60 years of Art
Exhibit at the Egan Institute tells the story of the Artists’ Association through its permanent collection
By Laura Raskin
Independent Arts Writer

Exhibit curators Robert Frazier, foreground, and George Thomas stand in front of, l to r, Ruth Haviland Sutton’s “Chippy Waits,” Haviland-Sutton’s “Girl with Blue Vest, and Emily Hoffmeier’s “Black and Green Fishing Boat.”

There are three elements necessary for an art colony: central art figures, a fixed location and most importantly, colonists.

“Few people would argue that Nantucket is an art colony,” said Robert Frazier, co-curator of “The Artist Colony on Nantucket: Sixty Years of Contemporary Art.”

The exhibit opens Thursday, May 26, at the Egan Institute for Maritime Studies. It tells the story of the Artists’ Association of Nantucket from 1945 to 2005 through its permanent collection.

It will be the collection’s biggest exposure yet with over 100 paintings, sculptures and prints on view through Oct. 9. There are almost 600 pieces in the entire collection, which have been stored in various locations and shown in small exhibits at places like Nantucket Bank.

“This is the first real look into the collection,” said Frazier.

The exhibit, organized relatively chronologically from 1945 on (with a few 1920s exceptions), will show the progression of Nantucket artists from classical to modern to abstract, said Frazier.

“One of (AAN’s) goals is to show artists,” said George C. Thomas, co-curator with Frazier and an artist who has spent 52 years on the island. He had his first show here at 18, encouraged by the AAN. “The other thing is to bring people along, give others a chance,” said Thomas.

The AAN has always been a combination of patrons and artists and is known as the first stop for emerging artists on the island wanting to break into the gallery scene. The AAN gallery on Washington Street frequently showcases members’ work and an arts program offers classes.

While the AAN was not officially established until 1945 at the request of local artists and patrons, the artist colony on the island has deeper roots, explained Frazier, as he and Thomas hung the show at the Egan Institute’s Coffin School on Thursday.

The seeds for the colony began when artist Frank Swift Chase came to Nantucket from the arts and crafts colony in Woodstock, N.Y. in the 1920s to teach a group of women — Anne Ramsdell Congdon and Elizabeth Saltonstall among them — a landscape-painting class.

One of his students, Florence Lang, went on to purchase South Wharf and a strip of beach along Washington Street where she fixed up the shacks and let her mostly female classmates use them as studios. In 1924 she created the Easy Street Gallery, “the undisputed arts and social center of the fledgling art colony,” until her death.

The rest of the AAN’s story, including that of the 45 Group, a more modern collection of artists that sometimes clashed with the traditional AAN, is well documented in the exhibit’s catalogue that Frazier created. Frazier is an oil painter and a graphic designer. He and Thomas oversee the permanent collection.

The key image of the collection and the cover of the catalogue is Anne Ramsdell Congdon’s “From Monomoy” (1940).

“She was completely awesome,” said Frazier. “This painting blows me away.”

Holding such a big show on the island is a challenge because of lack of large exhibit space, said both Frazier and Thomas.

The Egan Institute was the perfect place and was enthusiastic about the show from the beginning, they said.

“They are a museum, essentially,” said Frazier. “This is a golden opportunity. They’ve been behind us all the way.”

In his commentary in the catalogue, AAN member and Nantucket Arts Council President Reggie Levine describes the permanent collection as the leitmotif of the organization, and one that has often been neglected.

“Every effort should be made to ensure that as much of the collection is on view throughout the year – simply put, out of sight out of mind,” he wrote.

As for Nantucket’s current artist colony, it is alive and thriving, said Frazier.

There will be a preview party on Thursday, May 26, 6:30 – 8 p.m. The opening reception for the exhibit is Friday, May 27, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. at the Egan Institute, 4 Winter St. For more information, go to www.nantucketarts.org or call 228-2505.