Memories, an exploration of historic and contemporary art from the Museum’s permanent collection, considers these themes as drivers of artistic creativity and expressions of powerful forces in American society.

Dreams and memories both manifest and generate ideas, perhaps no more powerfully than in art. Through works by such artists as Edmund Greacen, Mary Knollenberg, Willard Metcalf, Charles Ethan Porter, Winfred Rembert, and Bessie Potter Vonnoh, the exhibition explores these ideas through themes such as reverie, surrealism, identity formation, religion, social action, historical memory, and the American dream.

Image: Winfred Rembert (­1945–2021), Cotton Pickers, 28 x 35 in. Dye on carved and tooled leather, Purchase

Virtual tour of special exhibition Dana Sherwood: Animal Appetites and Other Encounters in Wildness

Virtual tour of special exhibition New London County Quilts & Bed Covers, 1750-1825

Virtual Tour of special exhibition Revisiting America: The Prints of Currier & Ives

Virtual Tour of special exhibition Social & Solitary: Reflections on Art, Isolation, and Renewal,

Virtual Tour of special exhibitions Expanding Horizons: Celebrating 20 Years of the Hartford Steam Boiler Collection and Centennial of the Lyme Art Association Gallery

Expandiendo Horizontes: Celebrando los 20 años de la colección de calderas de vapor de Hartford

Virtual Tour of special exhibition Fresh Fields: American Impressionist Landscapes

Virtual Tour of the Florence Griswold House

Text in English and Spanish

Virtual tour of the special exhibition "Nothing More American"

Virtual tour Jennifer Angus Griswold House Installation

Silver Wings and Golden Scales

Dear Dear Husband

With a Needle & Brush

The Exacting Eye of Walker Evans

Woodrow & Ellen Axson Wilson in Old Lyme