Opening Reception and Eightieth Birthday Celebrations October 14

On October 8, we once again welcomed the public after an extended summer closure for the restoration of our historic glass roof. In celebration of the reopening and of the museum’s 80^th birthday, the Addison is inviting the public to attend a festive evening, free of charge, on Friday, October 14, 6:30–8:30 pm. For additional information, please call 978-749-4015. 

Addison supporters are invited to join museum Director Brian Allen in a champagne toast to the Addison’s eightieth birthday at 5:30pm on Friday, October 14, just before the opening. For reservations or to join Friends of the Addison, please call Caroline Pisani at 978.749.4128.

October 14 also sees the opening of three new exhibitions - for images, please visit the Exhibitions page of our website.

80 @ 80  - In honor of the Addison's 80th birthday, this exhibition presents objects by about eighty artists and celebrates the range and depth of the museum's permanent collection. These artists range from well-loved favorites by artists such as Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, and John Singer Sargent whose work first graces the Addison’s walls upon its 1931 opening, to twentieth-century treasures by Edward Hopper, Louise Nevelson, Georgia O’Keeffe, Frank Stella, and Robert Mangold, to exciting recent acquisitions of works by colonial silversmith Jacob Hurd and contemporary artists Jennifer Bartlett and Mark Bradford, to name a few. 

The Civil War: Unfolding Dialogues – Featuring historical and contemporary paintings, prints, photographs and video drawn from the Addison’s collection, this exhibition explores the ways that artists across time have understood and contributed to the ongoing and evolving narrative of the Civil War. From Alexander Gardner’s and Winslow Homer’s eyewitness accounts to works by living artists such as Glenn Ligon and Kara Walker, Unfolding Dialogues reexamines the realities and fictions of this war, its haunting memories, and its lasting effect on American culture.

RFK Funeral Train Rediscovered: Photographs by Paul Fusco – Following his assassination, the body of Robert F. Kennedy was carried by train from his memorial service in New York City to Washington, D.C. for burial at Arlington National Cemetery. Hundreds of thousands of mourners lined the railway tracks to pay their final respects. Photographer Paul Fusco, on assignment for Look Magazine, took some 2,000 photographs from inside the train. Heralded as one of the most powerful and affecting bodies of work in photographic reportage, Fusco’s RFK series is an incomparable document of this tragic moment in United States history.

Add these to current exhibitions Clearstory Squares and Unitych Variations: Paintings by Christopher C. Cook –Clearstory Squares and Fractured Narratives: Works by Lorna Bieber, and you'll find there is a lot to celebrate at the Addison! Please join us this Friday - we look forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones.