Student Reflections on the Collection: Home by the Sea, Part 1

This academic year, the Addison education department has been fortunate to host three Phillips Academy students as they complete their Work Duty assignments. This past term, we asked the students to choose a work of art from the Addison’s permanent collection and to reflect on its personal and academic significance to the student. Each student interpreted this assignment differently and we are excited to present the first part of the second essay in the series by Lauren Kim, Class of 2013.

Thomas Worthington Whittredge’s 1872 painting, Home by the Sea, tells a story that dissects the different paths we go through during life—the different terrains and surroundings that we move through to get to a destination that we choose in order to live out our lives to a fulfilling end. This painting has four levels of scenery: the farmhouse, the plains, the sea, and the sky. Each component adds a level of depth to the piece that engages me and challenges me to make my own connections to the painting. Not only are these different levels physically represented in the painting, but I also found the elements to symbolize greater themes in one’s personal journey.



Thomas Worthington Whittredge, Home by the Sea, 1872

In the foreground, a woman tends to her animals on the setting of a small homestead. The woman is calm, going through the pleasant routine of feeding the animals. The cozy, homey scene with the woman and her animals is an elegant touch of detail in Home by the Sea. The bright color of the woman’s clothing, the small flowers that adorn the surrounding bushes, the birds on the roof and around the fenced area bring brightness to the mostly green, golden yellow, and brown color palette of the farmhouse setting. Even though this woman and I have no relation, as I thought more about what the farmhouse and the woman’s presence may represent, I gravitated toward the idea of home because of the quaint and comfortable feel of the woman’s scene. I automatically recognized that this woman belonged to this scene: her home shaped her, as she had also shaped the home. For me, instead of being confined to describing just a house, the term home is a collection of physical, mental, and emotional memories from the place and the people that have shaped my foundation as a being. I interpreted the woman in the painting to have been the homemaker of this small farm. Being outside, tending to the animals suggests that she contributes to the household and may be the maternal figure of this family. Just like me, this woman has her own home—a place to call her own, a place as familiar as the back of her hand.

The author's home in Bannockburn, Illinois

During the Fall term of Senior year—a period of time that’s notorious for being the toughest part of a Phillips Academy career, filled with vast mountains of homework, college applications to be written, and non-academic responsibilities to be taken care of—I often reminisce about my home, and nostalgia settles in as I remember easier times: the good ol’ days. I can talk for hours on end about the memories I’ve collected as a kid born and raised in Bannockburn, a small village of the North Shore region of Chicago. Although my house looks like just another plain brick house in Midwestern suburbia, to me, my house feels like no other place in this world, and I grew up in the company of a family that’s one of a kind. From the kitchen that was ruled by my mother’s culinary prowess to the high ceilings in the living room that we added on during the first grade. In my mind, there are specific experiences and events pocketed in each aspect of my house, whether inside or out. The dining room reminds me of family Thanksgiving dinners that, in addition to the traditional American holiday menu, always featured a pot of rice and a bowl of kimchi. The tennis court that had a basketball hoop in our backyard reminds me of the glowing evenings when my dad would come home from work and use the short time of sunlight left to teach my sister how to play basketball, while I stood aside, watching them in admiration. I would walk around the tennis court, while I observed my sister trying to copy my dad’s shots and heard my dad’s strong but warm voice instructing her. Looking back on evenings like these, I laugh a little, remembering being grumpy because I was hungry and eagerly waiting for my mom to call us in for dinner. As these moments play in my head, I realize how far I am from these memories of home and how these special capsules of time are now only behind me; they are my past. I can remember the special moments, but I will never experience them in the exact same way.

A native of Springfield, Ohio, Whittredge was a self-taught painter. His journey of self-discovery and global exploration created an admiration for his home. Originally a house painter, Whittredge traveled to Europe in 1849 with a desire to become a better painter and to learn the European painting traditions. He combined his passion for art with his longing to experience different cultures. Whittredge was not alone. He was part of a movement of American painters who traveled and studied throughout Europe for cultural immersion during the 18th and 19th centuries. Whittredge’s extensive travels also include three trips to the American West in 1866, 1870, and 1871. As a result of the combination of international influence and his personal journey, he established and developed his special identity as a landscape painter, becoming known for painting pastoral scenes with wide, open spaces and natural light. After Whittredge went out into the world and soaked himself in other cultures that helped further shape his identity as a painter and an individual, he created Home by the Sea, the symbolism of which reminds me of his journey and a reminiscence of home.

“I think I can say that I was not the first or by any means the only painter of our country who has returned from a long visit abroad and not encountered the same difficulties in tackling home subjects.” Whittredge knew that his experiences and expanded knowledge from Europe changed him and his identity as a painter. Perhaps he felt a difficulty in painting home subjects because he felt that his depiction would be tainted by European influence instead of staying true to his original view of home prior to his travels. The different scenes within Whittredge’s painting reflect his mindfulness of the extended idea of home and how thoughts similar to the ones that run through my mind right now could have confronted him when he was painting.

For more on Whittredge and his work, see Faxon, Susan C., Avis Berman, and Jock Reynolds. Addison Gallery of American Art: 65 Years : A Selective Catalogue. Andover, MA: Addison Gallery of American Art, 1996; and Point Of View: Landscapes From The Addison Collection. Andover, MA: Addison Gallery  of American Art, 1992.

Part 2 of this essay will appear next week.

Student Reflections on the Collection: RFK Funeral Train Rediscovered

This academic year, the Addison education department has been fortunate to host three Phillips Academy students as they complete their Work Duty assignments. This past term, we asked the students to choose a work of art from the Addison’s permanent collection and to reflect on its personal and academic significance to the student. Each student interpreted this assignment differently and we are excited to present the first essay in the series by Lucy Frey, Class of 2013.


“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation”
– Robert Francis Kennedy

Last fall I walked through the upstairs gallery at the Addison. Photographs from Paul Fusco’s RFK Funeral Train Rediscovered lined the walls. The images pulled me in and entranced me as I dizzied myself walking around the room multiple times. The emotions that it provoked were unforgettable. In the cool, yet muggy air of the gallery I can still hear the cheering of the crowds and his voice echoing, “Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.” Just a year later I am reunited with one of the pieces. It is just one photo hanging on the wall in a different gallery and a different exhibition, almost unfamiliar to me at first. As I step towards the piece, I gasp quietly, I feel my heart beat quicken in excitement, like I have found missing treasure. The single photo is one piece of the puzzle, one cart on a train passing by, and one picture from a collection, but it puts me back in the upstairs gallery, to the moment when I fell in love with the hazy images of a time decades before I was born.

Paul Fusco, Untitled from RFK Funeral Train Undiscovered

Flocks of people were drawn to Bobby, even in his death. He inspired all of America, black men and women, white men and women, soldiers, business men, Latinos, adolescents, and people of all religions. They were the people that made up this country and he believed in them as much as they believed in him. A river of working class people passed his coffin at his wake and millions lined the train tracks on June 8, 1968, the day of his casket’s ride from New York to Washington. They stood, they knelt, they saluted one of the greatest politicians of all time. They wept, they screamed out, and they sat in silence as he graced their presence for the last time. Even years after his political life and public death Robert Kennedy inspires the youth of today: reading about him in history textbooks or learning of his legacy through television programs; pictures of him, his brothers, and other family members are everywhere. The Kennedy family members are political royalty, celebrities, and role models for America. But it is what he did that affects people still. The words he spoke throughout his lifetime were strong and passionate, just as the funeral train montage. His sweet words of advice inspire me to be patient and kind, but also inspire me to think about the world in a larger scale and not just what affects me personally.

Seeing the singular photo reminds me of when I saw the exhibit for the first time. As I walked through the gallery, these photos were aligned across the walls. I walked along the perimeter and I saw a snapshot of each moment, feeling as if I was on the train myself, looking out on the millions of people who RFK supported and loved. The blur of the photograph made me feel like I was on a moving train moving through time, and at each picture I picked up one or two things, but never everything. Facial expressions, the latest fashions, and different types of people, but what was constant were the appearance of hands. Clothes may have changed, from women’s dress to a man’s. Landscapes may change from country to city. And expressions may change person to person, but the hands always seemed to tell the true story, through expression and movement.

A cartoon image from elementary school pops into my head. The image of different hands coming together, interlocking fingers with one another, lining up around the world holding hands, people of all different races, standing together, smiling, working with one another to make the world a better place. My eyes wander back to the photographs, to the people standing together, holding hands, and together honoring a fallen brother, politician, and friend. At this point I look down at my own hands, small and dainty, slightly callused, reminiscent of work over the summer, and tough from taking notes and writing in school. They are my hands and they tell my own story. Although they are personal and mine, as I look back at the photograph I see the hands of others and I wonder how my own hands could fit in with those. I begin to notice people in a new and different tone, staring intensely at the creases on the palms, the dirt under the fingernails, or the curling of the fingers. I am peering into a private moment. A nun praying, a man reaching out, a woman wiping her tears or a row of children, stick straight, hands by their sides while their father salutes to passing train. Hands hold signs, capturing the image of thoughts and prayers in the hearts of the people, “God Bless the Kennedys,” “God Bless Bobby,” “We will miss you,” “Who will be the next one,” “Pray for us Bobby,” “We have lost our last hope.”

The hands tell the story of the American people, the family that Bobby represented and fought for. The hands come together, all different colors, black, white, tan, and of all different classes smooth, rough, or soiled, and the hands speak to us through the pictures, through the glass, and into the gallery. We see a story of confidence, recognition, and devotion, a story that is unforgettable just as his life was, and a story that will never be forgotten. And from the wise words of RFK himself we learn, “Tragedy is a toll for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live.”

--Lucy Frey, Phillips Academy Class of 2013

Collaborative Community Programming at the Addison

The Addison Gallery of American Art is fortunate to have a number of creative and inspirational community partners. The Merrimack Valley is chock-full of arts and programming, and the education department has recently partnered with three nearby institutions to create unique programming for our audiences.

Our first scheduled collaborative program this winter is presented with the Rogers Center for the Arts at Merrimack College, where the Bridgeman/Packer Dance Company will be presenting their piece, VOYEUR, on Friday, February 22 at 7:30 pm. VOYEUR is a combination of live and virtual aspects and is inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper. Noting Bridgeman/Packer’s inspiration and the Addison’s fine collection of paintings by Hopper, the museum will be hosting Community Conversation: Hopper Realism, and Quiet Moments in the Addison’s Museum Learning Center at 6:00 pm on Thursday, February 7. For this program, we will present the Addison’s Hopper paintings Manhattan Bridge Loop; Freight Cars, Gloucester Cars; and Railroad Train; along with artworks by Hopper’s contemporaries. After providing some background information, the audience will be asked to share thoughts, ideas, and observations with the group. Please note: There is currently a waiting list for this program. To sign up for the wait list please e-mail kziskin@andover.edu. Tickets to VOYEUR may be purchased online.

Also this season, we are proud to partner with the Merrimack Repertory Theatre (MRT) in Lowell in recognition of Red, the Tony Award-winning play about painter Mark Rothko by John Logan. In this fiery and fiercely funny drama, a lucrative commission challenges Rothko’s aesthetic, and he and his young assistant must work feverishly to blend art and commerce. In honor of Red, the Addison’s Eye on the Collection and Stone, Wood, Metal, Mesh: Prints and Printmaking exhibitions this season include works of art by the artists referenced in the play, including Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Jasper Johns, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, and others. Red runs at the MRT February 14 through March 10; tickets may be purchased at tickets.mrt.org. Friends of the Addison are eligible for a $5 discount on adult tickets to Red. To join the Friends of the Addison, please visit our website.

Finally, we are pleased to present a program with long-term collaborators, Andover’s Memorial Hall Library. In conjunction with their Women’s Month programming in March, the Addison will host Community Conversation: Women in Photography in the Museum Learning Center on March 26 from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm. The Addison’s first photography acquisition was a work by Margaret Bourke-White. Together, audience participants and I will explore photographs made by women photographers from the Addison’s permanent collection and discuss why many of them were pioneers in the field. Space is limited, please register online.

We look forward to an enlightening series of programs with our collaborators this season.

--Kait Ziskin, Education Fellow for School and Community Collaboration