Welcome to your bi-weekly newsletter from Connecticut Explored with the latest stories, the newest Grating the Nutmeg podcast, programs and exhibitions from our partners to see/watch this month, and more!
Spring 2022 / Preserving Historic Craftsmanship
Welcome to our spring issue! We’re celebrating craftsmanship in historic preservation. It’s the latest in our nearly bi-annual issues about historic preservation topics, thanks to support from the State Historic Preservation Office with funds from the Community Investment Act of the State of Connecticut.
William Lanson, An Artisan Who Built Beyond Structures
The photo above, from our cover story, is of the recently-installed statue of William Lanson by artist Dana King of California commissioned by the Amistad Committee and the City of New Haven. The statue is sited close by the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail because, as Dr. Stacey Close notes in his story in the Spring issue, Lanson “was the key figure in two huge construction projects that changed the future of the city: the extensions of Long Wharf and the construction of part of the Farmington Canal.”
Close calls Lanson “one of New Haven’s most noted artisans and community leaders” who was “part of a long tradition of African American artisans in New England and the country as a whole.” Lanson’s two major projects were impressive engineering accomplishments, Close explains, but that’s not all—they contributed to the economic growth and prosperity of the city.
Lanson was a community builder, too. But Lanson’s success drew detractors. “As Lanson became more prosperous, he also became the face and target of white people’s fears of Black progress in New Haven.”
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The New London Ghost Ship and the Oval Office
In the spring issue, State Historian Walt Woodward brings us the story of how a piece of Connecticut history ended up in the Oval Office. “The story began,” Woodward writes, “when Captain James Buddington of Groton and a skeleton crew of 11 sailed into New London Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1855.” They had discovered the abandoned H.M.S. Resolute adrift above the Arctic Circle, claimed it, and sailed it back to New London. “Resolute had been sent by the British admiralty in 1852,” Woodward explains, “to search for the missing explorer Sir John Franklin, whose entire expedition had disappeared while attempting to find the Northwest Passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in 1845.” Read the fascinating story of how a piece of the Resolute, via Queen Victoria, ended up in the Oval Office in Woodward’s Spring 2022 column.
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The Latest from Grating the Nutmeg
136. The Lemon Law Turns 40
State Historian Walt Woodward talks with John J. Woodcock, III, father of the Lemon Law. The Lemon Law (actually two laws passed in 1982 and 1984) requires automobile manufacturers to repair defective vehicles in a timely manner, replace the vehicle with a new one, or refund the customer’s purchase price. Today Lemon Laws are in place in every state and in countries around the world. Woodcock tells the story of the law’s creation, passage, and the years-long battle with car manufacturers to preserve its integrity.
Programs and Exhibitions to Enjoy This Month
Constructions & Reconstructions
An innovative artist and designer, Norman Ives pioneered the use of type and letterforms as primary subjects for his designs. Ives taught at the Yale University School of Art from 1952 until his death in 1978, finding success in a multi-faceted career as an artist, designer, publisher, and teacher. Constructions & Reconstructions, a large-scale exhibition on view at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum now through April 24, explores the range and evolution of Ives’s work, with examples of his paintings, collages, prints, bas-reliefs, and murals.
Lyman Allyn Art Museum, lymanallyn.org
Black Mobility Explored
Many of us take the ability to move easily and freely for granted. From the Amistad Case of 1841 to the struggle for equality today, though, Connecticut has a long and complicated history related to African American mobility. Inspired by Gretchen Sullivan Sorin’s book Driving While Black, Changing Lanes: Mobility in Connecticut, a special exhibition at The Amistad Center for Art & Culture on view through April 3, explores the successes, struggles, and ongoing efforts of activists fighting for racial equality in Connecticut. But the question remains: what barriers still exist today, and how can we eliminate them?
The Amistad Center for Art & Culture at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, AmistadCenter.org
Milton Avery Exhibition
The modernist American painter Milton Avery (1885 – 1965) expressed his vision of the world through harmonious color and simplified forms. His career spanned the movements of American Impressionism and Abstract Expressionism, yet he forged a staunchly independent path as an artist. Milton Avery, on view at the Wadsworth Atheneum March 5 – June 5, is the first retrospective exhibition of Avery’s work in the United States in 30 years and represents a significant homecoming, considering that Avery grew up outside Hartford, took his first art classes at the Wadsworth, and essentially learned to become an artist by exploring Connecticut.
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, thewadsworth.org
Excellence in Needle Craft on View
The domestic textiles produced in New London County from the mid-18th to the early 19th century stand out today as masterpieces of American needle craft. New London County Quilts & Bed Covers, 1750‒1825, a special exhibition curated by independent scholar Lynne Z. Bassett on view through May 1 at the Florence Griswold Museum, examines the artistic excellence of American needle craft within the context of design inspiration drawn from an array of transatlantic sources and explores the question of how the county fostered such exceptional work.
Florence Griswold Museum, florencegriswoldmuseum.org
Hudson River School Landscapes
The New Britain Museum of American Art presents The Poetry of Nature: Hudson River School Landscapes from the New-York Historical Society, on view through May 22. Encompassing a stunning array of more than 40 paintings created between 1818 and 1886, the exhibition illustrates America’s scenic splendor as seen through the eyes of more than 25 leading Hudson River School artists including Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, John F. Kensett, Albert Bierstadt, and lesser-known but important artists Josephine Walters, Christopher Pearse Cranch, and Louisa Davis Minot, among others. Plan your visit at nbmaa.org.
New Britain Museum of American Art, Nbmaa.org
Editors’ Picks
Stories we love from back issues to read now.
“Constitution of 1818 and Black Suffrage: Rights for All?”, Fall 2018
“Connecticut in the Golden Age of Smuggling,” Spring 2010
“Ralph Nader’s American Museum of Tort Law,” Fall 2016
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