MAACM Turns One: An Arts and Crafts Celebration In St. Petersburg
by Kate Nixon
The Museum of the American Arts and Crafts Movement is celebrating its one-year anniversary with a week-long celebration starting on Tuesday September 6, 2022 featuring daily docent guided tours, staff meet and greets, special pricing, two new exhibitions, and a special concert.
Special Programming
Docent Guided Tours: Join one of MAACM’s knowledgeable docents for an overview tour of the American Arts and Crafts Movement and the Museum’s collection. Tours are open to the public and free with admission, Tuesday September 6 through Saturday September 10 at 11am, and Sunday September 11, at 1pm.
Staff meet and greet: Tuesday September 6-Sunday September 11 at 12pm; meet the staff at MAACM and learn more about the museum, collection, and more.
Library information sessions: Tuesday September 6, Friday September 9, and Saturday September 10 at 1pm. A cornerstone of MAACM’s mission is our commitment to education and furthering the scholarship of the Arts and Crafts movement. That promise is realized in the Museum’s Library, located on the main floor near MAACM’s entrance. Elegantly decorated with period furnishings and works of art, the MAACM Library houses a growing collection of books, journals, periodicals, and auction catalogues focusing on the art, architecture, design, and decorative arts related to the American Arts and Crafts movement. Learn more about MAACM’s library and how to access its collection from knowledgeable staff during our Library Info Sessions.
Open Education Studio: Saturday September 10 and Sunday September 11, 12-2pm. Join us in MAACM’s education studio for fun hands-on art making activities for the young and young at heart! Learn more about our upcoming MAACM Family Days, which occur monthly on the first Saturday of each month.
New Exhibitions
Arthur Wesley Dow: His Beloved Ipswich: Photographs, Paintings, and Prints
September 9, 2022- January 15, 2023
The Museum of the American Arts and Crafts Movement is proud to present an outstanding collection of Arthur Wesley Dow’s eclectic artwork from the Two Red Roses Foundation. This exhibition features over 60 works including color woodblocks, paintings, and original cyanotypes from the rare Ipswich Days album.
A revered painter, printmaker, photographer, and educator, Dow studied in Paris and taught extensively from the 1880’s through the 1910’s. As an art educator, Dow’s ideas on art were centered on the democratic nature of artistic expression, that art should be part of everyday life and not just enjoyed by the few. His 1899 book Composition: A series of Exercises in Art Structure for the Use of Students and Teachers, teaches students to create harmonious works of art through the elements of the composition, such as line, balance, and color. Dow’s many students include photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn, painter Georgia O’Keefe, and the Overbeck sisters, whose works in pottery you can see on MAACM’s fourth floor. Dow’s Composition is still taught today using his theories of space and design, and his legacy ripples through artistic expression through the 19th and 20thcenturies.
“As a painter, printmaker, photographer, and teacher, Dow’s students in turn became educators disseminating his methods to several generations of artists and teachers, many of whom are represented in MAACM’s galleries,” says Rudy Ciccarello, Director of the museum.
American Arts and Crafts Woodblocks
September 9, 2022- January 15, 2023
Featuring a vibrant selection of color woodblock prints from the collection of the Two Red Roses Foundation, this exhibition includes master artists such as Gustave Baumann Eliza Draper Gardiner, Frances Gearhart, Edna Boies Hopkins, BJO Nordfeldt, Margaret Jordan Patterson, and many more. American Arts and Crafts Woodblocks tells the story of how artists of the late 19th and early 20th century experimented with this medium to make unique and personal interpretations of this technique.
In the late 19th century, the popularity of Japanese art in Western culture merged with the heightened interest in craftsmanship promoted by the Arts & Crafts reform movement, resulting in the broad acceptance and popularity of the color woodcut in America. This ancient art offered artists from the period the opportunity to express themselves through the creation and design of beautiful, colorful and original art at prices that were affordable for homeowners and collectors.
American Arts and Crafts Woodblocks is accompanied by a complete catalog of the woodblock print collection “Color Woodblock Prints from the Collection of the Two Red Roses Foundation”, which provides a scholarly interpretation of this important art form, and is available for sale in the Museum Store.
“American Arts and Crafts Woodblocks is comprised of over 150 stunning color woodblock prints featuring some of my favorite artists, such as Eliza Draper Gardiner, who’s 1916 woodblock print of a young girl picking poppies was my very first woodblock purchase,” says Ciccarello. “I’ve had the pleasure to personally curate these two exhibitions, and hope that you will enjoy viewing them as much as I have enjoyed creating them.”
Additionally, the museum’s Speakers series kicks off this month: The American Art of the Color Woodcut starts off with speaker Drew Stevens September 19th at 2:00 PM. Other speakers to speak at MAACM include David Rago, Marilee Meyer and Tom Wolf.
MAACM’s Birthday Bash Concert
Wednesday September 7, 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Celebrate MAACM’s 1-year anniversary with a night of jazz, featuring Hot Club SRQ.
Doors open at 4:30pm, and the party kicks off at 5:00 pm in MAACM’s ballroom. Cash bar served from 4:30-6:30pm.
Admission: $30.00 general admission, $25.00 for members
For more information about the Museum’s celebrations, please visit the website of the Museum of the American Arts & Crafts Movement.