Born in Ipswich, Massachusetts, Arthur Wesley Dow (1857–1922) is renowned for paintings, prints, and photographs that take their subject matter from nature and reflect the orderly design and fine handcrafting championed by the Arts and Crafts movement. Ipswich Days: Arthur Wesley Dow and His Hometown showcases a recently discovered album of forty-one cyanotypes that Dow produced in 1899 and dedicated to his friend, the Ipswich poet Everett Stanley Hubbard.

The exhibition and its accompanying publication by guest curator Trevor Fairbrother situate the photographic album within the context of Dow’s career by juxtaposing the cyanotypes with a selection of Dow’s paintings, prints, and photographs, also of Ipswich and its environs. Through this exhibition we can take a fresh new look at Dow’s attention to the abstract aspects of form, color, and pictorial composition in the creation of his work at the same time that we can appreciate his deep personal attachment to his rural and historic hometown.

Support for the exhibition and publication has been provided by Mary and Keith Kauppila and the Morris Tyler Fund.

Arthur Wesley Dow (1857 - 1922)
“Little Venice,” 1899
cyanotype
5 in. x 4 in. (12.7 cm x 10.16 cm)
collection of John T. and Susan H. Moran