Nestled along Connecticut's scenic Gold Coast lies the charming town of Fairfield, home to a wealth of attractions, including the picturesque Fairfield University. Perched atop a hill on the campus is Bellarmine Hall, a stately 44-room mansion designed in the elegant style of an English manor house. Within its lower level, the Fairfield University Art Museum is currently showcasing “Famous and Family: Through the Lens of Trude Fleischmann,” on view now through July 26. Trude Fleischmann, an Austrian-born pioneer of modern photography, carved out an extraordinary legacy through her elegant, emotionally resonant portraits of artists, intellectuals and cultural icons of the 20th century. Born into a prosperous Jewish family in Vienna in 1895, Fleischmann established herself in Europe as one of the few prominent women in a male dominated field. Her refined, modern and elegant aesthetic, … [Read more...] about EMOTIONALLY RESONANT

“Sean Landers: Lost at Sea” exhibition at the Newport Art Museum opens with Landers’ oil painting “Lighthouse Keepers in Shadows” mounted at the entrance to a narrow corridor. Like a preamble for what is to come, this virtually black-and-white painting sets the tone for the entire exhibition. Two men — presumably the keepers of the lighthouse — are so dark, they seem silhouettes against the lighthouse and wintery skies behind them. They face out towards us in the brooding, ominous atmosphere, and though the ocean is unseen we sense they are looking intently at us in a vast ocean that surrounds us. It is as if we might be somewhere lost at sea. Landers’ painting calls to mind Caspar David Friedrich’s 1817 work, “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog.” Although Friedrich’s single dark figure faces away from us in contemplation of a visible expanse of rough seas, both paintings evoke the sense of … [Read more...] about SEAWORTHY IN NEWPORT

“But is it interesting?” — Gertrude Stein “Marny” Solomon never ceased to find Peter Lipsitt’s sculptures, of whatever mode or material, interesting. Frequenting his solo exhibitions at the Boston Sculptors Gallery, she would croon, “Oh, Peter, I lo-o-o-ve it!” and once again demand a piece for her living room or buffet. She and her husband Arthur K. Solomon, the distinguished head of Biophysics at Harvard Medical School, continued to purchase Lipsitt’s sculptures for two decades, even after cutting back on their pursuit of late 20th century American abstraction that, by 1985, they’d promised, along with the rest of their superb collection, to the Fogg Museum at Harvard University. How did this admired collection of two highly regarded Cambridge art connoisseurs come into the Harvard Art Museums’ teaching galleries to join Harvard’s world-renowned holdings? Mariot F. and Arthur K. … [Read more...] about FOR LOVE OF SCULPTURE

Imagine how challenging and rewarding it must have been for the Worcester Art Museum’s (WAM) Assistant Curator of European Art, Delaney Keenan, to explore the museum’s acquisition records to search for data on “textiles, tapestries or weavings” — and then to locate these tapestries in storage or vaults — many that had not been seen for decades. The result of Keenan and staff’s year’s long exploration and conservation is “From the Vault: Collecting Tapestries at the Worcester Art Museum,” a magnificent display of the museum’s finest tapestries. Another outcome of their efforts is an elegant and informative catalogue, “From the Vault,” written and edited by Keenan and Claire C. Whitner. The photography by Steve Briggs, who used a forklift to rise high above the tapestries laid out on the floor, is exquisite. Tapestry conservation was completed by Camille Myers Breeze, owner of Museum … [Read more...] about IMMENSELY DETAILED, LABOR INTENSIVE