Photography Study Studio

Our Photography Study Studio is up and running! We have the capability to pull photographs from our collection of over 7,000, creating a personalized, mini-exhibition based around themes from a class curriculum. This set-up gives our visitors the opportunity to view works up close and personal, without glass, and able to be arranged and rearranged for juxtapositions. We’re looking forward to utilizing these capabilities further down the road in our future Museum Learning Center.

Our first groups of visitors, Flavia Vidal’s Phillips Academy English 200 class, came to visit us on October 16th. The students are studying different forms of writing and many of their readings revolve around the theme of family. We pulled thirteen striking images of families from different time periods and in various formats. The students were able to make meaningful connections between the photographs, their readings, and their own experiences. It was an active class session, full of observations, opinions, and epiphanies. The students are continuing their explorations through an essay assignment drawing inspiration from JPEG reproductions of the photographs.

This is just the beginning! Other Phillips Academy English classes and classes from schools in the area are bringing students to make connections between the Addison’s photo collection and a range of classroom curriculum.

If you are a teacher and are interested in bringing a class to our Photography Study Studio to view selections from our photo collection or collaborating on a photography or arts-based project, offered free of charge, please contact Jamie Kaplowitz: jkaplowitz@andover.edu or (978) 749-4037.

Jamie Kaplowitz
Education Fellow

A is not only for Addison…or Art

A is also for Andover athletics! This fall, Jaime DeSimone, the Addison’s Charles H. Sawyer Curatorial Fellow, is taking her experience and enthusiasm to the playing fields as head coach of Phillips Academy’s JV girls field hockey team. Jaime brings immense dedication and passion to both the arenas of art and athletics. While working a full schedule at the Addison in preparation for upcoming exhibitions and publications, including Sheila Hicks: 50 Years, Whistler's Bridge: The Battersea Bridge in the Art of James McNeill Whistler, and Late John Marin, Jaime exhibits the “fine art” of coaching during four practices and two games each week. Balancing her many responsibilities, this week she traveled to New York with Addison curators Susan Faxon and Allison Kemmerer for a full day of meetings with board members as well as artist and gallery visits. This Saturday, Jaime, assistant coach Stephanie Curci, and the team will make the journey to the rolling fields of Northfield Mount Hermon School in western Massachusetts. The team’s current record is an impressive 6-1-1, with five more games to play including a season finale against historic rival, Phillips Exeter Academy.

We wish continued success to Jaime
and the girls of the “Big Blue!”



(Jaime is in the back row, far right in team photo.)

Juliann McDonough
Curatorial Associate

Final Week of Coming of Age in Venice

This is just a quick reminder that the Peggy Guggenheim Collection venue of our traveling exhibition Coming of Age: American Art, 1850s to 1950s closes this coming Sunday, October 12th, in Venice, Italy. The show has been an incredible success there and our Venetian collegues are sad to see it go.

But not to worry, the show will soon open at the Museum of Art-Fort Lauderdale in Florida (see left) on Thursday, November 6th where it will be on view until March 23rd, 2009. Then, the show will leave the United States again, this time traveling to Canada to the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec in Québec City. This newly added venue will run May 28th, 2009 through September 7th, 2009.

I will be traveling with a group of the show's objects as they make their way from Venice to Florida, and I plan to devote a future Blog Addison post about my adventures. So stay tuned!


James M. Sousa
Associate Registrar for Collections and Archives