I’m on a guided tour of the Providence Art Club, and I’m lost. Guests “are always
getting lost in here” quips Gallery Coordinator Kristin Grimm, as she shepherds
me through the dark hallway of a period decorated, 18th century foyer leading to
a small door. I step through it into a modern corridor flooded with sunshine from
a soaring skylight. The back of the 1789 Seril Dodge House forms one wall of the
corridor. I blink at the surreal perspective of the historic house’s wooden siding,
now an interior wall, feeling quite like Alice through the looking glass. Welcome
to The Club.
Boasting a proximity to breathtaking waterfront views ranging from Great
Gatsby-esque to post-industrial, along with a critical mass of higher education
institutions including the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence has long
drawn both practitioners and lovers of the arts and letters to its steep-streeted
bosom. It’s a fit home for the Providence Art Club, one of the oldest known art
clubs in the country — second to New York’s Salmagundi, but the first to boast
six women and an African American among its founding members.
Founded “for art culture” in 1880 by a group of 16 professional artists,
amateurs and art collectors to stimulate the appreciation of art in their
growing community, the Providence Art Club today has over 600 members,
including practicing artists and the art lovers that keep the scene alive.
Occupying a row of four picturesque 18th- and 19th-century homes at the
foot of College Hill on Thomas Street, the Club’s most recognizable feature is
the Fleur-de-Lys house of artist studios. Designed by founding Club member
and painter Sydney Burleigh in 1885 with architect Edmund R. Willson, it was
named a National Historic Landmark in 1992. Although the youngest of the
club’s four buildings, the Fleur-de-Lys has an older aura drawn from a Norman
yellow and green, half-timber façade studded with decorative stucco friezes
and inscriptions. The magical quality of the Fleur de Lys has inspired scores of
paintings and even ghost stories, including a mention in early 20th century
horror writer H.P. Lovecraft’s short story “The Call of Cthulhu.”
Dating to 1784, the Deacon Edward Taylor House next door is the oldest
surviving structure on Thomas Street. Recently restored as part of a sweeping,institution-wide renovation championed by Club president Daniel Mechnig,the Deacon Taylor houses nine artist studios including that of painter Anthony Tomaselli, whose popular Providence cityscapes often celebrate the façades of the Club’s storied row across four seasons in carefree, impressionistic brush strokes.
New work by Tomaselli, which breaks out of representational Rhode Island
to include New York City streetscapes, will be included in “The Elevens,” a
group show with fellow Club members and naturalistic landscape painters Del-
Bourree Bach, Harley Bartlett and Domine Vescera Ragosta, taking place at the
Club’s Maxwell Mays Gallery April 9-27.
While the Club’s two public galleries are programmed with a rotating exhibit
roster designed to highlight its over-150 exhibiting artist members, from
March 18-April 6, the Maxwell Mays Gallery opens its doors to non-member
New England artists in the 14th Annual Fidelity Investments Open Juried
Exhibition, exploring the open-ended theme of “Growth.” As we went press,
over 350 works were under review for inclusion by jurors Diana Gaston of
Fidelity Investments; Judith Tannenbaum, curator at RISD Museum of Art; and
Steven Zevitas, publisher of “New American Paintings” and owner of Boston’s
Steven Zevitas Gallery. A panel of community jurors will announce the winners
of cash prizes totaling over $1,700 at the exhibit’s opening reception on
March 18.
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