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I am now the age that the Beatles referred to when they asked, ever so melodically “…will you still need me, will you still feed me…”
When comic books cost 12 cents and Lyndon Baines Johnson was the president, I entered kindergarten at the Ellen R. Hathaway Elementary School. At that time, it was the newest public school in New Bedford.
One of my earliest memories of my time at Hathaway was my first visit to the New Bedford Whaling Museum. It was the first museum I’d ever visited. I didn’t know such places existed. I was enthralled by the Lagoda and the harpoons and the esoteric artifacts. It instilled me with a sense of adventure. It opened my eyes.
Throughout elementary school and junior high, I went on many field trips to the NBWM. There were also visits to the USS Massachusetts at Battleship Cove, but they were a distant second.
The onset of puberty certainly was a contributing factor to my waning interest in the museum, which I began to think of as stodgy and old-fashioned. And there were so many adolescent distractions to be explored.
Later, as a student at the Swain School of Design in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, the NBWM was rarely mentioned, save occasionally by the late painting instructor David Loeffler Smith, who would occasionally remind us that there was some art there, paintings we should see, by guys named Albert Bierstadt, Charles Henry Gifford, William Bradford, and Clifford Ashley.
The museum would not own an Albert Pinkham Ryder until 2005, when it purchased his 1870 painting “Landscape.”
But I rarely looked at any of that work back then. For better or worse, I was deep into “The Shock of the New,” a 1980 book by the Australian art critic Robert Hughes. I didn’t look back for a longtime, and certainly not at the work of those I imagined as dull, old curmudgeons.
I’ve changed my mind since then.
When my soon-to-be son-in-law Anthony visited New Bedford last year, there were three things that he wanted to do. He grew up in Oregon and had not been to the East Coast. He wanted to see the Atlantic Ocean — I pointed and said “it’s right there.” He wanted a “real Italian cannoli” — we drove out to Federal Hill in Providence to knock that off the list. And he wanted to visit the Whaling Museum — I told him to look at the paintings while he was there.
I have been writing about art in the region for over a decade and I’m a very frequent visitor to the museum. In recent years, I truly enjoyed seeing and writing about some of those “old guys,” particularly the aforementioned Ryder and Ashley, and also some older painters (but not quite as old) such as the Azorean painter Domingos Rebêlo.
Over the years, my prejudice has evaporated and I no longer think of the NBWM as “stodgy and old-fashioned.” In fact, I feel quite the opposite.
I would go so far as to say that it is consistently exhibiting outstanding, thought-provoking contemporary exhibitions, including ”Framing the Domestic Sea,” Jeffery C. Becton’s beautiful and disturbing manipulated photographs of environmental disaster; “The Stars that Guide Us,” Roy Rossow’s harbor nocturnes; “In the Neighborhood,” featuring enchanting mixed media works of imaginary visions of New Bedford by Alison Wells; and a series of black-and-white photographs of friends and family by Henry Horenstein, flashbacking to the 1970s of his youth in NB.
The formal mission statement of the New Bedford Whaling Museum notes that it seeks to ignite learning through art, history, science and culture rooted in the stories of people, the region and an international seaport.
The word “culture” might be a bit redundant as culture is defined, at least in part, as the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively. Hence, art + history + science = culture.
I recently sat down with Dr. Naomi Slipp, the Douglas and Cynthia Crocker Endowed Chair for the Chief Curator and Director of Museum Learning, and Ymelda Laxton, the Assistant Curator of Contemporary Arts and Community Projects, to discuss contemporary art within the museum, both in temporary exhibitions and those that have become part of the permanent collection.
Slipp, who joined the museum in 2021, reminded me that the museum has always collected contemporary art, which, of course, was a bit of a “duh!” moment for me. I was reminded of the Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Nannucci’s blue neon sign that read: ALL ART HAS BEEN CONTEMPORARY (fabricated in 2011).
Anytime one enters the museum, a viewer will almost immediately see contemporary artwork in a vitrine in the Jacobs Family Gallery (a prominent, highly visible spot situated near the main entrance and free to visitors). Over the course of any given year, three artists will have a solo exhibition for a period of four months.
At the time of this writing, artist Nancy Hayes is exhibiting “Convergence,” a vibrant painting from 2017, a semi-abstract work which taps into a personal mythology of the spiritual, the emotional and the physical.
One of the methods that the museum is embracing to foster the art of the moment is to go beyond the “dead white guys” and give a serious look at art of Indigenous peoples, and those of Cape Verdean, Azorean, Black, Latinx, or Asian heritage (and others).
Many well-established active South Coast artists presently have work in the permanent collection. The museum owns two paintings by Rossow, born in Jamaica in 1975; and Trindidadian-born painter and collagist Wells is represented with two of her mixed media works.
Dartmouth-based Roger Kizik, who moved to the region in 1984, has three works in the collection, one of which was a “gift from John and Jill Walsh,” the former who is a much sought after lecturer, who delivered a well-noted series of talks at the Yale Art Gallery.
Photographer Horenstein’s nostalgia-laden “Friend of Barbara’s,” with its plastic fruit, cigarette butt-strewn glass ashtray and percolator, is part of the collection, as is Milton Brightman’s iconic landscape “The Saltmarsh in Summer.”
Denise Wallace, a native Alaskan of Alutiiq descent (also known as Sugpiaq Eskimo), has an untitled “seal hunt ring” (from 1990) among the collected works. It is made from sterling silver, fossilized walrus ivory and lapis lazuli. There is “Thunderbird Belt” by Elizabeth James-Perry, an Aquinnah Wampanoag, formed of shells and natural fibers in 2020.
Lehuaukea, a Native-Hawaiian interdisciplinary artist, has an untitled kapa (a hand-painted barkcloth) created in 2022 in the collection.
There are contemporary works by Anneli Skaar. And Bill Shattuck. And Huguette Desault May. And Courtney Mattison. And Chris Gustin. And Nancy Train Smith. And so many more.
A particular favorite of mine is by Duke Riley, a mixed media artist, born in Boston and now living in Brooklyn. “No. 384 of the Poly S. Tyrene Memorial Maritime Museum” is a visual diatribe aimed at some of the biggest industrial polluters to ever dump toxic waste in the water off the coast of New Bedford.
It only took me four decades to come to a realization about the New Bedford Whaling Museum.
It ain’t stodgy. It’s hip. As hip as could be.
Don Wilkinson has been writing art reviews, artist profiles and cultural commentary on the South Coast for over a decade. He has been published in local newspapers and regional art magazines. He is a graduate of the Swain School of Design and the CVPA at UMass Dartmouth. Email him at dwilkinson@newbedfordlight.org
Editor’s note: This column was modified on Thursday, March 21, 2024, to correct the heritage of painter Domingos Rebêlo.
Interesting to see that someone is happy with the path that the NBWM is taking. Instead of expanding the WHALING museum by using space for such things as a Herman Melville exhibit or having artisans as they do in Mystic showing how onboard the vessel such things as harpoons and cutting irons are made and repaired, barrels for oil and other sundry things manufactured, rigging and sail repair, and other things pertaining to WHALING the museum is using many rooms for artwork. Ask any school age child what they might be interested in (or is it that the NBWM no longr cares about interesting children in New Bedford’s history). I suspect very few of the out of town visitors come to see artwork in a WHALING museum.
I’m not sure I agree with this. A lot of the Whaling Museum’s temporary exhibits are terrible. Common Ground: Community Stories was a mockery of oral storytelling. I felt duped when I paid for an entrance ticket to see it, haven’t been back since.
Ah, the New Bedford Whaling Museum—a sanctuary where history and art intertwine. Its evolution from a repository of maritime relics to a vibrant hub showcasing contemporary exhibitions is nothing short of remarkable. The inclusion of diverse artists, such as the Azorean painter Domingos Rebêlo, enriches its narrative, reflecting a commitment to cultural inclusivity. This transformation not only honors the past but also invites a dynamic dialogue with the present, making it a beacon for both scholars and enthusiasts alike.