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Date: 11/2/2021
WESTFIELD – The city’s history will come alive through landscapes and portraits in the next exhibition at the Westfield Athenaeum that debuts next week. The show, titled “Untold Stories: Westfield History through Art,” runs Nov. 8 to Jan. 22 in the Jasper Rand Art Museum. Guy McLain, executive director of the Athenaeum, is the primary curator, with assistance from city historian Dr. Robert Brown.
“Bob Brown has served as a consultant on this exhibition,” said McLain. “His knowledge of Westfield history is comprehensive, and he has been an excellent source of information on the background of many of the paintings that will be included in the show.”
Brown, a longtime resident of Westfield, has worked with the Athenaeum’s Archives Department for 40 years.
“On a daily basis people see the Athenaeum as a library, but from the very beginning, it had a museum, library and a lecture hall,” said Brown. “I am helping Guy because I know the collection and can explain the significance of the artists, the individuals in the portraits, and the landscapes depicted in the paintings.”
McLain noted that by learning the stories of the people captured in the portraits, and observing the way they dressed and how the artists presented them, one can reach a “much richer and more complete understanding of what it was like to live at that time.”
The earliest art in the exhibition will be from the 1830s, and the latest paintings will date to sometime in the 1950s.
“Viewers will also be able to come to a better understanding of the artistic styles employed by New England artists,” said McLain, citing as an example that Joseph Whiting Stock’s paintings are similar to many self-trained artists around New England in the first half of the 19th century.
“Mary Ann (Douglas) Johnson’s paintings reflect the influence of 19th century Romanticism,” said McLain. “Irene Parmelee’s art shows the influence of her studies in Paris when Impressionism was at its height, and Murial Richie’s paintings show the influence of American modernism in the 1920s and 1930s.”
McLain said the primary focus of the exhibition will be on Westfield’s history, and it will also feature work by Chester Harding.
“Harding grew up in Western Massachusetts, and lived for most of his life in Springfield,” said McLain, adding he was one of the most sought-after portraitists of the 19th century.
“He painted many prominent people, including senators, congressmen, presidents, and members of the English aristocracy,” said McLain. “We have his portrait of James Fowler, a prominent resident of Westfield in the early 19th century, and one of our oldest paintings.”
McLain added that another of the painters featured in the exhibit, Johnson, grew up in Westfield and married William A. Johnson, who was known for founding a company in the city that made “some of the best church organs produced in the 19th century.”
“By the 1860s she was sought after from around the region for her portraits,” said McLain. “She also painted a variety of landscapes that provide some of the best images of Westfield and the surrounding area before the advent of photography.”
The exhibition will feature Johnson’s mid-19th century painting of Court Street, still a dirt road.
“We will also show her painting of a section of the canal that used to run through the center of Westfield,” said McLain.
McLain said that Richie was active as an artist in Westfield in the 1920s and 1930s, and had studied with artists in Gloucester and Rockport and spent time on the North Shore of Massachusetts almost every year.
“By the 1920s she was well known for her seascapes,” said McLain, adding, “but she also did a number of paintings, both landscapes and interior scenes, in Westfield and the surrounding region.”
Stock, who grew up in Springfield and became a well-known artist in the 1830s and 1840s, took up art as a hobby after he sustained an injury when he was 11 years old that left him unable to walk.
“He soon developed his skill to such a level that he made it his profession,” said McLain. “His work is still highly regarded, and many collectors of New England art seek out his paintings. We have two of his paintings, portraits of Mary Thayer and Eliza Ann Thayer, of Westfield. It is thought that these two paintings were executed sometime around 1847.”
Parmelee, who grew up in Connecticut, studied art at Yale, and then spent three years, from 1881 to 1884, finishing her studies in Paris.
“She then returned to the United States and set up a studio in Springfield,” said McLain. “She continued to keep her Springfield studio open until 1929.”
The Athenaeum owns her portrait of Lucy (Fowler) Gillett, who was the mother of Frederick Fowler, speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1919 to 1925, and a U.S. senator from 1925 until 1931.
McLain noted that almost all of the paintings in the Athenaeum’s art collection were donated by Westfield residents over the years.
“This exhibit will present an opportunity for Westfield residents to learn more about both the history of Westfield, and the art produced by regional artists who have contributed to Westfield’s cultural activities in the past,” said McLain.