Eye on the Collection:
Toward Abstraction

This exhibition follows the trajectory of American artistic expression as it moves from the realism of the 1880s to present-day investigations of abstraction.

Renowned for its holdings of late nineteenth century American masterworks of landscape and realism, the Addison collection is equally rich in works that focus on abstracted natural and geometric forms, in works that explore and celebrate the artistic building blocks of color, line, shape, and in works that are centered on ideas and formal considerations. This exhibition allows the viewer to focus on elements of design, color, and structure found in paintings by Winslow Homer, James Whistler, Arthur Dove, and Edward Hopper, and then trace the engagement with these same issues by later artists, among them Stuart Davis, Charles Sheeler, Hans Hofmann, and Jackson Pollock, as they emphasize form, line, and gesture. This exploration culminates with works by Agnes Martin, Frank Stella, Barry Le Va, and Terry Winters, whose abstract languages create poignant and provocative articulations of space, time, and idea.