EXHIBITIONS
On Paper: Masterworks from the Addison Collection
Sol LeWitt: Recent Acquisitions
Conversations: The Collection in Dialogue

EXHIBITION SITE
Addison Gallery of American Art
Phillips Academy
Andover, MA 01810
978-749-4015

OPENING RECEPTION
5:30-7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 31

Not since 1996 has the Addison been filled from top to bottom with exhibitions drawn exclusively from its permanent collection. Once again, visitors will be able to revel in both well-loved and little-known Addison treasures - from early 18th century portraits, furniture and silver to renowned masterworks by Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Edward Hopper and Stuart Davis; from the delicate chalk drawing of John Singleton Copley to the powerful charcoal abstraction of Georgia O'Keeffe; from the elegant figure studies of John Singer Sargent to the bold, contemporary constructions and wall drawings of Sol LeWitt. Three distinct exhibitions present a unique opportunity to see the range and depth of American art, collected by the Addison from its founding to the present day.

The Addison Gallery of American Art is the repository for one of the most important collections of American art in the country. Since the museum first opened its doors in 1931 its holdings have grown from an original collection of 400 masterworks to a collection that now numbers over 13,000 works. From the beginning, the museum has presented a full range of American art, spanning from the 18th to the 21st century, and including paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture, decorative arts and photography.

As an educational institution, the Addison carefully balances its programs and exhibitions to serve its various audiences, from students and faculty at Phillips Academy and local schools, to regional visitors, to scholars and students across the country. Always mindful of its obligation to engage and inform these audiences of the full scope of artistic endeavor, the museum organizes exhibitions that range from historical to contemporary, from painting to photography, and from significant arthistorical examinations of a period or artist's work to focused presentations of a contemporary idea or theme.

On Paper: Masterworks from the Addison Collection
Feb. 1-April 6, 2003
On Paper: Masterworks from the Addison Collection presents a selection of works on paper from the collection of the Addison Gallery of American Art. While the Addison's renowned painting collection has long been appreciated by visitors and scholars across the country, its works on paper have received only fragmentary attention. This stellar part of the collection, conceived as an integral part of the museum's holdings from its inception, has never before been exhibited or published as a distinct and coordinated group.

In this exhibition the Addison's well-known drawings and watercolors by such artists as John Singleton Copley, Winslow Homer, Maurice Prendergast and Hans Hofmann are joined by compelling works on paper by Carl Andre, Isabel Bishop, Joseph Cornell, Stuart Davis, Charles Demuth, Sol LeWitt, Agnes Martin, Georgia O'Keeffe, John Singer Sargent, David Smith, George Tooker and Benjamin West, among many others. The approximately 100 works on paper represent a full chronological span, ranging from an intimate 1791 ink drawing by John Trumbull to an oversized 2002 watercolor by Jason Middlebrook. The exhibition also represents a full range of media, from ink to watercolor, from pencil to charcoal and pastel, from metalpoint to collage and mixed media, on an equally wide range of paper supports.

In recognition of the Addison Gallery's educational mission, the exhibition is organized into four broad categories that explore the purposes and artistic intentions of a work on paper. The categories are: the work as study: illustrating the ways in which artists use the work on paper as a tool for developing ideas, making studies and trying out compositions; the work as record: illustrating the work as a record of place or event, as a medium for gathering information or as commitment of an experience to memory; the work as product: illustrating the work on paper as a fully realized art work in which the medium of paper is chosen for its particular characteristics and its ability to make an independent artistic statement; and the work as concept: illustrating the work on paper as evidence of an artist's ideas and concepts and as records of process and system.

Expertise Workshop
An expertise workshop conducted by Leslie Paisley, paper conservator at Willamstown Art Conservation Center, is being offered at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 8, . Attendees are encouraged to bring unique works on paper (no prints or photographs) to the workshop for material and condition identification.

Gallery Talk
Carol Clark, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Fine Arts and American Studies at Amherst College, and Susan Faxon, associate director and curator, Addison Gallery, will lead a gallery talk about On Paper at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 2.

Moving Pictures: An Evening of Animation
Inspired by the range of drawing styles and methods presented in On Paper, this season's MOVING PICTURES feature is hand-drawn animation. Independent animator and lecturer at Harvard University, Steven Subotnick will screen a program of short animated works and discuss the potential of the medium as a form of personal expression. Curated in collaboration with the Harvard Film Archive, this event takes place at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 12 in Kemper Auditorium, adjacent to the Addison Gallery.

Publication
A four-color, fully illustrated publication, On Paper: Masterworks from the Addison Collection, to be published in fall 2003, will also be organized into four sections, with short scholarly essays contributed by nationally recognized scholars Carol Clark, Trevor Fairbrother, Faye Hirsch and Linda Kramer. The publication will also include an introduction by Addison director Adam D. Weinberg and an essay by exhibition curator Susan C. Faxon about the development of the works on paper collection. The exhibition and publication, On Paper: Masterworks from the Addison Collection, are designed to fulfill the museum's ongoing mission to share the range and depth of its extraordinary collection as well as to produce lasting documentation for the enjoyment and education of its many audiences.

Sol LeWitt: Recent Acquisitions
Feb. 1-April 13, 2003
Sol LeWitt: Recent Acquistions commemorates the acquisition of an important group of works by artist Sol LeWitt, including six wall drawings, five works on paper and two cement-block structures. This addition to our existing holdings makes LeWitt one of the best-represented artists in the collection of the Addison Gallery. Over the years, generous alumnae and other benefactors have helped the Addison build its holdings of LeWitt's work by donating individual prints, portfolios and books. Today the museum possesses 42 works, produced from the early 1960s to the present, representing all media - paintings, wall drawings, structures, prints, drawings and photographs.

The Addison's long connection to Sol LeWitt began in 1978 through Addison director Chris Cook, long an admirer and supporter of conceptual art. During his tenure, the museum acquired its first LeWitt works. Cook first exhibited Wall Drawing #358, a piece that was produced by Andover students, in the 50th anniversary exhibition in 1981. This project was the precedent for the landmark Sol LeWitt: Twenty-Five Years of Wall Drawings, 1968-93, organized by director Jock Reynolds in 1993. This stellar exhibition presented 44 wall drawings produced by 60 students and volunteers, LeWitt's assistants and the Addison Gallery staff. Sol LeWitt: Recent Acquisitions builds on this tradition and includes subsequent gifts and purchases of LeWitt's work.

Sol LeWitt is one of the most influential artists alive today; he revolutionized the idea and practice of drawing, and realigned the relationship between an idea and the art it produces. In the catalog for LeWitt's 1978 retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art, Bernice Rose, curator of drawings, wrote that his innovative practice of drawing directly on walls "was as important for drawing as Pollock's use of the drip technique had been for painting in the 1950s." Because much of LeWitt's early works is based on modules, systems and grids, he has often been described as a Minimalist artist. However, his recent work and much of the work in this exhibition is colorful, expressive - even playful.

LeWitt began exhibiting in New York in the early 1960s and since then has had many exhibitions in galleries and museums around the world, including the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, Holland; the Kunsthalle, Berne, Switzerland; the Rijksmuseum Kroller-Muller, the Netherlands; the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Conn.; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. In addition to his 1978 retrospective, the Museum of Modern Art in New York gave him a print retrospective in 1995. A large retrospective of wall drawings, sculpture and works on paper was organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2000.

Gallery Talk
A gallery talk led by Adam D. Weinberg, the Mary Stripp and R. Crosby Kemper Director of the Addison Gallery of American Art, will take place at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 16.

Publication
A fully illustrated brochure, titled Sol LeWitt: Connecting the Dots at the Addison. is available for purchase at the Addison Gallery of American Art.

Conversations: A Collection in Dialogue
Jan. 7-July 31, 2003
Conversations: A Collection in Dialogue brings together works from the Addison's collection to illustrate commonalities of artistic intentions that occur across media in particular periods of time. The exhibition is composed of seven distinct groupings of works, each focusing on a characteristic genre or period: 18th Century Art and Taste; Mid-19th Century Artifacts of Use and Beauty: Late 19th Century Realism; Early 20th Century Progression to Abstraction; The Stiegliz Circle; The Legacies of Abstraction; and Expressions of Abstraction across Media. Within these seven sections, major art works from the collection by Benjamin West, John Singleton Copley, Thomas Eakins, Edward Hopper, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Georgia O'Keeffe, Hans Hofmann, Frank Stella and Jackson Pollock, among many others, are on display on the first floor of the museum.

The goal of Conversations: A Collection in Dialogue is to share the richness of the Addison's collection with the museum's audiences and to encourage new ways of seeing, learning and appreciating American art. To that end, the museum's education program has worked with Phillips Academy teachers and students to engage in "conversations" and "dialogues" with the works in this exhibition. Individuals and classes have chosen works or groups of works to study and discuss. Their accomplishments, in the form of essays, poetry or impressions, are included in booklets that are available for visitors in the various galleries of the exhibition. Each work for which there is writing is marked with a star on its identifying label.

Educational Programming
Exhibition tours, workshops and classroom presentations are offered free of charge to school groups by the Addison's education staff on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, call education fellow Michele Grohe at 978-749-4037.

About the Addison Gallery
The Addison Gallery of American Art is a department of Phillips Academy, located at the corner of Route 28 and Chapel Avenue, Andover, Mass. For information, call 978-749-4015.

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