Visit the New Britain Museum of Art

 

 

 

Be greeted by penguins!

New Britain Museum of American Art I

56 Lexington Avenue

New Britain, Connecticut

Current Special Exhibitions

[Note: Some images are off-center to avoid harsh reflections]

 

One of the most underrated and under-visited at museums in New England is the New Britain Museum of American Art (NBMAA). It used to be small and cramped but, if like me, you haven’t been there in decades you’re in for a pleasant surprise, including its 21^st century expansion.

 

Connecticut is a weird state in that it has some of wealthiest towns and cities in America but also some the poorest. New Britain (population 74,000) isn’t usually on the tourist trail. The one-time “Hardware Capital of the World” has sections of postindustrial waste akin to a mini version of Detroit and the social problems that come with a gutted out center, but it’s trying.

 

The NBMAA is, however, is located in a leafy neighborhood roughly 10 miles from Hartford. In Part I of an overlook of the NBMAA I will comment upon a few of the current special exhibitions. In Part II I’ll offer selections from the permanent collection.

 

Justin Favela

 

 

 

 

The first new exhibition you will encounter is a work from Justin Favela, a contemporary artist whose assemblage Do You See What I See? (through January 26, 2025) is way more impressive than perhaps it sounds. Favela was inspired by the paper that covers pinatas. Imagine a tropical scene made entirely of small colored slips. That’s a lot of work, right? Now imagine a sizable tall anteroom covered from floor to ceiling with tissue, paper, carboard, and glue. The NBMAA is famed from its Thomas Hart Benton mural, but Favela gives a Latino twist to mural art. It’s huge and you will spend time looking for angles that bring its components into focus. It’s bold, colorful, and wondrous. 

 

Walter Baumhofer The Red Skull 1933

 

The period between World Wars One and Two featured both the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression. Wonder Stories : Pulp Art Illustration from the NBMAA (through November 3, 2024) captures the hype of the Jazz Age and the adaptations made during economic collapse. Pulp fiction–so-called because it was soft-bound, printed on cheap paper, and cheap to buy–has been around since the 19^th century. Its stories were mostly intended to thrill and titillate rather than hold the pretense of being called “literature.” Much of the content hewed to preferences of the moment. During the 1920s, for example, there were tales of wartime bravery, aviation, westerns, science fiction, and detectives. Many of those themes persisted into the 1930s, though the tales tended to be even more lurid, cheap diversions for the downtrodden.

 

 

Frederick Blakelee Patrol of the Cloud Crusher 1936

 

What does it have to do with art? Quite a bit. Pulp fiction works were roughly the size of Readers’ Digest and featured dramatic art on the cover. Those covers were reproduced from much larger paintings–often as big as 2 x 3 feet. More surprisingly, the originals were usually oil paintings. Like the stories inside, cover art was supposed to offer thrills rather than fall into fine art categories. Most of them were like the magazines–discarded after use–so it’s amazing that much survived. Wonder Stories isn’t a large exhibit, but it’s very cool to see the paintings and magazines displayed together. 

 

 

The Gray Major

Frank Paul Science Wonder Works 1929

 

 

 

                                                        Richard Case Six Gun Saga 1941
 

 

 

I am a fan of indigenous art, but The Land Carries Our Ancestors (through September 15, 2024) was a mild disappointment, largely because of its subtheme: Contemporary Art by Native Americans. I have cherrypicked a few images I really liked, but a lot of it was simply uninspiring in the ways that a lot of contemporary art fails to connect with those who view it. Artists, of course, have every right to make whatever they wish, but they have a responsibility to explain it if it goes on a wall. And by explain, I mean in intelligible no-BS terms, not gibberish that AI could say better.

 

Joe Fedderson Inhabited Landscapes I

              Steven Yazie Orchestrating a Blooming Desert

Rose Simpson "Tontantzin"

 

 

 

George Alexander You Found Me, You Should Never Have Lost Me*

*The explanation for this one is incomprehensible!
 

 

Two other exhibits are small but good. Glass Impressions (through November 3, 2024) features spectacular studio glass and vitreographs  (designs in or floating upon glass). Another exhibit, Handled with Care (through October 6, 2024) displays some objects from Hancock Shaker Village and works from Barbara Prey inspired by them. I’m not sure she tells us much of anything new, but Shaker craft continues to hold fascination for artists and artisans alike. 

 

 

 

Rob Weir