Upcoming Exhibits
Through a Different Lens: Three Connecticut Women Photographers
October 11, 2013 - March 29, 2014
This exhibit will introduce a new collection of photography donated by the Rosalie Thorne McKenna Foundation as well as a collection by Marie Kendall. The photographs document two generations of women photographers in Connecticut. Harriet V. S. Thorne (1843-1926), a talented amateur, used her camera to compose exquisite and moving pictures of the people and places that she knew, including her Bridgeport summer home, Schoonhoven, where her studio was located. Marie Hartig Kendall (1854-1943) published poetic views of the Litchfield Hills in Northwestern Connecticut where she lived after immigrating to the U.S. from her native Alsace-Lorraine. Rosalie Thorne McKenna (1916-2003) is best-known for her revealing portraits of artistic and literary figures of the mid-20th century; she also documented the fishing community of Stonington where she made her home.
Etiquette, Manners & Dress
April 10, 2014 – September 27, 2014
You’ve heard it a million times—no one has any manners anymore! All you need to do is turn on the television or open a magazine, and you can find lots of stories about talking on cell phones in public, poor online etiquette, and rude behavior. Were things so different in the past? In this lighthearted exhibition, we will explore etiquette and advice books from the Victorian Period (1837-1901)—when the rules were complicated and dictated the ways men and women in Connecticut ate, dressed, and got along with each other.
Hartford Seen: Photographs by Pablo Delano
October 2014 - January 2015
Pablo Delano's contemporary documentary photographs of Hartford portray the city's public and private buildings, street scenes, and storefronts. This installation will reveal the history and growth of the city by showing the range and diversity of its built environment; from richly decorated businesses to historic structures to derelict factories. The photographs convey today’s economic and social realities as well as the city’s past and present triumphs as evidenced through the ingenuity and motivation of its population. Pablo Delano is a Professor of Fine Arts at Trinity College in Hartford. His work, including some examples of the images in the Hartford collection, can be found at pablodelano.com.
Richard Welling's Hartford
October 2014 - January 2015
Connecticut artist Richard Welling is known for chronicling the ever-changing Hartford landscape through his expansive and highly detailed ink drawings of the city. Acting as both works of art and documentary snapshots, these drawings help reveal the additions and subtractions of the city's architectural skyline throughout the 1970s. Welling also traveled the East Coast to draw other locations, including New York City. He also taught drawing classes throughout Hartford County and published guidebooks on the techniques of drawing buildings. Welling's prints, studies, and drawing instruments were donated to CHS in 2012.
Maps from the CHS Collection
August 2015 - January 2016
Maps communicate and condense information graphically and help us understand where we came from, how we got here, where people live and why, and how and why change happened. Maps support learning and scholarship in practical ways, as evidence of commerce, migration, urbanization, transportation and in theoretical or philosophical ways, as evidence of nation building and state identity, art and imagery, and ownership. This exhibit will feature a range of wonderfully detailed maps from the CHS collection.