Upcoming
Connecticut Needlework: Women, Art, and Family, 1740-1840
October 5, 2010 - March 26, 2011
Early American needlework is an art form created almost exclusively by women and girls. As art, these needlework pictures and useful household objects burst with color, imaginative design, and evidence of close observation. As history, these same items reveal clues to the lives and times of the girls and women who set those countless stitches into cloth. The exhibition, Connecticut Needlework: Women, Art, and Family, 1740-1840, showcases more than seventy fascinating examples – many never previously exhibited. Beautifully decorated clothing, bedding, and accessories, school work by children as young as 6 years old, and masterpieces of needlework art depicting classical scenes, bucolic landscapes, and perfectly-rendered flora and fauna will all be featured. The final gallery will display needlework dedicated to preserving family history and highlight the work of one remarkable family – and an even more unusual young woman within that family, Prudence Punderson.
Find out more about our related one-day conference on October 30.
This project is supported by generous grants from the Coby Foundation, Ltd. and the National Endowment for the Arts. An illustrated catalog (forthcoming, distributed by Wesleyan University Press) by Susan P. Schoelwer will accompany the exhibition.
Making Connecticut
Opens December 10, 2010
In December, the Connecticut Historical Society will open a new, long-term exhibition called Making Connecticut. In 4,000 square feet, divided into nine colorful sections, the broad sweep of Connecticut history will come alive using authentic costumes, historic images, objects, documents, and hands-on interactives. Making Connecticut celebrates all the people of Connecticut, honoring struggles as well as proud moments from the 16th century through today.