Tradition and Innovation

Summer is here, and the Cornish Colony Museum is open and celebrating the 125th anniversary of the founding of the Cornish Colony! Tradition and Innovation: 125 Years of the Arts in Cornish features works by Cornish Colony artists Maxfield Parrish, Everett Shinn, Marguerite and William Zorach, Frances Grimes, Paul Manship, Charles Platt, John White Alexander and Stephen Parrish, as well as works by current artists active in the area today, including Gary Milek, Robert Way, Jane Ashley, Lawrence Nowlan and Jim Schubert.

In 1885, lawyer Charles Beaman convinced sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens to summer in Cornish, New Hampshire. Though lured to the area by the promise of "Lincoln-shaped men" to model for his statue of Abraham Lincoln, Saint-Gaudens quickly fell in love with the landscape, the peaceful atmosphere, and the spirit of rural New England. Not only did Saint-Gaudens return the following summer, but he persuaded his many friends and colleagues to join him. 1885 was the unassuming beginning of one of America's most influential and inclusive art colonies.

Visit the museum this summer and learn more about the beginning of the Cornish Colony, its development into a community of creative individuals, and the distinctive art, poetry, research and progress which the Colony produced.

(pictured: Stephen Parrish, Summer Landscape)